Even though President Barack Obama has shown himself to be something of a micro-manager, for instance sitting in on the operation that led to the killing of Osama Bin Laden in his Abbottabad hide-out, it seems almost certain that he had no idea that the US National Security Agency at Fort Meade in Maryland was listening in on the personal phone calls of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Indeed it may be that the White House was totally unaware of the massive eavesdropping campaign that the NSA was conducting, not only on American citizens but upon the British, French, Germans and other friendly allies. Now, thanks to the revelations of former CIA contractor Edward Snowden, who has fled to Russia, it is clear that a massive worldwide snooping operation was put in place covering even countries that have long enjoyed friendly relations with Washington.
It is the sheer extent of this massive spying operation that is so shocking. Any sensible person would expect the NSA to be busy checking the communications traffic in Russia and China and intercepting any message that might possibly be linked to Al-Qaeda terrorists.
The cybersnoops are able to mount this extraordinary operation because they have invested billions of dollars in gargantuan computer storage, and in programs that can scour captured data for key words in virtually any language. Any suspicious message is flagged up and extracted for further examination, perhaps initially by another computer but ultimately by a human specialist.
Impressive it is and there will be those who argue that such blanket coverage in the face of terrorist threat is essential. The reasoning continues that if people have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear. However, this seemingly persuasive justification is shot through with holes.
For a start world business needs to be conducting its affairs in private, away from the prying eyes of outsiders, who might use price sensitive information for personal gain. Then there are genuinely sensitive private messages which should never be listened to or read by others. Most of us who use the Internet, sort of assume that, with the danger of computer viruses and the fact that programs can update themselves without our knowing they are doing it, our privacy when online is probably limited. Likewise those who use social media, especially on cell phones, know that comments, purchases and location are all being tracked, so that advertisers can send us messages for their products at an appropriate time.
While this may make people feel a little uneasy, especially those over 30 — young people do not seem to care that their on-line lives are being monitored by commercial enterprises — it probably seems harmless enough. There is for instance, a new application which, having located you and seen that you are booked on a flight, will remind you to leave in good time and give a traffic update between your hotel an the airport, all without you asking for it. Busy executives will doubtless find this extremely useful.
What causes concerns about America's snooping is that this is being done by a government and moreover is targeting citizens from friendly powers. Washington is not trying to sell us anything. Washington is not seeking to survey our lifestyles. What it is doing is monitoring us as if we were suspects in the global terrorist conspiracy. And it is monitoring millions and millions of entirely innocent people like us, one of whom happens to be the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
When the news broke Obama put a call into Merkel. What was said has not been revealed, though doubtless the NSA has a full transcript. But it is clear that whatever explanation the president came up with, did nothing to defuse Merkel’s understandable fury. Within minutes of finishing the call, her office put out a statement in which she described the violation of her private phone calls as “totally unacceptable”.
She is entirely right. In the battle against international terror, which since 9/11, twelve years ago has claimed far fewer lives worldwide than wrecks on the US highway system in a single year, cannot be fought with such a draconian violation of the rights of ordinary people to their privacy. No argument, however well-meaning can justify what the NSA has done. Obama has some explaining to do and a whole heap of changes to make in the way US cybersnoops go about their business.
Editorial: America's eavesdropping campaign
