Stop Fundamentalism – During the outbreak of social discontent in Iran back in 2009, many activists who used their mobile phones and public internet connections to make the international community aware of what was going on in the streets were quickly arrested by regime agents. Those dissidents who managed to escape the country after or during the unrest expressed anger at those western companies who have provided the Iranian dictators with the most sophisticated electronic equipments to filter, monitor, and track down dissidents.
The stories that used to come from Iran at time were so unbelievable that for some time people ignored the cries of those telling it as scince fiction and credited the quick response by Iranian Intelligence forces to their intelligence. But soon the world found out who has been giving away Iranian protesters to mullahs security forces.
Some companies have announced they have stopped providing such equipment to Iran since but the size of this business is astonishing and the disrespect for human life and freedom by western companies is to be shamed.
Wikileaks has just released a sizable report in its series of revelations called the “SpyFiles”, revealing how far this technology has gone.
“Mass interception of entire populations is not only a reality, it is a secret new industry spanning 25 countries,” says Wikileaks on its website.
“When citizens overthrew the dictatorships in Egypt and Libya this year, they uncovered listening rooms where devices from Gamma Corporation of the UK, Amesys of France, VASTech of South Africa and ZTE Corp of China monitored their every move online and on the phone,” said the website.
Reporters without Boarders condemn what it called as the “criminal cooperation” between western hi-tech companies and authoritarian regimes.
But the companies don’t just sell to dictators, says the Wikileaks, western governments are also good customers of such products. The point that is disturbing is that in the old days, intelligence agencies used to spy on one or two persons for any type of reason they may have had. But now, says Wikileaks,” mass surveillance have become the norm.” As an example, says the website, a company named VASTech secretly sells equipment that can permanently record phone calls of an entire country.
“The surveillance equipments are used all over the world,” says Reporters without Boarders, “by armed forces, intelligence agencies, democratic governments and repressive regimes.”
