| Skybird |
12-16-13 04:11 PM |
Snowden said some months ago he joined the NSA for the mere purpose of getting those infos, I recall from reading several articles at that time. That makes him not a traitor, but an infiltrator.
The benefit of having revealed the huge amount of illegal actions and criminal acts as well as having started a debate about the green and red lights of total surveillance societies, outweighs by far any argument about the legality of his action.
German news this evening has headlines that an American judge has said the total NSA telephone surveillance "most likely" is a massive violation of American laws, and that legal challenges to the NSA have very good chances of success.
What is to be learned here: Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Never trust states, governments, government services. Democratic ideas about controlling these monsters, is an illusion. Especially in the US, intel and military are secret societies in themselves, are states within the state without any legitimation by the electorate (which Americans usually are so keen to point at).
Between the need for self defense by military and intel services, and the need for transparency and counter-controlling the power of such institutions, I see a gap or contradiction that becomes the wider and more unbridgable the more technology advances. That maybe points at a fundamental dilemma we are drowning in sooner or later, because the less we can "grade" the balance between needed secrecy and transparency, the more we only have the absolute choice between total transparency and defenselessness, or total control by the state and maximum security. The slider between these two poles seem to disappear, getting replaced with a simple two-way flipping switch.
And that is extremely dangerous and can lead to wars, as European history has shown many times.
That the whole system is corrupted beyond repair by business lobbyism and cheating politicians, does not make it any better, of course.
With each year passing by, I think more intensely that breakdown and collapse not only is unavoidable, but is highly desirable - to flush all the dirt and decadence away and make room for building new - maybe. It'S a small chance only. Chance that the dirtiness of the other global players will ruin us in our rubble, is greater. So maybe even that is no way out, but will just relaunch the same old story that has been told since eons now, again and again, and again. In perceiving the reality around me, I asm realistic. But in assessing the ability of man to change the fundamental moral and intellectual premises of his acting , I have become very pessimistic. History illustrates the endless repetition of the same mistakes over and over again, all too often. And the dualistic view of life, the two-sided nature of the coin that human life is, maybe even do not allow lasting and final, correct solutions to the existential dilemmas that crush us time and again. Sisyphos on my mind.
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