Paranoia

Well thank you WikiLeaks, you've done it again. Chosen your moment to perfection to spread the word that the spooks are watching you, reading your emails, listening to your phone calls, and hacking into your TV!! I have to say I am heartily sick of WikiLeaks. All they do is try to destroy your peace of mind. Just when you think life is improving, a new batch of secret secret stuff is published, showing that Big Brother is around more than ever. Well, as a journalist I suppose I should be happy that government secrecy is exposed, especially if innocent people's lives are being covertly monitored. But I did not welcome the arrival of Edward Snowden. My first reaction was that he was an extraordinarily dangerous traitor. He was a trusted employee of the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) and he just walked off with the Crown Jewels, got a few journalists to meet him in a hotel in Hong Kong, dished out all the secrets of the NSA in particular, and then, having done the damage, took a flight to Moscow where he has been ever since. He is America's version of Julian Assange. WikiLeaks founder Assange is stuck for life in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and Snowden is probably stuck for life in a flat in Moscow. Not much sympathy, in fact no sympathy for either. OK, so Snowden revealed stuff that showed the NSA's eavesdropping reach was burrowing into the lives of American citizens, foreign leaders, anyone with a funny-sounding name. And Obama, being Obama, took the middle road - attacking Snowden for his treachery on the one hand, and agreeing that reforms were needed to ensure the NSA was not abusing people's rights etc etc. Fine. But I can't believe and don't believe that the NSA was literally trying to monitor and eavesdrop on the world just for fun. There was method and motivation, not madness. It was all about protecting the United States from terrorism, and trying to find out what foreign leaders were thinking privately. Hey, this is called spying. It's what they do and what they've done for centuries. It just looks much worse today because the technology is so much more capable, and more available. It's good, therefore, to have restraints and accountability. I'm up for that, whether it be in the US or UK. But wholesale leaks of secret stuff can never be good for anyone because it creates the sense that nothing is private any longer. Above all, it creates paranoia. Washington right now is already beset with paranoia, and the worst culprit is Trump. He tweets paranoia every day. Now, according to WikiLeaks's latest handout, the CIA and NSA can hack into anything and everything. I didn't understand about their hacking into Samsung Smart TVs. Can't they watch Homeland on their own TVs?!!! But, thanks to WikiLeaks, we all now have to believe that we are under continuous surveillance. So what's new? Trump, remember, said he loved WikiLeaks because of their publication of the hacked emails from the Democratic National Party during the election campaign. I can't believe he likes the latest breach of secrecy. Well, whatever he thinks, I'm sure it won't stop WikiLeaks from continuing with its campaign to generate more paranoia and make sleeping at night just that bit more difficult.