Kubatana.net ~ an online community of Zimbabwean activists

PRISM: exposing the ridiculous

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Benjamin Franklin once said;  “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”.

Early in the morning before I got to work I wake up for a daily fix of world news from various channels, from ZBC ‘s political machinations to Press TV’s anti-West propaganda from Iran. Yesterday I almost got lost on time as I got to drawn into an Edward Snowden interview on CNN. This is one guy who turned from being a spy to a whistleblower and in the end he exposed the ridiculous.

From the George Bush era to Obama’s second term in office, the US government has been on a mission to do data mining and eavesdropping on people’s conversations and online activities through a programme called PRISM. The scam involved some of the social media companies we have been trusting with our valuable private information. From big telecomms companies to social media and search engine companies like Facebook and Google, the US government has  been able to access private information on citizens and all this was done in the name of national security. Holed up in Hong Kong the former spy revealed that a total of nine mobile and technology companies knew about PRISM and collaborated in turning over citizens’ private information to the government.

To me Snowden is a hero because he took an oath to defend the Constitution but when he realized that the Constitution was being violated he decided to go public. Of course there are those calling for his head for treason and some may argue and say if you have nothing to hide then why worry but the bottom line is citizens’ liberties are being given away for temporary safety. If a government can have access to people’s private telephone records even without any wrongdoing is not a violation of human rights then what would stop Swaziland or Sudan’s government from investing in such technology that can used infringe on citizen’s rights under the same banner of national security. Like any previous laws passed in US which infringe on online freedoms PRISM has set a bad precedence to countries with repressive regimes as this will be a justification to wiretap and monitor online activities of citizens.

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