However, a news story appeared recently which falls very neatly into this blog's purview. Recently US bombs destroyed a hospital in Afghanistan, a "neutral" hospital being run by the French-based charity, Doctors Without Borders. Destroying any hospital, not just a neutral one, is a war crime. Somebody could receive significant punishment for this. As you might expect, the U.S. government is hemming and hawing, floating different excuses for why this happened, to see what sticks. A UN independent investigation will eventually be convened, but it will take years merely to obtain the evidence and documents, and nobody expects the US to hand over any evidence which is actually incriminating of itself.
Edward Snowden has a quick solution, however: It's to note that the bomber pilots, like everyone else, are under surveillance. Turn over the bomber cockpit recordings to the UN investigation and the investigation will make a lot of progress very quickly.
Snowden on Twitter: AC-130 Warplanes record the gunner's video and audio. It's time to release the tapes to an independent investigation.
So this is a perfect example of the point that this blog is trying to get across. We are all being surveiled in order to detect "potential" criminal (e.g. terrorist) behavior. Everyone is already being surveiled, including people in the established power structure. However, the surveillance will never be used to detect and expose abuses by those in the existing power structure, not unless the people demand such a thing with a united voice. Not even when the already-existing surveillance could clearly be used to further the cause of justice. This applies not only to politicians and the military, but also to police and even to other powerful people such as bankers and corporate executives, whose crimes and abuses could easily be captured (doubtless already are captured) by the electronic surveillance. This is an unequal power relationship which is dangerous and imbalanced, and that's something we all need to know about and to fight to the extent possible.
