Feinstein gives US a wake-up on spying
- By Chen Weihua
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E-mail China Daily, March 14, 2014
About 40 percent of US citizens still approve of the government's collection of telephone and Internet data, which it claims is for anti-terrorism purposes, and only 53 percent disapprove, according to a January survey by the Pew Research Center.
Feinstein revealed she came to the Senate floor on Tuesday reluctantly. She has asked for an apology and recognition that this CIA search on the Senate Intelligence Committee's computers was inappropriate. "I have received neither," she said.
In fact, the whole world, including a small group of world leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, has been waiting for an apology from NSA and from US President Barack Obama. But they have been waiting in vain.
On the contrary, Obama has been unapologetic when it comes to the US surveillance of governments and people outside the US. In his speech on Jan 17, he said the US will not apologize simply because its abilities are greater. The US does not want international rules and norms governing cyberspace given the huge technologcal edge it has in spying on other nations and nationals.
Yet that kind of thinking may well have to change, if other nations, be it China, Russia, Germany or Iran, develop more advanced surveillance technologies than the US. Although of course, we have not seen any other nation becoming as obsessed as the US in spying on others.
On Tuesday, CIA Director John Brennan quickly responded to Feinstein and said the CIA has done nothing wrong. But given that organization's track record few are likely to believe him. Many people in the US are waiting for the Justice Department investigation on Feinstein's allegation, just as they await the full report by the Senate Intelligence Committee to come out to show how CIA has conducted various illegal tortures, such as water-boarding.
It is to be hoped that Feinstein has opened the eyes of at least some in the US that it is wrong for the CIA or NSA to conduct widespread surveillance on people in the US and in other nations.
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