Aardvark Daily

Please visit the sponsor!

Was it 2013 or 1984?

Since this will probably be my last Aardvark Daily column for 2013, I figured I'd reflect on what's happened over the past 12 months.

I think it's fair to say that this was the year the peoples of the world realised just how much of their privacy they've lost.

How ironic it is that the internet, the very medium that gave us all anonymity when it was first launched, has now become one of the primary tools of paranoid governments in their quest to track, monitor, record and analyse the movements, communications and activities of each and every citizen.

It seems that Orwell was about 29 years early with his predictions of "big brother" and 2013 really was his 1984 come true.

The Snowden revelations have rocked the world at many levels and even though many of us realised that the US government was engaged in covert spying on the world's communications, we really had no idea of the scope or intensity of those activities.

More worrying than the activities of the NSA and other US agencies however, is the incredibly subdued reaction of most people -- both inside the USA and outside the country's borders.

You would think, having learned that the US government effectively suspects every man, woman and child on the planet of plotting against them, the general population would be outraged at the lengths the spooks have gone to to destroy their privacy.

Yet, strangely enough, with far too few exceptions, most people seem to be accepting this level of abuse -- for that is exactly what it is.

In decades gone-by, the present level of US infiltration of other soverign nations' communications would have been the type of thing to trigger wars -- yet here we are, yawning and looking the other way.

What are they putting in our water to make us so ambivalent towards this situation?

Another worrying revelation has been the practical proof that here in NZ, our own government has become subordinate to the US one. When Uncle Sam says "jump", our government asks "how high...sir!". This was made abundantly clear in the Kim Dotcom case, where New Zealand government agencies were prepared to break the law to serve their US masters.

Once again -- once these unlawful acts were uncovered -- no prosecutions were brought and nobody was held to account for this law-breaking, the ambivalence of the NZ population has been something that begars belief.

The whole US-spying situation has got so bad that the UN has voted to protect privacy in the digital age. Unfortunately, both the US and New Zealand governments have shown contempt for UN resolutions in the past so I suspect this is nothing more than futile symoblism.

The period from 1945 to the present day has been one of the most peaceful periods in the planet's history (Korea, Vietnam and Middle-East wars notwithstanding) so perhaps it's simply that the people of the Western hemisphere have forgotten that in order to keep the rights our forefathers fought for, we must also be prepared to fight those who would dare to steal those rights from us. Even when the thief is our own government or a political ally.

Of course I'm not suggesting an armed uprising -- but I *am* suggesting that we get serious about demanding the preservation of the rights that are so quickly slipping through our hands on an almost daily basis.

We've lost the right to be presumed innocent (the very basis of our justice system), the right to privacy (a basic human right) and it's looking as if, once the TPPA is forced upon us, we'll have even lost the right to pass our own laws as a sovereign nation -- opting instead to adopt US statutes that will be contrary to the wishes of the majority of Kiwis.

Yes, if you look at the ban on smacking, the partial asset sales and now the almost certain inevitability of the TPPA -- we've also lost our right to democratic representation.

Is it too late to claw back those rights?

Well unless the average Kiwi starts paying attention to how he's being (mis)treated by those in power, I fear it is too late.

There is a general election next year -- but I don't expect anything to change -- for change requires bravery and vision; something the average Kiwi seems to have had well and truly lost through decades of indifference.

Please visit the sponsor!

(Sorry, forums are stuffed at present)

PERMALINK to this column

Rank This Aardvark Page

Change Font