Edward Snowden is probably the most famous whistleblower of today. He is a former CIA employee and NSA informant. His views and information are uncomfortable for many leaders, but they are very important to ordinary people. He showed the world how power is being abused in favor of a government that wants to control its citizens. Last year, Snowden was a guest on the series “Shelter in Place”, which debuted on VICE TV. Many people did not receive important information from the interview.
Constant surveillance of citizens deprives freedom
According to Snowden, the future is unpredictable, but the epidemic was predictable. The system failed and governments around the world failed to prepare for the crisis. Various governments use quarantine and lockdown strategies. In addition, contact monitoring is also used to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Mobile phones maintain user health records and records of people with whom the user comes into contact. As soon as the user comes into contact with someone who could be infected, they will be instructed to quarantine for 14 days. In some countries, quarantine is reminiscent of house arrest and you can even get an ankle bracelet that will immediately alert the authorities when you leave the house. This may seem like an effective way to fight the virus, but this information can be misused to track and control people.
Abuse of power
As authoritarianism spreads, as emergency laws proliferate, as we sacrifice our rights, we also sacrifice our capability to arrest the slide into a less liberal and less free world,” Snowden warned.
Individual government regulations may seem important, but in reality they are gradually losing freedom. At present, freedom of speech has disappeared, many opinions are censored and we learn information mainly from the mainstream media. Unfortunately, these media are often sponsored by pharmaceutical companies or their content is edited to be politically correct.
There is still concern about what life will look like once the pandemic disappears. Will they return to normal or will citizen tracking technologies be misused?
“Do you truly believe that when the first wave, this second wave, the 16th wave of the coronavirus is a long-forgotten memory, that these capabilities will not be kept? That these datasets will not be kept? No matter how it is being used, what is being built is the architecture of oppression,” Snowden said.
“There is nothing more foreseeable as a public health crisis in a world where we are just living on top of each other in crowded and polluted cities, than a pandemic. And every academic, every researcher who’s looked at this knew this was coming. And in fact, even intelligence agencies, I can tell you firsthand, because they used to read the reports had been planning for pandemics,” he said.
