The recent Snowden leaks have become lost in the debate over whether he is a whistle-blower or a betrayer of his country. As government tries to silence whistle-blowers from Benghazi to NSA-IRS misuses of power by tapping the news medias phones and targeting selected groups they gain more control over citizens.
Few have realized how these scandals are affecting the Internet. Until now the Internet has been controlled by the USA, generally thought to be a freedom loving democracy with a science organization and technical society that could be trusted to live by the US Constitution and keep the Internet free for all.
Snowden has revealed that is not the case. The US government agencies are misusing their authority. Earlier CNN interviews with former counter-terrorism agents in the Boston Bomber case revealed even phone conversations of American citizens not on watch lists were being recorded for future reference.
Preliminary Congressional investigations are showing that security work and data mining are being farmed out to private companies giving thousands of people access to sensitive personal data that could never get a security clearance, which is sort of what happened with Snowden.
The UK’s Guardian has a good article on where all this is leading. See: Edward Snowden’s not the story. The fate of the internet is. The UN has long pushed to have control of the Internet take away from the USA. Since the UN is made up mostly of repressive governments we can easily see what that will lead to. Iran would love to have control of the Internet within Iran as would China. That will mean the end of any hint of free speech and outside news for those countries.
And what will it mean for the USA and Europe?
