Lavabit, Obama, and the 1001 lies
Barack Obama’s address on August 9 establishes a number of things: firstly, as said only the day before, the pendulum of public opinion is shifting, and secondly, that this was the time to meet with a concerned technology industry and to try again to calm an equally concerned electorate. But thirdly, and much worrying, it shows that lies possess a curious property: as they mount up, their significance diminishes.
Obama’s big lie, so outrageously forced, and so pathetically evident that the entire media has highlighted it, is that he is going to subject the NSA to stricter supervision on the basis of his own beliefs and not because of Edward Snowden’s revelations. This is such a whopper that it questions everything that comes after it: let’s be clear about this: Barack Obama is not interested in greater supervision, but simply in trying to legitimize what he has been doing so that he can carry on doing it.
The elephantine spying program that “only” affects 1.6% of daily traffic on the web (there’s a great article by Jeff Jarvis on this) will continue to roll out as fast as the technological “improvements” allow, and will continue to be subject to zero public scrutiny. The legal framework that permits it will continue to adapt and be modified to accommodate the lie.
The companies that supply the spying technology and that have paid billions of dollars to the lobby industry can rest easy: their money is being well spent. That said, Obama’s lie was so glaring obvious that the president himself committed two of the liar’s classic gaffes: one, excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta, and two, that of decorating the lie with verbal excesses. His comments about Snowden and his being a hero and a patriot were over the top: the American people know what he is and what they owe him.
In short, Obama’s comments are worthless; they are not the result of any change of mind, but instead are simply the response of somebody caught in the act. They are excuses trotted out amid a mounting scandal, and have no bearing on what he will do in the future. They are just another lie, one more on the ever-growing pile. At the same time as he lies to the electorate, saying that he will “introduce controls”, he is forcing the closure of encrypted mail service providers such as Lavabit or Silent Circle: Ladar Levison and Phil Zimmermann’s reasons for closing their respective companies are as evident as they are worrying.
Obama is lying. In doing so, he is redefining the geopolitical and technological rules, as well as miring himself deeper and deeper in an absurd war, the same war that the content industry has been fighting, and losing, for years now: a war against progress. The only thing the United States will achieve by forcing the closure of perfectly legal silent mail servers like Lavabit and Silent Circle is, in the same way that foreign companies will no longer use US suppliers, that these types of services will be offered from abroad, by other companies that will see a gap in the market. This will cost the United States dearly in many ways. And not because Kim Dotcom says so, but because it’s Strategy 101.
