The Snowden Case

A spy’s job is not usually the most ethical one. Lies, betrayal and the fact of using information as a gun are classical components of this badly called job. However, beyond the job of a spy lie the power and brute force of those who order the spying, which are even less ethical. Every now and then, a spy regrets what he does when he realizes his job ends up hurting mankind and his own values. Among those who order spying, nobody regrets anything. Even if spies risk their lives under certain circumstances, the masters of espionage, if we can call them that, have guaranteed impunity for any crime they commit.

The Snowden case shows once more the terrible hypocrisy of power. All the European countries were outraged when they learned that both the United States and Britain were spying on their communications. Nevertheless, they did not dare to protect the one who gave the trap away. European leaders claim the fact of being spied on, but they do not dare to defend the man who has reported the espionage that, in the end, propels our societies toward a sort of control that hurts freedom and intimacy of citizens. Even more: they decided to put the life of a Latin American president in risk by preventing him from crossing airspace just because they suspected — a ludicrous, well-founded suspicion, they said, showing themselves servile before the gringos — that Snowden was on Evo Morales’ plane. If any government in Latin America dared to do this with a European leader, they would be accusing us, with their usual arrogance, of being a banana republic.

In spite of all the democratic evolution and increased respect for the people, two levels are still in place for power: those who give commands from power, money and guns, and those who find themselves in a situation of inferiority before that complex. The most powerful are rewarded with more human rights while the less powerful belong to a lower level of humanity. In fact, the big differences at a worldwide level between rich and poor countries are also an expression of that supremacy of the powerful against the weak. This is what some intellectuals mean when they state, from an ethical point of view, that in the world there is a true war between the rich and the poor. Pope John Paul II used to say this when he talked about “the war of the powerful against the weak,” that, according to him, defined the modern world.

Many years ago, D. Eisenhower, the old American general, commander-in-chief of the Allies in Europe and president of the United States for eight years, warned about the danger of the military-industrial complex that was being created in his own country and what it meant for worldwide peace. His exact words were: “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” Nowadays that “misplaced power” aims to control the thinking and the intimacy of people with the excuse of security and common welfare. If someone like Snowden dares to warn the citizenry and the countries about the abuse of power, a reaction that implies the persecution and demonization of both the repentant spy and he who protects him will automatically be produced.

Nobody can get rid of espionage. According to some revelations issued in Brazil, El Salvador is one of the Latin American countries that is being spied on. These Americans who have been accomplices of massacres by making and hiding them and have taken part and financed so many coups and wars just for protecting their transnational companies, have found in the Internet a discreet and secret way to keep imperial control of the world we live in. Spying on companies, people, institutions and governments is easy when the centers of connection are in your own country, when you control the cables and when you have a connection with the companies that are willing to send you the information. Technology, guns and information, even if the latter is gotten wrongly, remain the guns of empires in this industrialized world. In the old espionage, money and patriotic fanaticism played an important role and they somehow equalized the parts. Nowadays, however, because all of them are part of the global network, the one who has power over the network has power over the information. Without any ethical and legal regulation on the communications, we can end up being slaves of “misplaced power.”