The ‘Pegasus’ Prick
We tend to elapse that there lies a perpetual, thin red line between ‘intelligence’ and ‘stupidity’ !
Sharad’s Sunday Sojourns (week # 485 | 1st August 2021)
“Spying on our citizens? That’s just wrong.” … Matt Rosendale.
Espionage is an ancient game.
Has been for decades and centuries.
Historians possess and have preserved ample records documenting the old day spying techniques and objectives, concerning the then English, French and Spanish intelligence activities.
KGB, CIA, Mossad, ISI… they are as much famous (or infamous) as their states and statesmen, in pursuit of ‘innovation’, to get hold of the perpetrators.
We haven’t elapsed the Cold War times, have we?
And especially post 9/11, espionage has been and will remain one of the most dominant, but indirect (isn’t that an oxymoron?) force ever contemplated to decipher superior, critical intelligence, mainly to avert catastrophes.
Saying that, how much of these are legal, sanctioned, and justified, is an altogether different issue!
Of late, the media screens are ablaze with the news of the ‘Pegasus Project’.
Now Israel, as we all know, is a big, old player in the chess game, who majorly have initiated with the white!
We all know, thanks to Snowden and Assange, what NSA did (and still doing) to average American households.
This is nothing novel and probably is not even a news anymore.
And yet, we scream when we hear that the current ruling administration in India is keeping a close ‘eye’ on its citizens!
Why did I say citizens? It’s only to lay surveillance on the members of the opposition parties, isn’t it?
Well, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?
Somehow, I am being stoned and lauded at the same time, when I raise a finger at the current ruling party.
Stoned, since their ardent admirers perceive them to be saviours!
Lauded, since a vast majority believes that the current government has done more harm than good while advancing the management of critical issues concerning public health, financial management, urban and rural planning and governance, as well as to create an aura of transparency.
Who is right? Who is wrong? Apparently, none and both.
It’s not the time to argue.
However, the government who has literally played with the lives of the citizens in the midst of a rampaging pandemic, denied (at least initially) enabling a free vaccine campaign to all its citizens, and has raised the bar so low in the management of a public health issue of international concern, and later, the pandemic, I seriously do not know how and even why, to have any sympathy whatsoever, to these executors.
You see, it’s a tug-of-war.
When Snowden demonstrated with evidence, regarding the spying of NSA to literally every American household, the world stood up and took notice.
End game? NSA wins, Snowden lose!
Assange, howsoever right or wrong, would never be able to return back to a normal life.
See the other way around.
Will CIA, KGB, Mossad, amongst others, be ever held accountable for any wrongdoings? I doubt.
Since they are hell bent on preventing crimes against the state.
Accepted. To some degree, I give them credits, too!
But haven’t we all heard that there is a thin, red line between intelligence and stupidity?
Today, we are mere slaves to the tech giants and their masterful soft espionage machinery.
Take Google, for instance. Or Facebook.
They know your preferences, your choice, your dissatisfactions, and your inclinations.
We are engulfed in a bubble in such a fierce way, 24x7, that sans that ‘attention’, we sometimes begin to ponder, are we not relevant anymore?
Investors are slaves to the market.
Generations are slaves to their contiguous ambience.
And as it seems, we are slaves to our own benefactors!
Only time will tell, how low we settle, or how much resistance we can generate.
I agree with John McAfee (recently deceased): “There’s not a single flashlight app that’s not spying on you right now.”
(Video courtesy: YouTube / The Guardian)
