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22-11-2013

THE BIG BEN AND THE SURVEILLANCE DISCLOSURES: WHAT DO THE BRITISH MEDIA SAY?

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Snowden cyclone has been hitting European and Euro-Atlantic political relationships again in the last few weeks, and the Great Britain found herself in the middle of it. The political atmosphere started becoming really tense when Snowden affirmed that French, German, Italian government and about other thirty world political leaders have been spied by the NSA; but it got even worse since, according to the latest revelations as the Daily and Sunday Express reported, British 007s have been cooperating with US secret services in gathering data form the Italian government and phone and spying on Italian citizens phone and internet traffic on a huge scale. Simultaneously the BBC impartially claimed that such wiretapping were just a little piece of a greater security operation called Tempora leaded by the British GCHQ agency (Government Communications Headquarters) linked to the NSA PRISM activities.

So, it’s easy understandable how uncomfortable David Cameron could have been at the last EU Council meeting in Brussels, where he found the other Council members concerned about the necessity of a new data protection legislation, request that was marked as «unrealistic» by British Prime Minister.

Moreover, The Independent delicately underlined the fact that Cameron had to face “questions” related to the fact that the GCHQ have been accused of having hacked Belgacom communication network, a Belgian telecommunication company that provides its services to the EU institutions. 

The Independent also enlightened how Cameron defended Britain's spy services anyway, pointing his finger directly to Edward Snowden who «is frankly signalling to people who mean to do us harm how to evade and avoid intelligence and surveillance». 

The Guardian and The Daily Mail started a quarrel precisely about the “finding the true culprit” issue. The Guardian, a well-known politically independent headline that has published all Snowden’s revelations so far, didn’t save the government form harsh criticism about its role in the whole surveillance disclosures saga; on the other side, The Daily Mail constantly supports the British government and British secret services in the national security name.

This snap-shot might illustrate what’s the political atmosphere in London. Anyway, beyond all the shades, beyond all the political sides, and beyond the unquestionable truth, the British government has been negatively marked and now it’s finding itself trapped in a political labyrinth from which is desperately trying to escape. 

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Alessandro Mazzilli

Degree in International Relations at the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Turin.

Expert in Foreign Policy of Defence and Security and the relationships Euro - Atlantic.

Geopolitical analyst.

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