06.13.13
So obvious even dimwits understand
Between Ricin Mom and the Snowden affair, an embarrassment of riches. Too amusing to pass up.
After serving as conduits for the US government’s push tarring Chinese cyber-spying as a serious threat to the nation, as well as being unsporting, our free press is hip to let us all know what “state run” Chinese media has to say.
From the Los Angeles Times, where the reporters don’t know shit from shinola on the topics of cybersecurity, cyberwar and cyber-espionage (no backlink, tar-baby scripting and infinite load):
After days of silence, state media have let loose with a barrage of criticism concerning Snowden’s allegations of a massive electronic surveillance program by the United States. The English-language China Daily ran a large cartoon of a shadowed Statue of Liberty, holding a tape recorder and microphone instead of a tablet and torch …
In Hong Kong, the pro-Communist Party Takungpao newspaper added: “If the U.S. is the true defender of democracy, human rights and freedom like it always described itself … President Obama should sincerely apologize to the people from other countries whose privacy was violated.’’
Of course, the criticism is irresistible, the opportunity too rich to pass up. For months now, the U.S. government has demanded that the Chinese government rein in an extensive military-sponsored hacking operation. During last weekend’s summit between Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping, cybersecurity was the main item on the U.S. agenda.Snowden, the 29-year-old former U.S. government contractor who says he leaked National Security Agency secrets and is now in hiding in Hong Kong, alleged in an interview published early Thursday in the South China Morning Post that there had been more than 61,000 NSA hacking operations internationally, hundreds of them directed against China and Hong Kong.
“Chinese dissidents say they fear that the scandal will weaken the United States’ ability to take the high ground in pushing for more freedoms from Beijing,” adds the reporter.
“It is unfair to compare what the U.S. does to China … The U.S. program is trying to prevent certain terrorist activities, while China is listening in to monitor what dissidents are saying and writing. People get thrown into jail here just for an email,’’ one dissident told the reporter.
And people get thrown in jail for lots of things in the US. That ain’t much of a counter-argument anymore.
But we have freedom to shop and say whatever we like on Facebook and Twitter.
Bet on it, this will be just a faint memory by August. Especially after we’re told about all the terrorists we were saved from, Monday.
“What happened to us?” segment from Watchmen.