NSA turns out to have been cooperating with major tech companies to create backdoors for spying. This includes most network manufacturers. They keep a catalog of the products they can supply with a backdoor. Recently the phone tapping and storage of metadate by the NSA has been judged to be legal and valuable to fight terrorism. Well, if that argument comes back from high court the game is up for US civil society.
“A document viewed by SPIEGEL resembling a product catalog reveals that an NSA division called ANT has burrowed its way into nearly all the security architecture made by the major players in the industry “
This might all seem irrelevant, but it has great impact on the fight for renewables. The US is run by fossil fuel which speaks through its policies and slow adoption of more safer energy sources. The country (combined with Canada) is really a power block for the dependence on fossil fuel. The fight agains renewables also takes the shape of buying up innovative companies, moving them to the US or Canada and letting them lanquish if they threaten the status quo. The NSA has been selling and offering services to the big US corporations. Do you think this will have had an effect on the succes of renewables? Only companies with large cash positions can move freely, one example is Google building their own Ivanpah solar towers.
If every hub and swith, every desk phone and so on has an NSA backdoor (the hackability of desk phones has already been established and was never prevented in earnest) this means European tech companies, if they are not already fully financially transparent to the US, may also have been leaking knowledge to whomever was interested. This has helped the US pro fossil fuel agenda, in fact, it is questionable if there would be spying if the primary energy source in the US was solar.
This is all good news for the environment, jobs and technology, as it will lead to more purchasing and more investment in security in Europe. The trust is devestated, anyone with a brain of any value will try to avoid US technology. What’s next, Apple inc proves to be a total NSA whore as well?