I am only partially aware of Edward Snowden. I know that he is some kind of whistleblower, a dissident, and a former intelligence agency employee. I also know that United States Government deems him a criminal and he has currently taken asylum in Russia.
But apart from that, I do now know much about him. Oh wait. Didn’t Joe Rogan have him on his podcast? Hmm, let me check the link.
Here it is:
According to Wikipedia, Edward Snowden had applied to around 21 Countries for asylum, but due to US governmental pressure, he did not get refuge in any of them. Any who. I recently came across an interview where he used an expression, a phrase which is: “Architecture of Oppression”, which has caught my eye and I am moved to jot a bit about it.
In that interview, given to Vice’s Shane Smith, Edward Snowden has warned that the measures, taken by various governments to tackle the Coronavirus pandemic, could become the framework for an architecture of oppression to control people and constrict their liberty.
Since, Mr. Snowden used to work for CIA, he also said that even the intelligence agencies had warned about the outbreaks of such pandemics–as there are heaps of intelligence reports about such things.
Snowden goes on to say that the numbers coming from China cannot be trusted and the fact that it had given foreign journalists the marching orders also is a good indicator of that. Of course, reports of China having ordered 200,000 body bags from Taiwan have also surfaced, and the reason for the same can be easily speculated upon.
What Snowden fears is that various Countries have taken extraordinary measures in order to fight off the outbreak of this pandemic, which has been referred to as “Black Swan” event by many. Tech is being resorted to in for contact tracing which is an important measure to isolate all persons who have nolens volens come into contact with an infected person. Safe to say, “privacy” is a luxury that the humanity can ill-afford at the moment. Therefore, by the time the present crisis subsides, various regimes may not want to scale back the measures used in curbing the pandemic, and would in fact keep the framework, and can even build upon their own unique improvements, in order to strengthen their grip on power.
This is what he means by this Architecture of Oppression as I understand it and is a legitimate fear. All tyrannies, in a way, prey on the fears of the people. Ordinary folks have no problem in surrendering their liberties when there is a looming crisis. History is replete with such examples; and, we need not go into that.
Snowden, however, must be conscious that the country of his asylum is not exactly a model state when it comes to democracy, and freedom to criticize authority– rights which citizens of western democracies take for granted.
I also just remebered that there is a movie by the name ‘Snowden.’
