What the fish (WTF) is the minister Hen thinking of when he announced plans to set up a Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) surveillance task force to "track cyber trends"? Euphemistically code named "Cyber Defence Operations Hub", the SAF unit will use its arsenal of surveillance equipment to "monitor cyber threats around the clock and beef up its networks against virtual threats." Is he taking the nefarious Internet Brigade, who troll non-PC blog sites and "convey messages" about libellous posts, to the next level?
The world is already polarised after Snowden exposed the plethora of classified intelligence snooping in place, including the interception of US and European telephone metadata and the PRISM and Tempora Internet surveillance programs. There are many who stay away from Google mail because they use bots to read your communications about promote products and services mentioned in the emails to plug the appropriate advertisements. Now we know even Microsoft, Yahoo! and FVacebook are selling you out to the US government. 49 percent of Americans polled thinks Snowden's disclosures the public interest while 44 percent thought it harms it. The rest of planet earth probably thinks votes along the similar lines.
In Singapore, more are likely to share Snowden's perspective that leaks were an effort "to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them." Especially when the dodgy ministers in charge can't even be transparent about simple things like PSI information. If it weren't for leaks, how else would we know that our anointed Minister for Muslim Affairs "has a more open-minded interpretation of the Koran"?
Soon, all of us in will need to master Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), the data encryption and decryption program for signing, encrypting and decrypting texts and e-mails, to keep the invasive buggers out of our private lives. Like the man says, offence is the best form of defence. Time to hit those manuals.
Tattler
*The writer blogs at singaporedesk.blogspot.com