I have always been what the internet savvy folks call a LASTMAN. That’s why am going to grumble about the $40m internet surveillance contract days after others have held their peace. Our very own government has paid a bunch of Israeli boys a great sum of money to peep into our internet accounts. Let’s get this straight, am not scared of this contract oh! Am only scared of the contract sum. That money would have done much to re stock the Unical library.
Granted that we are in perilous times in the country, I would have still thought that the state would know better than to peer into her citizens internet accounts, e-mails, and so on in such a brazen manner. By the way I know that if the government needs to access some things on the internet for purposes of security, they wouldn’t need an Israeli company to do that. Or do they want to say that all this time they have never used backdoors in moments of emergency to access files? This seems to me as an instance where a country in furtherance of international relations decides to award a contract to a foreign company, reminding me of the adage that says something about a person drinking poison out of deference to another!
Well, I for see that sometime in the future, there will be a legislation to stop Nigerians from registering in some of these social media sites, worse still, some of these sites will be banned in Nigeria. When this will happen I shall not gloat that my prophecy has come true. I shall weep for the final burial of civil rights in our country.
Well since the contract has been signed, I’d recommend that the company so contracted try as much as possible to use tags in searching for whatever they are searching for (lest I am seen as being uninterested with the security of the country) so that they don’t go about looking into discussions between husbands and wives which may border on the wife’s inability to provide her services timeously! Doing a background check on some security threatening accounts may also help limit the extent to which harmless and private discussions will be desecrated. It is also hoped that the surveillance people will not start closing down some twitter and facebook accounts which have been on the fore front of human rights crusades. If they are looking for accounts to close down, I think I can recommend a few, starting from those who will never tweet/post any opinion that is not adult rated.
Finally, I am sure GEJ whispers in his house and disapproves nosy eavesdroppers. We ask for the same priviledges, is it too much to ask our own dear country for?
