Should we trust we have never been monitored by anyone or wait for Wikileaks to inform us about Big Brother watching
ISLAMABAD: For the past few months, the atmosphere in Pakistan seems to be punctuated by disclosures of scandals. The Pakistan government and watchdog institutions have seemingly remained unaware about a lot of issues surrounding Pakistan, nationally and globally. The issues and conspiracies that have jeopardised Pakistan’s reputation are rarely uncovered by Pakistani authorities themselves and instead come to light through international sources. An example is the revelation of the recent fake degree business running openly and having international presence. It should be noted, however, that Pakistan has already experienced the issue of fake degrees where unethical parliamentarians were exposed by the Higher Education Commission. Still, our watchdogs continue to fail at tracing corrupt forces in the country. As such, international players have to interfere and inform us about our own incompetence. Another recent issue uncovered by outsiders was the question mark over the loyalty of a major political party to Pakistan.
Why is Pakistan under the shadow of ignorance and so ill-informed about huge conspiracies against national dignity and interest? Pakistan has the ability to handle such issues as it has already been handling accusations from India and pressure from the US, but it remains ignorant of malignant forces within Pakistan and waits for outsiders to disclose serious pieces of information.
A final example is the recent concern of digital rights activists and lawmakers, who claimed that Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters gained access to Pakistan’s internet exchange through its computer network exploitation. The revelations were not leaked by Pakistanis, but by journalists Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Fishman, who claimed that with the use of vulnerabilities in software reverse-engineering and Cisco routers, the agency accessed almost every user of the internet inside Pakistan. We do not know what is being done to our state; instead, international activists are alerting us to be careful. When compared with developed countries, such as Germany, France and Russia, whose heads have been monitored and tapped by the American National Security Agency (NSA), Pakistan could not stop the tapping and monitoring of its heads of state. What technology does Pakistan have to challenge and compete with NSA and other powerful agencies? Should we trust that we have never been monitored by anyone or wait for Wikileaks to inform us about the Big Brother watching the state’s powerful people?
Agha Attaullah Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, July 15th, 2015.
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