The great lie, my column in Expansión

Mi column this week in leading Spanish business daily Expansión is called “The great lie” (pdf), and highlights the real issue at stake regarding the mass surveillance that has been under discussion in the media over the last few months in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations: it has nothing to do with our security or preventing terrorist attacks. Behind this is something entirely different, and much more to do with repression, with control, and with censorship, the aim of which is to create a similar social climate to that which exists in countries like China.

The problem with mass surveillance is that it tends to allow those with a real reason to avoid it to do so; instead such systems end up being used to watch the rest of us. In other words, they have nothing to do with our legitimate right to be protected against terrorism, and much more to do with classifying us all based on the supposed threat we pose to society, as well as being a very effective way of keeping activists of all types in check.

Here’s the piece in its entirety:

The great lie

Nothing that anybody can write about spying can in any way justify what we are witnessing. What Edward Snowden has done should be rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. His revelations paint a picture of an increasingly dystopian and out of control situation that has now surpassed any capacity for surprise. Bu the heart of the problem isn’t espionage, but what lies behind it. What is really maddening and an insult to our intelligence here is not so much that we are all being spied on, that our telephone conversations are being listened in to, or that our emails are being read, but that we are being told that this is all for our own good. They want us to believe that all this effort is being made on the basis of a legitimate concern by governments for our wellbeing.

Mass surveillance has nothing to do with fighting terrorism. All it does is let those who really want to do harm know that they must be much more careful in communicating with each other. In reality, the bloated spying system that have been created in some countries has nothing to do with capturing terrorists or trying to prevent them from carrying out attacks, a task at which our security services have largely shown themselves to be inept, but to keep an eye on the population at large. This is about keeping any kind of dissidence in check, and the maintenance of the status quo.

Our governments spy on us for the same reasons—and which not so long ago were anathema to us—as totalitarian states do: to stop people thinking and questioning; to intimidate us into submission. Do not ask questions, because you know that you are being watched. Censorship in China doesn’t work so much on the basis of technology, but more on a never-ending pressure: if you know that you are being watched, there are some things that you will not consider doing, and probably not even think about.

The great lie is not that our masters have tried to hide mass surveillance, rather that they have tried to con us into thinking that it’s for our own good.