‘Europe needs independent infrastructure to avoid US snooping’
The only way to protect the privacy of ordinary citizens in European cyberspace is to break away from dependency on the US in terms of software and hardware and develop a pan-European security structure, former MI5 Agent Annie Machon told RT.
RT:Obama said eavesdropping on friends and allies is out of bounds, and yet the NSA is still spying on German officials. So who's really controlling the agency?
Annie Machon: Let’s not forget that the NSA has
been caught out spying on every German in Germany. So whether it
is Angela Merkel’s personal telephone, or whether it is 320
so-called ‘elite Germans,’ 80 million Germans are being spied on
by the NSA. So is it ok to spy on one, is it ok to spy on 320, or
is it ok to spy on 80 million? Who knows?
I think this goes much deeper. There is no guarantee that the NSA
will stop spying on anyone in Germany, including Angela Markel.
The only thing that can go some way to rectifying the situation
is not to rely on the US guarantees of “we’re not going to spy on
you,” is to actually take the matters into their own hands
technologically and protect themselves technologically, and this
could have been done over 10 years ago.
RT:The leak came from an anonymous
high-level NSA official in Germany. So Edward Snowden is not the
only agency whistleblower?
AM: Possibly yes. This has been built on Bild am
Sonntag, which is a bit of a tabloidian newspaper. It is being
reported everywhere but it does not suggest any collaboration one
way or the other about this actual fact. So who knows? But I
think the principles go deeper, which is if you are in Germany,
you are to going be spied on. And it’s rather sad because in
2001, in July, in Europe, there was a decision taken by the
European Parliament to actually break away from the US dependency
that we have in Europe, on their technological systems and
everything, things like Microsoft, all the other systems they’ve
developed since then. And we could have then develop our own
systems in Europe which would have been independent and much more
secure and would have guaranteed our European system privacy. And
this was of course abandoned after 9/11 in the US. And it would
be good to get back to that. I hope that the European Parliament
is revisiting the possibility of building up that market here.
RT:US official communications are also
monitored by foreign powers, as we saw with the leaked
conversation involving US diplomat Victoria Nuland. Isn’t it just
part of statecraft? Is it just the way the game is played?
AM: Of course it is. Countries do spy on each
other. The point is that the German intelligence agency should be
protecting their German politicians and the German
government...[from] being spied on by other governments and other
intelligence agencies. That is what they are there to do. Not to
be complicit in helping the NSA and the US intelligence agencies
to spy on people in their own country. That is not what they are
there for. They are there to protect the national integrity,
national security of the German country. And if they are
complicit, and we know that they are complicit from the
revelations from Edward Snowden, things like XKeyscore, then they
are not doing their job to protect the German constitution, the
German people.
RT:Do you think there is a possibility of a
new infrastructure that would work its way around US surveillance
in order to trade information without any involvement or possible
eavesdropping? Do you think that could be successful?
AM: I think it is still possible, yes. And I
think it will be a win-win for Europe, because it will be
building up an independent knowledge base, it will be good for
business, it would protect all our privacies, not just in terms
of people spying on people because of intelligence – things like
the protection of our financial transactions over the internet,
our medical records over the internet – all these key privacy
issues.
And if Europe can actually move towards, as a continent, towards
building the infrastructure that protects the system’s rights
here, I think that is exactly the European Parliament, and
exactly what our national government should be doing in Europe.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.