Nationwide Snooping System Launched In India

knwny writes "The Times of India reports that 'India has launched a wide-ranging surveillance program that will give its security agencies and even income tax officials the ability to tap directly into e-mails and phone calls without oversight by courts or parliament, several sources said.'" Adds an anonymous reader: "What's chilling is the comments from senior officials indicating that parts of the program are already live, without absolutely any discussion in public about it."

Comments

Code monkey see, code monkey do

[stewsters]

This is the real damage the NSA has done in spying on the American people. Now every other country feels like they need it, because the US does. In the west, it used to be bashed as something only oppressive regimes did. Soon it will be everyone.

Re:Code monkey see, code monkey do

[cold fjord]

This is the real damage the NSA has done in spying on the American people. Now every other country feels like they need it, because the US does.

Ah, cultural chauvinism.... how on earth could those other people find the way if they didn't have an example to follow? I'll break it to you gently: Neither the terrorism by al Qaida nor the alleged surveillance by the Indian government has much of anything to do with the US. They each have their own independent values, ideals, goals, and work to achieve them. Spying by government and terrorism existed long before the United States, and it wasn't psychic powers anticipating the United States that induced people to engage in those practices then any more than it does today.

Al Qida wants to restore what they believe to be the lost glory of Islamic civilization of a 1,000 years ago, recreate the Islamic Caliphate that was dissolved in 1923 after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, conquer the world for Islam, and convert the world's peoples to Islam. They want to overthrow pretty much all of the existing governments in Muslim nations for not following their strict interpretation of Islam. You may think it is unrealistic, but that is their goal, even if it takes 1,000 years. The existence of nonexistence of the United States has little to do with it. If you want to blame anyone, blame Europe for repelling the Muslim invasion at the gates of Vienna in 1683.

And when it comes to India, the largest democracy in the world, as a rapidly modernizing country that is supplier of IT talent to the world, why should they be left out of the surveillance sweepstakes? They might have a reasonable concern or two at home, given they have an active Maoist communist insurgency, which conducted 351 attacks in 2011, and a bit of a terrorism problem arising from both their neighbor Pakistan and a small fraction of the native 100,000,000 Indian citizens that are Muslim. Maybe you've heard of the Mumbai attack? As it happened: Mumbai attacks 29 Nov - 195 people dead and hundreds more injured.

The Indian people and government will have to find their own way, and strike their own balance to match their own conditions, traditions, and laws.

Re:Code monkey see, code monkey do

[just_a_monkey]

Yeah. Remember when the main differences between "us" and "them" was that our side did not monitor their subjects' every move, and did not torture people? Those were the days.

Outsourcing Concern

[TheAngryMob]

So, does this mean that the Indian Government will get to see everything that's outsourced to India, including US Government contracts?

Basically, any corrupt Indian official (which apparently, there are more than a few) with access can sell trade and/or government secrets from any outsourced company.

Way to set the standard NSA.

Re:Precisely, and whether we care to admit it..

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.S. sets the international standard. If the U.S. is doing it, it must be okay.

Exactly.

It will be quite interesting to see if people in other nations take to the streets in protest while most USians have shown they'll continue the status quo eating cheeseburgers and watching wrasslin'.

But just wait..

[tekrat]

When China implements the exact same system, the US will criticize it as a human rights violation. And when China decides it also wants to spy on US citizens, the US will call it "hacking".

Hey, NSA... you see what you've done? You've made it so that the very idea of privacy seems 'illegal" now somehow, that if you want privacy, you must be trying to hide something, so now, everyone in the world will want to snoop on everyone else in the world.

Do you see what you've done? You've proven that Ted Kaczynski was *right*.