Our Orwellian World

NZ Herald columnist, John Roughan reflects on the outrage being expressed against a government's electronic spying on its own citizens.  He argues that while the spying is not particularly welcome, it is a necessary price we pay in a world where (Islamic) terrorists are able to operate far more secretively, with less footprint than in previous ages.  

The terrorism of 40 years ago was different from today's in one important respect. Those holding hostages at Entebbe or the Munich Olympics didn't want to die. That means they needed an organisation, facilities for negotiating, backchannels, lines of escape, a country of refuge. They had something for spies to watch.

Today's suicide bombers have no such organisation. With the inspiration of 9/11 they need only some knowledge of explosives and detonation, readily available on the net. They can live quietly and unobtrusively in a modern city until their chosen hour.  All things considered, it is remarkable there have not been more explosions like those in the London underground in 2005 and at the Boston marathon this year. If access to phone and internet logs has helped prevent more of them, the spies are welcome to mine.

It's generous of John to welcome the spies to his own phone and internet logs.
  But what happens when the government becomes a bigger threat to the citizen than Islamic terrorists?  What then?  Well, we expect that sanguinary John would probably retort that such a thing would never happen.

CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson has recently been a thorn in the side of the Obama administration.  She has done a lot of digging on the Bengazi scandal and on the Justice Department's gun running operations into Mexico (ineptly titled Fast and Furious).  Attkinson recently became concerned that her computer(s) had been hacked.  CBS hired a forensic analyst to examine said computers.  Yesterday they announced:

A cyber security firm hired by CBS News has determined through forensic analysis that Sharyl Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012. 

Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson’s accounts. While no malicious code was found, forensic analysis revealed an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data.

This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion.

CBS News is taking steps to identify the responsible party and their method of access.

Let's hope that the attempt to identify the responsible party is successful.  We expect, dollars to doughnuts, that the culprits will be a combination of the US Department of Justice and the NSA and their affiliates.  Presumably the US Department of Justice has decided that Attkinson was a threat to national security and had been confabulating with jihadis.  Ya think?

Maybe John Roughan needs to rethink his simplistic, naive approach.