Last week, a very serious espionage allegation regarding the NSA and several ‘allied’ countries was brought to light. Over the past 12 months whistle-blowers such as Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and Julian Assange have exposed United States secret operations and the channels the security agencies use to spy on foreign countries including America’s closest allies. This raises many questions but essentially one that is quite troubling: if all these covert operations are needed to fight terrorism in the world and to keep track of terrorist activities as successive US administrations have claimed, why can’t the United States government keep tabs on its secrets?
The Obama administration, now in its 6th year, has made self-righteous declarations regarding the security of information but has moved little to make sure that its various agencies comply with air tight regulations to prevent such leakages. Surprisingly, when one looks back, the US had more control over intelligence resources during the last years of the Clinton administration than it has now or during the two Bush administrations in spite of the open war on terrorism after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Who is at fault? Republicans, Democrats? In essence, the system of government after 9/11 became increasingly bipolar, leaving no room for moderates from both sides to voice concern over the multiple questions that are disrupting American society by and large and undermining America’s image abroad. This is quite apparent in Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent declaration on the matter of tapping phone calls made by heads of states, friend and foe alike, which he criticised by emphasising that ‘in some cases, US spying has gone too far’. In fact, the incident involving the German chancellor Angela Merkel may still escalate into a diplomatic incident if nothing is done to reign in undercover US activities and coordinate the necessary fight against terrorism with the specialised agencies of European and allied countries. General Keith Alexander the Director of the National Security Agency, the one directly involved in the Merkel case, can well defend NSA activities and dismiss as “completely false” reports that his agency collected millions of phone records of European citizens, he still did not manage to repair the damage done. His statement that data collected by NATO allies was pooled with the US was met with sardonic reactions from the closest European allies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJJsp5Hx7rc
The White House claim that President Obama had no knowledge of NSA spying on world leaders was also met with sceptical amazement. The President has to involve himself directly to impose new regulations on American security agencies who in their multiplicity have surfaced as a giant voracious electronic instrument of confounding capacity and potential, snooping in and hewing their way over all continents to snatch information from governments and individuals to feed gigantic data bases. The already tense relationship between the US and its European allies exacerbated by the periodic Snowden revelations must be immediately revitalised before it degenerates into public squabbling and bickering which, at the end of the day, will only weaken international resolve to fight terrorism. In this, President Obama cannot lead from behind.
