<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div> Do unto others as you would have them do unto you</div><div><br></div><div>From the very same newspaper - <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/indias-surveillance-project-may-be-as-lethal-as-prism/article834619.ece">http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/indias-surveillance-project-may-be-as-lethal-as-prism/article834619.ece</a><br><br>--srs (iPad)</div><div><br>On 24-Sep-2013, at 11:18, parminder <<a href="mailto:parminder@itforchange.net">parminder@itforchange.net</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>
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<h1>'Not surprising India has become an important
surveillance target'</h1>
<span>Shobhan Saxena</span>
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<img moz-do-not-send="true" src="http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/01594/GREENWALD_1594558f.jpg" alt="GLENN GREENWALD: ‘The U.S.’s primary tactic is to
try to scare citizens of the world by
constantly manipulating the threat posed in order to
induce submission … This has been
particularly exposed with these NSA stories.’" title="GLENN GREENWALD: ‘The U.S.’s primary tactic is
to try to scare citizens of the world by
constantly manipulating the threat posed in order to
induce submission … This has been
particularly exposed with these NSA stories.’">
</div>
</div>
<div>
<span>AP</span>
GLENN GREENWALD: ‘The U.S.’s primary tactic is to try to
scare citizens of the world by
constantly manipulating the threat posed in order to
induce submission … This has been
particularly exposed with these NSA stories.’
</div>
<div>
</div>
<p>
<i>For some time now, people around the world have
suspected their emails are being read and phone
conversations tapped into by government agencies. But
there never was any proof. Everybody’s worst fears came
true in June when Edward Snowden, a system administrator
with the U.S. National Security Agency, disclosed
information about mass electronic surveillance
programmes being run by the agency since 2007. <b>Glenn
Greenwald </b>broke that story for The Guardian. </i>
</p>
<p>
<i>Since then the American journalist, who lives in Rio de
Janeiro, has done a series of hard-hitting stories that
have exposed the reach of the NSA’s secret surveillance
operations. His expose about the NSA snooping on
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s phones and email
has already led to the cancellation of her state dinner
at the White House. </i>
</p>
<p>
<i>Now collaborating with </i>The Hindu<i> on a series of
stories about the NSA’s spying activities in India, Mr.
Greenwald spoke to <b>Shobhan Saxena </b>in the course
of their meetings in hotel lobbies and at his house,
which he shares with his partner David Miranda, 10 dogs
and one cat, in the middle of Tijuca forest in Rio.
Excerpts from the interview: </i>
</p>
<p>
<b>What do you think has been the most important impact of
your stories?</b>
</p>
<p>
It’s that not only Americans, but people around the world,
now understand the true aim of the U.S. surveillance
system: collect, store, and analyse all forms of
electronic communication between human beings. In other
words, their goal is, by definition, to eliminate privacy
globally. And this realisation has produced profound and
intense debates on every continent about the value of
individual privacy and internet freedom, the dangers posed
by secret U.S. surveillance, and more broadly, the role
the U.S. plays in the world. </p>
<p>
<b>Your reports have revealed the United States to be a
massive surveillance state. This image is very different
from the US own projection of itself as beacon of
individual liberty, freedom and protector of individual
privacy. How have these revelations affected the image
of U.S. in the world?</b>
</p>
<p>
In the beginning, people assumed that the primary focus
(of our reports) was going to be on what the National
Security Agency is doing and what the U.S. surveillance
policy is, and what was going to change was how Americans
thought about spying and how people in the world thought
about privacy. But what actually changed the most from
these stories was how people think about America generally
— exactly the way you just asked. </p>
<p>
These stories revealed a surveillance programme that
functioned without the knowledge of not just people around
the world but also of Americans who supposedly hold their
government democratically accountable; the U.S., it is
clear, does not observe any legal limits or ethical
constraints in its pursuit of power. It’s completely
contrary to the image it presents to the world. </p>
<p>
<b>Is this process irreversible because both the
Republicans and Democrats in the US now talk the same
language on matters of national security? The way the
Obama administration has reacted to the reports, it
seems there is no soul searching happening in
Washington.</b>
</p>
<p>
I don’t think anything is irreversible when it comes to
political trends. We saw in the last three to four years
how the most entrenched tyrannies in the Arab world were
weakened, subverted and even uprooted. There are all kinds
of examples in history of radical changes that people
never anticipated. So, I don’t think it’s irreversible. I
do think it’s difficult to change it because of this
bipartisan embrace by both the parties of not just the
national security state in general but also America’s role
in the world as an empire. But one of the things you are
already seeing in the five-six weeks since we have been
reporting the story is a scrambling of partisan divisions.
So, half of the most vocal support for the reports has
come from Republicans, conservatives and libertarians; the
other half has come from liberals and people on the left.
</p>
<p>
It really has scrambled the normal ideological categories
in ways that’s unprecedented; you also see in public
opinion polls a huge increase in the number of people who
are genuinely concerned about the excesses of the
surveillance state, civil liberty abuses and privacy
infringements. All this suggests that change is probably
inevitable when it comes to these sorts of questions as a
result of these disclosures. </p>
<p>
<b>Your partner David Miranda was detained in London under
an anti-terror law. Do you think they were really after
the documents he was carrying or were they trying to
intimidate you? </b>
</p>
<p>
There is no question their primary goal was intimidation.
If their goal was to take what he was carrying, they could
have done that by detaining him for 9 minutes. Instead,
they detained him for 9 hours, the maximum allowed by law.
And they not only detained him, but did so under an
“anti-terrorism” law. Especially for non-U.S.-and-U.K.
citizens, it’s an incredibly terrorising thing to hear
that you’re being detained by the U.K. pursuant to a
“terrorism” investigation given that country’s awful human
rights record over the last decade. </p>
<p>
A U.S. official told <i>Reuters</i> that the purpose of
David’s detention was to “send a message” to those of us
reporting on these stories that we should stop. It was a
thuggish attack on press freedoms. </p>
<p>
<b>There have been attempts in the U.S. to criminalise
journalism, as happened in the case of <i>Fox News </i>and
<i>AP</i>? Doesn’t this bother you? </b>
</p>
<p>
They are already succeeding in creating a climate of fear
against whistleblowers and sources. That’s why some
federal lawyers have told me that, at least for now, I
shouldn’t go back to the U.S. and I should not try to
enter the country. It’s pretty extraordinary for American
lawyers to tell an American journalist that you should not
try to re-enter your own country for fear that they may
try and arrest you. </p>
<p>
<b>So you have not been to the U.S. since you published
the stories?</b>
</p>
<p>
No, I have not. I have been to Hong Kong and back to
Brazil through Dubai. I am not saying that I will get
arrested, but just the fact that it’s even on the table
for discussion and that a lot of people feel publicly free
to advocate this without losing their position or their
credibility, makes it a real possibility. When you talk
about being charged by the US government under espionage
statutes, it’s not a risk that you can casually dismiss. </p>
<p>
<b>Why do you think the NSA has targeted the diplomatic
missions and other interests of India, which has
friendly ties with the U.S.? </b>
</p>
<p>
India is an increasingly important country in virtually
every realm: economic, political, diplomatic and military.
The U.S. goal is to subject virtually everyone to mass
surveillance, but it is not surprising that India has
become an important surveillance target. Ultimately, it’s
a question of power: the more the US knows about what
other countries are doing — not just their governments but
their companies and populations — the more power the U.S.
has vis-à-vis that country. </p>
<p>
<b>One of the most shocking revelations in your reports
was the involvement of several western democracies like
the U.K. and Germany in these secret surveillance
programmes. It seems few countries are willing to stand
up to the U.S.</b>
</p>
<p>
I think the world can be very broadly divided, when it
comes to the relationship of states with the United
States, in three categories. One is states that are
incredibly subservient to the U.S. and always capitulate
to its dictates. The other part is the states that are
generally hostile to the U.S., and then there is a
majority of countries in the middle that are independent.
They ally with the U.S. if their interests suggest they
should and they oppose the U.S. if they have to. </p>
<p>
Most European states are very squarely in the first camp,
namely the governments that always capitulate meekly and
subserviently to the dictates of the United States. So you
saw lots of feigned anger and artificial indignation when
these revelations first emerged because the citizens of
European states were targeted and they actually care about
privacy. So the governments had to pretend to be angry but
what you saw was their true colours when U.S. basically
told them to deny airspace rights to the plane of
(Bolivian President) Evo Morales. They complied in really
extreme ways by denying the airspace to the president of a
sovereign country. The reason they did that is they are
complicit in it: virtually all these western European
governments; whereas in Latin America and to some an
extent in Asia, certainly in the Middle East in some
countries, there is a lot more independence. So the anger
that is being expressed is to some degree artificial but
it’s also more genuine. </p>
<p>
<b>There seems to be hardly any anger against technology
firms like Facebook, Skype, Google, which almost
collaborated with the U.S. government in collecting
information about people around the world. Now these
firms claim they didn’t have any choice. Did they have
the option of saying ‘no’ to the NSA? </b>
</p>
<p>
There are legal frameworks that require them to
collaborate with the US government in its surveillance
programme but they have gone beyond what’s legally
required, just like the telecom companies did during the
Bush years. The reason is that they benefit massively in
all sorts of ways from positive relationships with the
government. Just the benefits they get from collaborating
with the U.S. government in terms of this massive spying
programme vastly outweigh what they think are the costs to
their customer relation or to their goodwill in the world
from doing that. One of the reasons they made that
calculation was because they have been able to do all this
in secret; nobody knew they were cooperating to this
extent and one of the benefits of disclosing what they
have been doing is that it alters the calculus for them
because if people start perceiving that these companies
are so complicit with the US government and their
communications are not safe, they will start looking for
alternatives. </p>
<p>
The problem right now is that Facebook, Google and Skype
are such mammoth entities that it’s almost impossible to
avoid using them. If you are a 22-year-old, you may be
bothered by the fact that Facebook is invading your
privacy, but when all your friends, all your peers, all
your employers are on Facebook and demand you to be, it’s
very difficult to take a principled stand and say ‘I am
not going to continue to use Facebook or Skype’. </p>
<p>
<b>Your reports have in a way also exposed the so-called
mainstream media like the <i>New York Times</i> and
CNN, which ran more stories about Edward Snowden’s
personal life than the U.S. surveillance programme. Even
you came under attack in some newspaper columns. Do you
think the space for good journalism and investigative
reporting is shrinking in global media?</b>
</p>
<p>
Yes and no. I think it was completely predictable what
they were going to do. Even before we disclosed the
identity of Snowden I ran a column with the intent of
predicting that they would try to distract attention from
the revelations because serving the government’s interest
is what their function is. They are going to demonise him
along with anybody, including journalists, who work with
him for transparency. That’s what they do in every single
case. They did that to Daniel Ellsberg 30 years ago, 40
years ago. They did that to Wikileaks, Bradley Manning. We
knew they are going to do that to Snowdon and eventually
to me. </p>
<p>
But it hasn’t really mattered. The space for investigative
reporting in some sense has diminished because of how
corporatized mass media has become, but the way the
internet has given rise to all sorts of alternative models
the space for investigative journalism is larger than it
ever was. I am a creature of the internet. I started my
own blog seven years ago and even now when I work for the
<i>Guardian</i>, I did so by demanding total editorial
independence. I have my own voice that I am not worried
about. My career doesn’t depend upon currying favour with
people in power. I was able to develop this alternative
model because of the power of the internet and finding my
own audience and not having to rely on these big
institutions. There are lots of other people who are doing
that in all different realms, in all different cultures,
in all different places on the planet and it has
definitely transformed journalism. There is a lot of
soul-searching going on inside the <i>New York Times</i>
and other media outlets on why they were completely frozen
out of one of the biggest — if not the biggest — media
scoops in many years. And the reason is that Snowden
didn’t trust them to report the story aggressively. He
didn’t trust them to resist the demands of the US
government, just like Bradley Manning didn’t trust the <i>New
York Times</i> or <i>Washington Post</i> and went to
Wikileaks. So you are going to see more of that as more
stories like this end with places or people like me or
with Wikileaks, rather than in the <i>New York Times</i>
and <i>Washington Post</i>. Their model of journalism is
increasingly going to become discredited. It’s happening
already. </p>
<p>
<b>You are working on a book on this whole affair. Is the
book also about Edward Snowden? </b>
</p>
<p>
Only a part of the book is going to be about my time, my
story about how I ended up involved in this story and how
I ended up with developing a relationship with Snowden as
my source, how I got the documents, how I reported them,
my experiences in Hong Kong and afterwards. But the bulk
of the book is going to be about what the US has done in
constructing this surveillance state and what the
implications and dangers of it are. There are going to be
new revelations as well based on the documents. </p>
<p>
<b>Some people have suggested that Mr. Snowden could be a
false flag. Naomi Wolf even wrote an article arguing
that this all could be a set-up. Did you have any doubt
whatsoever about Snowden or authenticity of the
documents before you sat down to write your stories? </b>
</p>
<p>
No, to buy this theory would be so stupid that I didn’t
spend a second of my time and energy on it. Part of what
we all do as human beings is based on intuition. You have
to make judgments about who is lying to you and who is
telling the truth, who is not credible, who is tricking
you and who is being authentic. When I went to Hong Kong,
my only goal for the first four or five days was to
understand everything I possibly could about Edward
Snowden and to ensure that there was nothing he was hiding
and he was genuine about what he was claiming. As I had
never met him before, I spent dozens and dozens of hours
with him in the first week alone. Speaking face to face
with him — four feet away from where he was sitting and
looking into my eyes — and I had no doubt about what he
said and who he was. I would rather have people who are
excessively sceptical rather than excessively gullible but
that particular theory deserves nothing but contempt. </p>
<p>
<b>You have been living in Rio de Janeiro for eight years
now. How do you feel living in Brazil? </b>
</p>
<p>
I love Brazil. That’s why I have been living here for so
long. Of course, I was here because of the discriminatory
law in the United States that prevents my partner from
emigrating there even though I could emigrate here. </p>
<p>
But there is really a robust CIA presence in Rio de
Janeiro; the station chief of Brazil and Rio is
notoriously aggressive in his methods. So I assume that I
have been spied on and monitored. We had an incident, when
my partner’s laptop disappeared from the house. But I feel
as safe here as I would anywhere else. I don’t feel
particularly unsafe here. You are only so safe when you
are carrying in your bag 10,000 top-secret documents of
the most secretive agency of the most powerful government
in the world. You don’t have complete safety, but I don’t
feel unsafe either. <br>
</p>
<p>***<br>
</p>
<br>
</div>
</div>
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</div>
<br>
</div>
<br>
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