Revealed: The Surveillance Industrial Complex

[unhappycamper]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/11/18-9



A slide from a private firm boasts technologies to monitor targets and communications.

Revealed: The Surveillance Industrial Complex
- Lauren McCauley, staff writer
Published on Monday, November 18, 2013 by Common Dreams

~snip~

Research watchdog Privacy International has compiled an online database entitled the Surveillance Industry Index (SII) which documents how private firms offer governments a "range of systems that allow them to secretly hack into internet cables carrying email and phone traffic."

According to the report, hawking these technologies with brochures and sales pitches at "private trade fairs," the largely-Western firms specifically target "repressive regimes" from nations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East offering them the same "powerful capabilities" as the NSA and GCHQ as a means of "political control."

"What we found, and what we are publishing, is downright scary," writes Matthew Rice, research consultant with Privacy International.

He adds that a number of the products revealed in the SII have been used to target pro-democracy activists, journalists and political opposition. Further, he notes that the firms frequently maintain "relationships" with the regimes by "upgrading their systems" and making customer service representatives available "for dictators and their cronies should anything go awry with their products."