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World owes Snowden debt of gratitude
Updated: 2013-06-14 07:56
By Chen Weihua ( China Daily)
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World owes Snowden debt of gratitudeThere have been raging debates about whether Edward Snowden is a whistleblower, hero, criminal or traitor after the former CIA employee revealed the US National Security Agency's top-secret surveillance program of people's phone, e-mail and Internet records.

But people both inside and outside the United States owe the 29-year-old a thank you for telling them that they are being closely watched by a government that likes to portray itself as a protector of privacy and civil liberties, and a role model for other countries.

Most people, except those at the NSA and a few lawmakers like Dianne Feinstein, chair of the US National Intelligence Committee, were not aware of the surveillance until Snowden exposed it.

Those who want to cast Snowden as a traitor argue that the information he leaked could aid the US' enemies and poses a national security threat. That has been a familiar excuse used in the US since Sept 11, 2001, to scare people into supporting actions they don't necessarily agree with.

Holding prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center without trial and drone attacks in other countries are all conducted in the name of keeping the country safe. However, the morality and legality of such actions have been questioned globally.

Now Snowden has bitterly reminded people in the US of the surveillance society they are living in.

There is no doubt that the Obama administration has been hugely embarrassed by the scandal since the Democratic president has long campaigned for transparency and against the government's overreach during the George W. Bush years.

The phone and Internet companies that have aided the NSA in mining people's phone and e-mail data have also come under public scrutiny. Indeed, such companies as Google, Apple, Twitter, Microsoft, Facebook, Verizon and AT&T have betrayed the trust of people worldwide.

The American Civil Liberties Union, a Verizon Communications client, has already filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration in a bid to stop the data gathering and purge any storage of its information.

What is chilling is that the Obama administration has not only denied any wrongdoing, it has vehemently defended the NSA surveillance program as legal and necessary. It is also doing everything it can to hunt down Snowden and charge him with treason.

That is what they have done to Bradley Manning, a 25-year-old soldier who was arrested in Iraq three years ago on suspicion of passing classified information to WikiLeaks.


US prosecutors have also targeted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is now living in asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, at the opening of Manning's trial, alleging that he directly encouraged and aided Manning's leaks of classified documents and conspired with Manning in the theft of classified information.

Supporters of Manning and Assange have launched a worldwide campaign to nominate them for the Nobel Peace Prize, and a petition to pardon Snowden on the White House website had already gathered 63,013 signatures by 7:40 am Thursday.

For the past few months, the US has been viciously accusing China and other nations of cyberespionage, yet Snowden's whistle-blowing has revealed that it is the US that has been engaging in a monstrous spying program on people all over the world.

And that's not all. A recent Reuters report showed that the US government has become the largest buyer in a burgeoning gray market where hackers and security firms sell tools for breaking into computers. It said the US intelligence and military agencies are using the tools to infiltrate computer networks overseas, leaving behind spy programs and cyberweapons that can disrupt data or damage systems.

The report claims that much of the offensive cyberwarfare is done by publicly traded US defense contractors, such as Raytheon Co and Northrop Grumman Corp.

It may sound paranoid - like some in the US House Intelligence Committee - to brand those US firms who collaborate with the NSA as a possible national security threat, as they did to Chinese telecom firms Huawei and ZTE. But it is so ironic when recalling Obama's many passionate speeches on freedom, civil liberties, the rights of the individual and government transparency.

Those speeches sound hollow now.

Haze a convenient smoke bomb

For more than a week, Singapore was and still is covered by a thick layer of haze, or smoke. No one can see through the white smoke thrown over the island like a godsend. There was relief in many corners with attention drawn towards NEA, PSI, PM10, PM2.5 and N95. Everyone is grouching about how to get life back to normalcy, how to breathe in a little clean air, and how to blow the smoke away.

People were praying for rain as rain was seen as the only way out to wash away the haze. And I think they prayed too hard. Rain came but in hard form of hailstones. The lesson learnt, pray hard but not too hard. Ask for help but just the right dose. And I think the people learnt and we had a bout of real rain yesterday. The sky was clearer, a bit better.

So is it time to see through the haze and to grapple with the temporary forgotten problems of cleaning hawker centres, of unemployed PMEs, of overflowing foreigners, of internet regulations, and the many unsolved problems hanging in the haze? Let’s hope the haze does not return to throw smoke all over the problems again. Let’s put aside the N95 and forget about the PSI, if we can.

While I was typing this, the air is still looking a bit hazy.

Yudhoyono has to defend his apology to Singapore and Malaysia

President Yudhoyono must have come under heavy attacks from the Indonesian leaders for apologizing to Singapore and Malaysia. What does this mean? The true feeling among the Indonesia leaders is not about right and wrong but about national pride, about being a big power. And it is demeaning for a big power like Indonesia to say sorry to smaller countries. This is the thinking and mentality of many of the Indonesian leaders. Lesson Number One, there are not bothered by being right or wrong.

Indonesia is the acknowledge leader and biggest regional power in the region. There is no reason for Indonesia to fear Singapore or Malaysia. Apologising to these two countries is just the correct thing to do and has nothing to do with bowing to pressure. No country in the region can put pressure on Indonesia, not even the Australians. For those Indonesian leaders to think so is a sign of inferiority complex, that they still did not know that they are the acknowledged regional power and leader. What a joke.

And it takes a greater man like Yudhoyono to say sorry to Singapore and Malaysia as a goodwill gesture. It makes him and Indonesia looked even bigger and more respectable. The criticisms by the other Indonesian leaders in a way have destroyed the goodwill Yudhoyono has done. It reveals the real deep psychic of the Indonesians and something that Singapore and Malaysia have to take note and be very careful about. This is Lesson Number Two.

The sad part is that Yudhoyono is now trying to say things to please his critics and claimed that the Singapore and Malaysian media reports were exaggerating to smear Indonesia’s reputation. Such back tracking will only bring him to be in line with the hysterics of his Indonesian critics. He could ask his ambassadors in the two countries to take a reading or walk in the haze and give him a ground zero report on the situation, first hand reporting, no exaggeration, not from the media, just the truth. Or use their mobile phones to take a picture and MMS to him.

This is Lesson Number Three. No need to know the truth.

Retail penetration encouraged

The SGX is trying another way to attract more retail participation in the stock market. The new scheme is to make blue chips easily available to small investors in small amounts of as low as $100 per entry per month.

Chew Sutat, the Executive Vice President of SGX said, ‘Equity investing is about saving and investing for the long term, not just about trading and speculating. It is not just the just the domain of the rich….A low retail participation is not ideal, because it means our capital market is not doing a good job of allocating savings towards investments, for the benefit of both savers and entrepreneurs.’ Quoted from Today and ST.

All the minor suggestions and schemes are meant to be good, to increase activities and participations by the retail investors. What is missing is the reason why the retail investors are fleeing from the stock market. Does anyone know why or nobody wants to know why? Most retail investors are losing their pants and their savings. How then could they find the money and the encouragement to return to the market?

Anyone wonder why are the small investors kept on losing and losing? If the stock exchange does not want to know the truth and think a little gimmicks here and there would bring back the small investors, I think it is a very serious case of delusion.

Stock markets from New York to London, Hongkong and Tokyo, are operating almost in the same way, with the big funds using their computers to trade against the small guys. Where is the chance for the small guys to make a little profit? How can the ordinary guy trade against the computers that are plugged into the exchanges to capitalize on speed and access to information that the small guys did not have?

Until stock markets are operating a system that is fair to both big and small investors, the small retail investors are not going to bite. Stock trading is cannot be a long term investment or a casino where the big funds are gambling with their computers. The first thing to do is to get rid of the unfair advantages of the big funds. Otherwise the stock markets across the world will be a slow march to certain death. The small retail investors just cannot afford to lose and lose. And the big funds will eventually find that there is just not enough small fish to fill their big appetite.

Govt rebutting false or misleading information posted in social media

A new govt website ‘Follow us on @govsingapore or @e101singapore to #cutthruthehaze‘has started to rebut some of the information posted in social media that are deemed incorrect or not the right thing. Among the sites mentioned and with information that were rebutted or corrected by this new govt website are TRE, Facebook and The Heart Truths.

I would read this move by the Govt as a positive development in freedom of expression and freedom of the net. It also says that the Govt is serious about what were being posted in the media and in a way helping to raise the standard of social media. All media, main media and social media are prone to make mistakes now and then. And a better way of dealing with such mistake is to right it by informing the media source of the error, or as in this case putting up a site just for such a purpose. But this may not be very effective as not many people will purposely go to visit a site like this to read corrections or errors.

However, it beats having to legislate the social media with licence, fines and imprisonment and all the cumbersome legislative processes. And since a note to the editor of the offending media is so difficult to do so, well, this is ok then. MDA should have thought of this in the first place and avoid the big hue and cry by the netizens with the new regulations on licensing.

Now the Govt is talking. Isn’t this is what communication is all about? Just get any mistakes or errors corrected. No need to bring Sue into the picture.

It would also be nice for major social media sites to set up a section on errors printed in the main media. In this case, it is more meaningful as it is not common for main media to want to entertain social media for their honest mistakes or unintentional professional errors. It is more likely that such a request from the social media may end up in the waste bins.

Major websites like the TRE may want to set aside a column just for this purpose. It will be interesting to chalk up the errors of main media against the errors of unprofessional bloggers.

What do you think?