Aardvark Daily

Please visit the sponsor!

What is the real reason for data-collection?

The NSA does it in America, the GCSB does it in New Zealand.

I'm talking about spying on its own citizens and collecting boatloads of data -- seemingly just because they can.

Of course the claims are that this data is crucial in effectively pre-empting possible terrorist attacks and fighting the war against terror -- but is it?

According to this Arstechnica story the NSA's bulk metadata collection has "no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism".

However, I'm sure neither the NSA, nor the GCSB, nor any other of the world's government-run cyber-snoops will allow facts to get in the way of their claims.

So what exactly is the point in all this surveillance and the presumption that every person on the planet is a terrorist just waiting to strap a suicide vest on and blow something or someone to smithereens?

Well call me a cynic (probably a deserved title) but if this snooping is as ineffective as reported and costs as much as we know it must -- then the governments of the world (including our own) must obviously have other uses for this data.

Could it be that our own governments are covertly building huge dossiers on each and ever resident -- in much the same way the Stasi did in East Germany before the Berlin wall fell?

Are our likes, dislikes, preferences, pastimes, activities and movements being secretly sold to marketing companies so as to boost the nation's coffers perhaps? :-)

Just what on earth are they doing with all this data?

Joking aside... I tend to think that perhaps all this surveillance is in preparation for what could be the next generation of warfare. This will be a war fought on the basis of knowledge, information and intelligence. The winners of this war will be whoever has collected the most information on their opponents because information is power.

The Five Eyes alliance is a great example of this...

Just as, in WW2, many Western nations formed alliances to help each other during their conflicts with Germany and Japan, so it is with the looming data-wars.

Primarily driven by the USA and its intense paranoia, Western nations are now working very hard to collect and collate as much data as they can from as many sources as possible. They know that it is this data and the secrets it contains which will determine who remains or emerges as "the world power" in the years ahead.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, the USA's perceived enemy was the USSR and it went to inordinate lengths to protect itself from this largely illusionary threat.

Today, the perceived enemies are China, North Korea, Iran, radical Islam and (still) Russia.

During the cold-war years, huge amounts of money and effort were spent collecting intelligence on the enemy -- and in particular, trying to locate and eliminate agents operating on US soil. Today, the same thing is going on -- but modern electronic systems make it far easier to spy on every citizen on the planet -- just in case they're an evil "insurgent".

Unfortunately for the USA and its allies, the real threat comes, not from suicide bombers or nuclear missiles -- but from economic superpowers such as China. The crown of "the world power" will be won, not at the barrel of a gun, but by way of savvy trading and hard work. Already, China is probably rich enough to buy the USA outright -- so why would they need to engage in any kind of military action?

Yes, the USA is running scared -- but not scared of terrorists. The USA is far more frightened of losing the crown of the world's economic superpower. In order to try and prevent this, they've decided to use "the war against terror" as a convenient excuse to start arming up to fight any challenge from China or other emerging economies.

Idiots the lot of them!

But on a lighter note... I almost lost control of my bladder the other day when someone said to me: "The GCSB is the only arm of government that actually listens to the people".

Many a true word spoken in jest?

Please visit the sponsor!

(Sorry, forums are stuffed at present)

PERMALINK to this column

Rank This Aardvark Page

Change Font