Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Media attacks on Snowden ‘serving the interests of the surveillance state’
 |
| AFP Photo / Philippe Lopez |
Instead of devoting coverage to surveillance information revealed by Edward Snowden, the mainstream US media has slandered him. This reaction highlights the inadequacies of the American news cycle, geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser told RT.
RT: It appears Snowden is still in Russia, although he is believed to be in an international transit zone. What do you think he will do next?
Eric Draitser: I think that’s impossible to say at the moment. We hear reports about Ecuador, though we’ve seen with the case of Julian Assange that that’s no guarantee. We’re still waiting to see. But what I think is most interesting is the reaction here in the United States. Your reports have talked about what we’re seeing internationally, maybe in governments or people around the world - but in the United States, we see a concerted propaganda campaign designed to demonize and destroy the image, if not the total character, of Edward Snowden. We see this happening from the right wing and also the left wing. This is now becoming a real story inside the United States – the way in which the controlled media is attacking Snowden and serving the interests of the surveillance state and the partisanship behind President Obama.
RT: The US government wants Moscow to go in and arrest Snowden even though he’s in an international transit zone - a limbo area which is not officially on Russian territory. Do you think this is going to sour relations between the US and Russia?
ED: I think this is going to precipitate a fight out in the open, but remember that relations have been soured long ago. Remember that the United States has been positioning missiles throughout Eastern Europe and Asia for years. Washington has also placed missiles inside Turkey and elsewhere for the purpose of menacing Russia. The United States has engaged in cyber-attacks launched at its enemies in China and Iran, and it’s likely the Russians are involved in that too. So the relationship has been under the assault of the ruling class in the United States for quite a while – and the reason is because President Putin represents opposition. He represents a counter-veiling force to US hegemony. I think that the Snowden case is really simply a microcosm of that. Moreover, we see that Putin and the government in Russia represent the interests of international law, humanitarian concerns, and basic human decency – just like with Syria. The notion of extraditing Snowden to the United States is essentially delivering him into the hands of torturers, into the hands of criminals.
RT: You just talked about these counter-veiling forces rising. One of these forces is China. A lot of reports suggest that China may have helped Snowden leave the country and assisted him along the way. Is Beijing sending Washington a big message here?
ED: Absolutely. And I think the revelations from Snowden about the hacking of computers in Hong Kong is only the tip of the iceberg. We know that the cyber-attacks that have been launched by the United States, Israel, and their partners are only what we know publicly. There’s much more happening behind the scenes and the Chinese are angry about that. They’re also angry at attempts to demonize them as if they are somehow the ones conducting an illegal operation. This is purely a deflection away from the fact that the United States is the criminal violator of human rights, that the United States is the one engaged in illegal activity, and that the United States attempts to impose its will through so-called diplomacy on countries like China and Russia against their own interests and against the interests of international law. Ten years ago, this would have stood. Today, not so much.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
US sources claim China and Russia got access to Snowden's computers
 |
| Reuters / Kacper Pempel |
United States officials believe that classified intelligence taken out of the country by NSA leaker Edward Snowden has been compromised by agencies in Russia and China.
Snowden, a 30-year-old former employee of intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, fled the US for Hong Kong last month and then supplied journalists with classified information pertaining to vast surveillance operations conducted by the American government’s National Security Agency.
Both Russian and US officials have made claims that Snowden is now in Moscow, likely arranging for possible asylum in another country. In the meantime, though, US sources speaking with the Washington Free Beacon say that China and Russia have gained access to “highly classified US intelligence and military information contained on electronic media” held by Snowden.
“The exact compromise of the secret data held on Snowden’s laptop computers remains unknown but is the subject of an ongoing damage assessment within NSA and other intelligence agencies,” Bill Gertz of the Free Beacon wrote on Wednesday.
According to Gertz, those officials fear that Snowden may have accessed recently created nuclear war plans that could pose as future embarrassment for the US in the wake of disclosures already attributed to Snowden.
Previously, Snowden supplied The Guardian newspaper with documentation showing how the NSA routinely collects the phone records pertaining to millions of Americans every day. On Thursday this week, The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald and Spencer Ackerman published their latest installment in the NSA leaks, exposing further surveillance under the administration of President Barack Obama that put Internet records directly into the hands of government officials.
Snowden has said that he’s personally reviewed the trove of documents supplied to The Guardian and other outlets, carefully evaluated every single one “to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest.” Glenn Greenwald said that Snowden brought “thousands” of files with him to Hong Kong, “dozens” of which he believes are newsworthy.
What exactly Snowden knows remains a mystery, however, and he reportedly has four laptops in his possession right now that contain classified intelligence.
Earlier this month, the Washington Post cited an anonymous former intelligence official who claimed that Russian authorities were almost certain to seize any computer files Snowden brought into the country.
In a separate article earlier this month, the Post quoted another former senior US intelligence official who predicted that any intelligence compromised by Russia would have seen a similar fate en route from Hong Kong.
“I guarantee the Chinese intelligence service got their hands on that right away. If they imaged the hard drives and then returned them to him, well, then the Russians have that stuff now,” the source said.
“The Chinese already have everything Snowden had,” a separate source added to the Beacon’s Gertz this week.
Obama’s Africa visit: US playing catch-up with China
 |
| Obama’s Africa visit: US playing catch-up with China |
US President Barack Obama began his African tour in a bid to strengthen ties and investment opportunities. But experts say the task might prove difficult as China already has significant influence in the region and US is forced to play catch-up.
Obama arrived in Senegal on Wednesday and is also set to visit South Africa and Tanzania.
The president’s tour is happening as US is taking on a bigger military role in Africa, RT’s Gayane Chichakyan reported.
“We hear about new drone bases popping up on the African continent in countries whose governments receive aid from the US in one form or another. We hear US arming and training US security forces in a number of states in Africa, then we learn how some of those forces commit horrible atrocities and yet the US does not stop to take a second to look who they empower,” Chichakyan said.
Just a few recent examples of US-backed violence include, a UN report about US trained troops in Congo guilty of mass rape and other atrocities and a Human Rights Watch report documenting abuse, rape and torture of at least 1,000 Somali refugees by US-backed Kenyan police forces.
One of the reasons why US wants to strengthen ties with Africa is to push out China’s growing influence from the region, an expert told RT.
“They want to of course maintain relations with all these different African states and at the same time to edge out the People’s Republic of China that has been gaining considerable amount of influence in Africa. Just over the last few years China has become the number one trading partner of the African Union,” editor of Pan-African News Wire Abayomi Azikiwe said.
Another reason for increased US involvement is the fact that Africa is an extremely rich continent and US wants to keep its oil imports secure.
This is Obama’s second trip to sub-Saharan Africa since he first assumed office in 2009, but it might fall short as China has already been making great strides in Africa.
The time Obama has spent in Africa falls short of significant when compared to China’s engagement in the region. China’s top leaders, including the president, vice president, premier, deputy premier, cabinet ministers and top Communist Party officials have visited around 30 African countries in comparison to Obama’s soon-to-be four.
China's current President Xi Jinping has visited three African countries since taking office on March 14, 2013 and former Chinese president Hu Jintao has been to 17 African nations in a single 10-month stretch between July 2006 and February 2007.
Watch Chichakyan’s full report for more information.
