Privacy vs security

It comes as no surprise at all that the democracies of the world which swear by freedom of speech are guilty of employing the worst sort of online spies. Security is such an issue in the post-2001 world that many sins against the privacy of individuals are being freely committed. However, those living in countries leaning further towards totalitarianism may not read too much into all this since they are anyway inured to not enjoying the freedoms their brethren take for granted.

It is 25 years since the “World Wide Web” was invented by Tim Berners-Lee and his call for a Magna Carta kind of declaration may sound outlandish since no one in government would be inclined to support it. But the least the like-minded democracies can do is impose a set of conditions on themselves towards respecting Web privacy and freedom, which has been badly eroded after the revelations of Assange and Snowden.

The lengths governments are known to go to spy on their citizens are shocking in this advanced age of liberalism. The news of official spy agencies mimicking social media platforms to draw more information on people would make monarchs, dictators and oligarchies blush.

The deviousness of malcontents and outright terrorists out to disrupt world peace is one of the biggest worries of the post-modern world. However, the privacy of all citizens is not to be compromised in the name of going after rogue elements. There has to be an order and a method to the madness of metadata gathering of the type that NSA, GCHQ and CDT indulge in.