In the
battle between a giant multinational corporation known for its record of tax
evasion around the world as well as its hypocrisy of manufacturing in Asia not
because of low wages but “talent availability”, APPLE is not yielding to the
FBI/Justice Department request for hacking into the cell phones because the big
winner will be SAMSUNG and the other ten largest cell phone companies in the
world. APPLE has argued that the US government wants to unlock the cell phone
that the shooters in the San Bernardino killings used. However, the goal of the
US government under Obama claiming to be the protector of civil liberties is to
gain access to all cell phones and carry out surveillance for all users at
will. This is not only a constitutional issue that essentially touches on the
Fourth Amendment – right to privacy – but it also opens a Pandora’s box because
other governments would demand same access as the US has. When it became known
that the NSA was spying at home and abroad using the giant tech companies of
Silicon Valley, the position of Obama administration officials was that
foreigners were not protected under the Fourth Amendment, while US citizens
needed to understand that national security is above their Constitutional rights.
On 16
February 2016, the US government convinced a California federal judge to have
Apple reveal encryption security features in its cell phones. APPLE has been
fighting back both with public opinion campaigns as well as using its lobbying efforts
in Congress as a counterweight to the Justice Department. Because it is well
known that APPLE along with GOOGLE and all major tech companies had secret
agreements with the US government to conduct illegal surveillance at home and globally,
it seems somewhat puzzling at this juncture why APPLE is fighting the Justice
Department. Is APPLE so interested in protecting citizens for idealistic reasons,
for the sake of furthering democracy, or is it simply a case of protecting its
global market-share?
Thus far,
no government in the world has made the kind of demands of APPLE that the US
has made. However, the US of course invokes American Exceptionalism against the
background of the “war on terror”, just as it invoked anti-Communism during the
Cold War when civil liberties were readily trampled. However, that they are
asking APPLE to provide code access to cell phones clearly indicates that the
Department of Homeland Security, Justice Department and the FBI have not been
doing their jobs as effectively as they claim. Moreover, the question is where
does surveillance stop? If there is no privacy of any kind, as we have
discovered after the Edward Snowden revelations regarding National Security
Agency violations of the Fourth Amendment, then why not suspend the
Constitution altogether and declare a State of Emergency? Why go through the motions and the thin faced of
a democratic society at all?
For APPLE
the argument is hardly the constitutional rights of citizens but global market
share. I repeat that if APPLE yields on this issue, the other twelve major cell
phone makers in the world will prevail in the global market, most notably
SAMSUNG. It is a myth that APPLE or any
cell phone maker is concerned about privacy when these dozen large phone companies
around the world have been violating the privacy of consumers for many years by
illegally collecting and commercializing information of their users without
their knowledge. APPLE along with SAMSUNG is among the biggest violators when
it comes to privacy, so it stretches one’s imagination to come up with reasons
why it is fighting the FBI/Justice Department now. If there was a financial
incentive for APPLE to give the FBI what it wanted, it would have done as secretly
as it collects information and never discloses it to its users. However, there
is no incentive, but there is massive potential harm from the competition.
The America
people know very well that their government violates the constitution in the
name of national security and it does so randomly and not just in extreme cases
such as that involving the unique incident of the San Bernardino case. The surveillance
state would not have been possible in the absence of the tech companies cooperating
with government. This is not an issue of whether is the US is moving closer to
a police state. By its own criteria as defined in the Constitution the US has been
practicing police state methods that go back to the early Cold War when
Communism was used as the justification. Today, it is terrorism, which
ironically the US helps to strengthen by its own policies in Islamic countries,
including Syria where ISIL has been operating with the considerable support of
US allies in the last five years. After all, there was no ISIS before the US and
its EU and regional Middle East allies decided to overthrow Assad in Syria.
Even when the Russians were bombing ISIS targets, the US and its allies were
critical, giving the impression to ISIS that the priority was removing Assad
not ISIS.
- The APPLE issue reveals very clearly that the more technology dependent a society becomes, the more it slips down the road of a police state at home because it is pursuing militarism abroad. This does not mean that technology in and of itself is a bad thing – no Luddite thesis here – but that the use of technology by corporations and the state makes it easier to have a police state. Civil liberties are eroding very rapidly in the US and one reason the country ranks at about the same level as Turkey when it comes to social justice is because its practices are about as democratic. The “security hoax” which the government has been pursuing at home and abroad has actually helped to strengthen not just the military industrial complex but tech companies that receive multi-billion contracts from government agencies. The state-corporate nexus has been responsible for the evolution toward a police state that has become more necessary than ever as society is becoming increasingly polarized socioeconomically. Security is the last resort of the state to defend welfare capitalism that accounts for the downward social mobility in America and the increasing alienation of citizens who believe their government serves the top ten percent of the wealthiest people –
- 63% of Americans say money and wealth distribution is unfair
- These attitudes are substantially unchanged over past 30 years
- Slight majority of 52% favor heavy taxes on rich as fix http://www.gallup.com/poll/182987/americans-continue-say-wealth-distribution-unfair.aspx
(For more
on how technology promotes police state methods see: http://thedailycoin.org/?p=63700;
https://www.corbettreport.com/police-state-gadgets-and-the-technology-of-enslavement/;
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/the-daily-need/are-we-becoming-a-police-state-five-things-that-have-civil-liberties-advocates-nervous/12563/)
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