US Pressure on RussiaTurns Focus away from Spying

In the aftermath of Edward Snowden being granted asylum, the U.S. focus on pressuring the Russians over their failure to extradite him has become a smokescreen, diverting the attention of the international community. The U.S. facilitated this in the hopes of avoiding responsibility over its endangerment of global network safety and its violation of human rights. Even as more revelations about surveillance come to light, the U.S. has thus far failed to explain itself to the world concerning the National Security Agency’s theft of private information. By drawing attention to Russia granting asylum to Snowden, the U.S. intends to cover up its large-scale Internet monitoring and its theft of other countries’ secrets and personal data, without addressing its double standards.

Two days ago, the British newspaper The Guardian cited documents leaked by Snowden, saying that in a three-year period, from 2009, the NSA had secretly invested 100 million pounds (about 1.2 billion Hong Kong dollars) in the United Kingdom’s Government Communications Headquarters, in exchange for information obtained from the latter through surveillance. Another large-scale U.S. Internet monitoring plan has come to light, showing how notorious of a record the U.S. has garnered through its invasion of privacy worldwide. The latest secret documents leaked show that not only does the U.S. use data from the NSA to conduct global surveillance, but it also borrows British technology and resources to conduct an even bigger and more secretive scheme to steal secrets. Anglo-American cooperation knows no limits: British agents use the NSA’s PRISM to bypass British law in conducting surveillance, supporting British NATO troops in Afghanistan on their intelligence gathering, as well as helping out surveillance efforts in Cyprus. The NSA’s XKeyscore can monitor almost all Internet activity worldwide and put every Internet user under monitoring with information on up to hundreds of billions of parts. Not only does the U.S. use its Internet domination to conduct large-scale theft of secrets, but it has also been surreptitiously conducting joint surveillance operations with the U.K. over the years. Governments and citizens around the world have been monitored to no end, with gross interference in other countries’ affairs, and severe encroachment on individual privacy.

Those suffering the U.S. surveillance plan’s consequences include Russia, China and various other EU countries. The U.S. does not relent, even when it comes to EU-U.S. trade negotiations, secretly eavesdropping to extract negotiating advantages, much to the fury of EU and global public opinion. The EU harbors strong doubts and grievances toward U.S. monitoring of networks worldwide, voicing fair and just commentary regarding Snowden regaining his freedom in Russia.

It is clear who is right and wrong here. Yet, the U.S. continues to adopt an evasive attitude and sanctimoniously blame others, fully revealing the U.S. government’s overbearing hypocrisy. Such behavior will only attract repulsion from the rest of the world.

President Obama, who met with congressional representatives two days ago to discuss NSA surveillance, said he is open to changing surveillance methods to ensure no privacy violations in order to retrieve public confidence.

With more and more scandals over this matter, the U.S. should immediately cease violating human rights in other countries and endangering world peace, and it should begin explaining itself to the international community honestly.