Obama's Prism

These days, President Obama has been busy rationalizing and justifying the debacle the American intelligence agencies have found themselves in. Essentially, these agencies have been spying on American phone calls and Internet communications. The program, known as PRISM, has become a problem that Obama cannot avoid. First admitting to the program’s existence, Obama then tried to downplay the issue, stating that it does not infringe upon the personal rights of American citizens. Obama “explained” in San Jose, California that the communications surveillance program had congressional approval, assuring Americans that “nobody is listening to your telephone calls.” On the other hand, he also added that we must find a “compromise” between security and privacy.

The American president is responsible for the security of the people and maintaining America’s greater interests abroad. This is true. But was this not also the case with other nations?

Obama made an exception for the security agencies in his country out of fear of terrorism. Could the same exception not be made for other nations who share the same fear that grips Obama and his intelligence services in America?

We cannot be certain, but perhaps if Obama had used this same spirit of understanding when he launched his idealistic campaign against Mubarak in Egypt and Ben Ali in Tunisia — if we went back just two years — then things would be calmer and reasonable than they are now … perhaps. Everyone is concerned about spying on the world’s communications, especially the American “Big Brother.” In past decades, the British-American ECHELON program was the focus of the media and organizations associated with human rights and freedom of expression in Europe. ECHELON is a surveillance system inherited from World War II that the Americans and British continued to use on European communications and others, which upset France and many other countries. It was said at the time that the program was capable of spying on the entire planet.

Ensuring preventative security and guaranteeing personal freedoms is a complex issue with many difficult variables; that is a fact. Security always needs to be a step ahead of any threats, hence the importance of data, especially in the age of the communications boom. It would be delusional to think that the government would ignore such an important issue, but people should not be privy to every secret. Like the saying about backbiting that goes, “Whatever is said about you behind your back isn’t a problem until you hear about it from some volunteer. Then it becomes gossip!”

In the dialects of the Arabian Peninsula, “prism” means an expensive type of silk. This reminded me of a verse from old popular poetry from Central Saudi Arabia in which a man gives instructions to someone he is sending to the traders in Damascus with news of their families and villages:

And when you come to al-Midan boys come to you/ Walking on the fine silk/ “Boy, tell us your news/ What happened to Najd after we left?”