Edward Snowden exposes the Orwellian state

The big news is that, in the words of George Orwell “Big Brother is Watching You” – indeed everyone’s online communications are being constantly monitored and stored by the US Security Services.

The man behind exposing the creation of this “architecture of oppression” is Edward Snowden, an ex-employee of the National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Here is Edward Snowden being interviewed by Glenn Greenwald in Hong Kong:

The choice of Hong Kong by Edward Snowden is a brave choice and plunges China, the country who may have seemed the most likely to destroy individual freedom and privacy in the interests of erecting an Orwellian state, into the debate.

President Obama claims he welcomes the debate on the issue of whether an Orwellian state should be erected, which seems unlikely since he could have initiated the debate before, but has instead allowed the security services to proceed in secrecy.

In Orwell’s scheme of things, the total surveillance state described in 1984 came out of socialism, but it is remarkable that the destruction of human freedom in modern times is being spearheaded by both Republican and Democratic politicians in the world’s most advanced capitalist economy.

To understand the motivation behind the architects of the new system of total surveillance and power we can look to Orwell again:

“The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?”

What Edward Snowden has revealed, is that we are probably closer than ever to the ultimate Orwellian nightmare: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”