The Empire and the Barbarians in Internet Times

[unhappycamper]

http://watchingamerica.com/News/239235/the-empire-and-the-barbarians-in-internet-times/



The Internet — where boundaries seem to disappear — can be a tool for liberation or domestication, and could serve to move toward more justice or the extension of existing inequalities and domination.

The Empire and the Barbarians in Internet Times
By Iroel Sánchez
Translated By Robert Sullivan
17 May 2014
Edited by Bora Mici

~snip~

With propaganda, redoubled vigilance and fourth-generation wars, the empire wants to keep the barbarians under control and away from its borders. With a waste of billions of dollars for over 55 years, the U.S. government is trying in Cuba what we have seen happen in Ukraine, and what we have seen repeatedly attempted in Venezuela: Training and funding terrorists, illegal radio and television, and the construction of a currency for an internal "opposition" have preceded the use of the Internet for the same purpose; and recent operations, which the American press has revealed, have used information and communications technology for the strategy of "regime change" in Cuba.

For a Cuban, it might seem too much to insist on it, but the ignorance and obscurity that I found here on the subject compel me to narrate the latest in a seemingly endless war.

While the revelations of former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden continue exposing the American use of global communications for intelligence and control, the Associated Press news agency shined a light on a program known as ZunZuneo, funded by the United States Agency for International Development, that created a network of users in Cuba through mobile phones with the aim of provoking a situation similar to the so-called "Arab Spring." While the spokespersons of the White House and Department of State and the USAID director denied the illegal, secret and political nature of ZunZuneo, successive AP reports have revealed front companies in third countries managing ZunZuneo; theft of data from the users of the Cuban telecommunications company, ETECSA; the ranking of those users by their political attitudes; and a meeting between Vice President Joe Biden with several people associated with the program.

Following these revelations, news broke of similar programs against Cuba, known as Piramideo and Commotion — the latter was revealed by the New York Times — which USAID tested in Tunisia. The scandal has been great, but with the exception of Telesur, the Mexican daily La Jornada and the Argentine Page 12, few Latin American media have investigated or published analyses on the subject.