You are here: Home > Opinion > Columnists

Big Brother's big brother

By Zhao Jinglun: 0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, June 18, 2013

Adjust font size:

U.S. General Keith Alexander's hacker army has burrowed deep into China's networks, and we have known this all along (See my column "Thief crying stop thief."). Thanks to Edward Snowden, it has now become known throughout the world.

At the recent Sunnylands summit, Barack Obama made cyber espionage a major issue, accusing China of engaging in widespread computer hacking to steal U.S. secrets. He used the word "theft" no less than five times. Shortly before that in late May, the latest allegation of Chinese espionage was leveled by The Washington Post. Those allegations were effectively rebuffed by Huang Chengqing, China's top Internet official. Huang said that China has mountains of data showing that the U.S. has engaged in widespread hacking to steal Chinese government secrets.

It transpires that this is true. According to www. foreignpolicy.com, a number of confidential sources have indicated that a highly secretive unit of the National Security Agency (NSA) called the Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO) has been successfully penetrating Chinese computer and telecommunications systems for almost fifteen years, generating some of the best and most reliable intelligence information about China.

TAO is part of the U.S. Cyber Command (Cybercom), whose commander, four-star General Keith Alexander, is also director of the NSA and chief of the Central Security Service. He has his own secret military, presiding over the Navy's 10th Fleet, the 24th Air Force and the 2nd Army.

The NSA's Signal Intelligence Directorate now has more than 1,000 military and civilian computer hackers, intelligence analysts, targeting specialists, computer hardware and software designers and electrical engineers. (See Matthew M. Aid, "Inside the NSA's Ultra-Secret China Hacking Group").

To be sure, TAO does not only spy on China. It received an award for spying on Iran's nuclear program and it is now well known that using the cyber weapon known as Stuxnet, the NSA successfully damaged approximately 1,000 centrifuges which were being used to enrich uranium at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility.

Snowden also disclosed the NSA's attacks on Hong Kong, which especially targeted the Chinese University because it has a large database. The Special Administrative Region has declared that it will deal with the attacks according to law.

When I commented on President Obama's speech at the National Defense University, I cited his administration's unwarranted secret surveillance of American citizens, stating that such action violates the constitutional protection of privacy. But at that time, the public did not know the seriousness and scope of the surveillance program. Now we know that the NSA not only listens to citizen's calls, but also uses the phone numbers, frequency, length and times of the calls for data-mining.

It issued an order requiring Verizon, the America's largest mobile network operator, to provide the phone records of all its customers. Edward Snowden states that PRISM enables "collection directly from the servers" of nine Internet companies, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Facebook. They are required to pass along data including email, photos, videos, chat services, file transfers, stored data, log-ins, and video conferencing.

According to Bloomberg News, thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies voluntarily provide sensitive information to the government in exchange for government favors.

The saying at NSA "God we trust" ; "All others we monitor" is no longer a joke. It is the truth.

What is disturbing is that American liberals (I am talking about the "new" liberals, not old-fashioned ones such as Glen Greenwald) not only do not object to government surveillance, but are also actively trying to justify the demolition of the constitution. They are actually aiding the private intelligence gathering operations of the FBI.

As for Barack Obama, let us look at what he had to say.

As a presidential candidate, Obama rejected "a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand." As president, he informed the American people that "you can't have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy" because "there are some tradeoffs involved."

President, thy name is hypocrisy.

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/zhaojinglun.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.