Complete Espionage
Published in El País
(Spain) on 26 October 2013
by Manuel Rivas (link to original)
(Spain) on 26 October 2013
by Manuel Rivas (link to original)
Translated from
by Cydney Seigerman.
Edited by Keith Armstrong.
The free world has a big problem: It is exploiting our liberty. Wherever he is in the underworld, the witch-hunting Senator McCarthy must be laughing. He will toast the entire crew of historical ghosts who put the security of the state, that is to say, private property, ahead of liberty, when we know that insecurity begins just when liberties are violated. Orwell prophesied that the new authoritarianism would arrive waving the flag of the free as a decoy. However, one does not simply buy into such grand prophecies; there is enough trouble with the daily horoscope. We now see how right the author of 1984 was: The Ear that Hears All has been interested in Merkel’s cell phone and even Rajoy’s conversations.
French leaders accuse the United States of failing to respect their alliance and of not understanding something else: “que des cibles ou des vassaux.” Gunpoint or vassals. With respect to the former, Amnesty International has denounced the celestial criminality of the drones. Additionally, the National Security Agency could present the complete espionage as a definite triumph of globalization, comparable to the expansion of Monsanto’s genetically modified crops and pesticides. There are those who see a certain imperial logic in finding out, for example, on which foot chicken in Latin America limp. However, empires get bored, too. What is morbid is finding out French secrets, this “sublime gossip” that inspired Proust. Let’s not mention Merkel’s conversations yet, telling the Greek president about Hansel and Gretel.
The most interesting aspect for the NSA has to be their listening-in-on of Rajoy’s cell phone. Those endless silences, with punctuation marks and spelling mistakes, that not even the most experienced spy could decipher. Considering everything, it would be good for the NSA to concentrate its work in its own territory and see if it can finally determine which demons killed Kennedy.
French leaders accuse the United States of failing to respect their alliance and of not understanding something else: “que des cibles ou des vassaux.” Gunpoint or vassals. With respect to the former, Amnesty International has denounced the celestial criminality of the drones. Additionally, the National Security Agency could present the complete espionage as a definite triumph of globalization, comparable to the expansion of Monsanto’s genetically modified crops and pesticides. There are those who see a certain imperial logic in finding out, for example, on which foot chicken in Latin America limp. However, empires get bored, too. What is morbid is finding out French secrets, this “sublime gossip” that inspired Proust. Let’s not mention Merkel’s conversations yet, telling the Greek president about Hansel and Gretel.
The most interesting aspect for the NSA has to be their listening-in-on of Rajoy’s cell phone. Those endless silences, with punctuation marks and spelling mistakes, that not even the most experienced spy could decipher. Considering everything, it would be good for the NSA to concentrate its work in its own territory and see if it can finally determine which demons killed Kennedy.