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Spynet Dalai Lama
by Thanos Kalamidas
2009-03-30 08:42:13 |
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Tom Clancy, the famous author of the Dr. Ryan series of spy books, started including in his books computer spying or better computer hacking for governments in the early-nineties; actually, in one of the latest novels of the Ryan saga the American spies have managed to penetrate the Chinese government’s secrets through computers using some kind of internet network. The description is so detailed that I have to admit that I skipped a couple of pages full of technical instructions on how it was be done.
Then most of us found out a few years ago that there is no respect to our privacy and what is considered naively our right in privacy when it comes to personal mail and governments, police and even private companies have already their touch in anything should be private in our computer. Actually governments do legally exactly what they are after hacking our private communications with the excuse of terror attacks and as I said they are doing it legally if you remember the example of Sweden that monitors all the emails going through the country.
The reason I said all these before is something I read in the news and I have to admit made me a bit angry. The news was that an electronic network based mainly in China was discovered. A network that had infiltrated computers from government offices all around the world spying ministries and embassies linked to the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama! The research shown that the hackers – always pointing the finger at China – could even monitor in sound and video what was going on in the rooms where the penetrated computers were in. Big deal, Tom Clancy had shown the way a decade before.
But what made me write about it was not exactly the Chinese intention to spy on the Dalai Lama but the sense that because it is the Dalai Lama is a big issue worth to be references in all the news agencies and big issue between the governments but when it comes to my private mail, my personal contacts it’s alright because I might be a …terrorist! Suddenly there is all this talk about Dalai Lama’s right into privacy and respect but I count for nothing.
And I have to admit for long time now there is something that doesn’t make sense to me. If I get a mail through the post office and I see that somebody has opened it I have every right to go to the police station and sue anybody for that including the government and not only sue but expect a result that can mean the punishment of a government agency. Is not that I have to hint anything, is a case of dignity, of respect, of my privacy rights and everybody including the state have to respect that. Nobody can just drop in my house and start searching my wardrobe it doesn’t matter what they might suspect. They must be able to prove it. The laws and the constitution that protects basic human rights is our only defence to monsters like Hitler, Stalin or Mugabe. What makes so much difference when to post my letter I use the internet? I pay my post and all my fees to the provider the same way I pay the post office or the telephone company. Of course talking about my telephone that’s another issue, why my land line is legally protective and my GMS is not.
Has anybody ever told them how insulting the excuses might sound? Would you expect the government, the very same government that is obliged to protect you and defend you to call you criminal and pillory your dignity? Because by saying that they are watching your personal communications via internet that’s exactly what they are doing. And of course because I’m not the Dalai Lama and the government is not the bad – everything is semantics – Chinese, then I’m doomed and my rights are down the toilet followed by my dignity.
Of course it makes me angry what happened with Dalai Lama and if they prove that any government is behind it that will be a very serious accusation that will demand some kind punishment and I can imagine all the hints, all the accusations and talk in the Security Council but shouldn’t the same people apply the same things they preach to their own citizens? Because if Sweden, USA, UK, Germany and France officially express their disgust demanding a punishment then what should we do?
dalai+lama email Privacy Internet |
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