HARD on the heels of the revelations last June from the US whistleblower Edward Snowden that American and British spy agencies can access all the private information on the internet, comes new evidence that the spooks have done the same for smart phones.
An article published last weekend, the German magazine, Der Spiegal, claims to have evidence that the US National Security Agency (NSA) and its British equivalent (GCHQ) have for years been working on ways to crack the security codes on smart phones from all the major manufacturers including iPhone’s, BlackBerry’s and Google’s Android operating systems.
Cracking these codes means that NSA and GCHQ can tap into all the information stored on these phones.
The sensitive data now readily available to the state’s secret spying organisation includes contact lists, all text messages, and information about where the phone user has been.
Der Spiegal also claims that anyone linking their smart phone to their computer is opening the door for spies to walk right in and secretly steal every bit of information on it.
Last week it was made public that the NSA had created a programme to bypass common internet encryption intended to protect digital communications.
They did this by hacking into the servers of private companies to steal encryption keys, collaborating with tech companies to build in back doors, and covertly introducing weaknesses into encryption standards.
In addition, it has been known for a long time that the NSA and GCHQ have the ability to record all domestic and international phone calls, calls that can be fed through voice recognition computers to identify the callers.
At the same time, the state snoopers have been busy developing similar software for facial recognition to be used in conjunction with the mass surveillance carried out by CCTV cameras – there are estimated to be nearly two million CCTV cameras in Britain.
The aim of the capitalist state is to develop the means for total surveillance of the entire population through monitoring every phone call or internet message right down to being able to track individuals from the moment they leave the house either through cctv or by car through the number plate recognition system.
The mantra relied upon by bourgeois politicians to justify this massive extension of state surveillance is the ‘war against terrorism’ accompanied by the usual claim that if you are innocent you have nothing to fear from all this bugging and spying.
In fact, this mass, and illegal, spying operation has nothing to do with ‘terrorists’ but is against the real ‘enemy within’ as Margaret Thatcher famously dubbed the NUM during the 1985 year-long miners’ strike.
Today it’s not just the miners’ union but the entire working class that is the ‘enemy’.
Bankrupt capitalism is facing a fight for its very survival as its crisis is revolutionising workers and youth who are refusing to pay the price for keeping the bosses and the bankers in profit.
In this crisis the capitalist state is forced to drop the facade of class neutrality and is exposed for what it is – the naked instrument of class repression to be used in the war against the working class.
All the old propaganda about freedom of the individual has been dumped – the only freedom capitalism will permit for the working class is the freedom to be exploited mercilessly.
What terrifies the ruling class is that the working class is much stronger than all the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state.
A general strike would paralyse the capitalist state at a stroke, and render all their eavesdropping irrelevant.
The urgent issue is to demand that the TUC call an indefinite general strike to remove this government and go forward to a workers government and socialism where the state is under the control of the working class and not under that of the capitalist class.
