Coverage of the new Telecom Breach

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/04/senators-response-chinese-hack-us-telecoms-00192728

Just as Trump prepares to enter office, the Blue Team, the Anti-China lobby has been given a gift. It's now confirmed that Beijing has been engaged in a major hacking/surveillance project within the United States. The Right-wing is calling for retaliation.

This would include Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) a known multi-millionaire hawk, who chairs the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee. He serves as a Praetorian within the Senate, a voice for the intelligence agencies on Capitol Hill.

The outrage is reported in Western outlets but there is no context to the story. The fact that the US has aggressively penetrated Chinese communications (as revealed by Edward Snowden) is ignored. Beijing has also captured and eliminated large number of US spies within China itself. These stories have sparked some indignation in the West but the fact that it reveals an extensive US network within China is not open for comment or reflection. To even raise the suggestion that if the US is doing it, why can't they? - is to fall into the heresy of moral equivalence.

Nor does the media even raise the question of US domestic surveillance and the fact that Washington gathers intelligence on its own population. For what it's worth Democracy Now! has at least raised the possibility of some of the problems associated with surveillance and the US employment of Pegasus software, and the growing use of Artificial Intelligence.

Additionally an uncomfortable question that might be pursued is with regard to back-doors. The US government under the aegis of the Patriot Act and other legislation has not only tapped into data cables but insisted on back-doors in software which could be exploited by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Is it stretch to ask if these back-doors could be exploited by outside actors?

For some on the Left, the fears of the Trump administration using such tools to prosecute dissent or newly defined spheres of criminality are far more troubling than surveillance by China.

The story as told serves the purpose of stirring anger and fear. It's not quite on the level of what one finds on say the FOX channel but it's in the same vein and to the same end. And this story is not alone - the Right is presently pushing a narrative about mystery drones over New Jersey. The suggestion is that it must be China. When law enforcement officials reply that they're not sure what's happening, the Right cranks the fear level up another level - 'they must be covering up something.'

I have no doubt some of these people are sincere and blind to their hypocrisy, but many are just frauds and manipulators using fear to push their agenda.

See also:

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/5/surveilled_ronan_farrow_israel_spyware