Spying for the rich

When the spies are challenged on the surveillance state they're inflicting on us, they say its all about security. Spying on our social networks, reading all our emails, logging all our phone calls is all to "protect" us from "terrorists" (a term which now includes people who tell us what the spies are doing). But the reality is a little different. In the case of Australia, it turns out that their spying is mostly economic, for the direct benefit of chosen Australian companies:

BHP was among the companies helped by Australian spy agencies as they negotiated trade deals with Japan, a former Australian Secret Intelligence Service officer says.

A former diplomat has also confirmed Australian intelligence agencies have long targeted Japanese companies. Writing in The Japan Times, Professor Gregory Clark said Australian companies were beneficiaries of intelligence operations.

"In Australia, favoured firms getting spy material on Japanese contract policies and other business negotiations used to joke how [it had] 'fallen off the back of a truck'," Professor Clark wrote.

So rather than spying to protect us, they're spying for the rich - and destroying our privacy to do it. We shouldn't tolerate this; instead we should shut them all down.

Meanwhile, from the NSALeaks, another reason not to use LinkedIn: because GCHQ uses it to conduct man-in-the-middle spyware insertion attacks. I guess that's another tech company destroyed by the spies then.