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Below from an Indian newspaper....
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.deccanchronicle.com/130702/commentary-dc-comment/commentary/un%E2%80%88must-step-stop-cyber-threats">http://www.deccanchronicle.com/130702/commentary-dc-comment/commentary/un%E2%80%88must-step-stop-cyber-threats</a>
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Now that the chimera of the US as the unique upholder of Internet's
values and people's rights on the Internet is so obviously
exposed....... and we know that when US calls for a single unified
global Internet, and its unique historic role in its governance
(read, control), what really does it mean....<br>
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parminder <br>
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<div>from the Deccan Chronicle</div>
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<h1>UN must step in to stop cyber threats</h1>
DC | 2 hours 7 min ago
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<div>"This is not the Cold War anymore,” says an upset
Germany. This was the mildest of rebukes thus far in the
wake of the revelations about the American NSA courtesy
Edward Snowden.</div>
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<div>Spying has been taken into another dimension
altogether and the present battle could well be called
the “Great Cyber War”. The United States, caught spying,
does not have a fig leaf of deniability.</div>
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<div>This is not just Big Brother watching over its
citizens, as portrayed in the landmark novel 1984. The
US has crossed all limits and is now spying on its
closest friends and thickest allies as well.</div>
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<div>European Union nations have been forced to undertake
security sweeps to ensure their computer systems are not
being hacked into and their telephone conversations
eavesdropped upon.</div>
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<div>China, first typecast as the world’s original cyber
bad boy, is mockingly pointing to its great rival across
the seas to show the world there isn’t just one culprit
in modern espionage. If all nations do not get together
and sign a treaty to stop cyber espionage, things are
only going to get worse for those who love privacy.</div>
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<div>The United States’ spying on its allies takes the
issue beyond the fundamental argument that the threat of
terrorism overrides the tenets of privacy and justifies
invasion of individual liberties. What the great
National Security Agency spy programs of Maryland and
Utah have been doing is to spy on governments, their
trade, science, military and political secrets. </div>
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<div>All explanations regarding PRISM and other programs
studying only metadata, and not prying into individual
interactions over the Internet and telephone, cut no ice
with a world that is aghast at the temerity of the most
powerful nation in a virtually unipolar world.</div>
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<div>Much like Germany, India, too, protested so mildly
that its voice was hardly heard when US secretary of
state John Kerry came calling last week. So protective
of his guest was our foreign minister, Salman Khurshid,
that the media could not question the visiting dignitary
on what his country’s real intentions are in setting up
this elaborate $40-billion-plus spying apparatus that
snoops on the world.</div>
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<div>China came through far more aggressively in
questioning the United States on all that the world has
heard ever since a sub-contractor went on the lam and
spilled the beans from Hong Kong with the help of
WikiLeaks.</div>
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<div>If clarity and transparency are the qualities most
needed to cool tensions among nations and passions among
privacy-seekers, what will really serve society is for
the United Nations to pay serious attention to this
crisis of confidence and come up with an action plan to
mark cyber boundaries and make them as inviolable as
possible by common consent.</div>
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