BAE Systems worked with a Danish cyber-security company to create Orwellian mass surveillance technology that led to the mass imprisonment of activists involved in organising popular uprisings, says the BBC.
Source/Credit: The New Arab
By Staff Report | June 15, 2017
The UK-based arms manufacturer, BAE systems, sold mass surveillance technology to repressive Arab states that was used to crush the Arab Spring popular uprising, an investigation has revealed.
BAE first sold the technology to Tunisian ex-dictator, Ben Ali, who used it monitor his opponents and imprison them without trial, an extensive BBC investigation reported on Wednesday.
"[It] works with keywords. You put in an opponent's name and you will see all the sites, blogs, social networks related to that user," said one former Tunisian security officer.
ETI also made exports to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Morocco and Algeria.
This list is made more extraordinary by the recognition that none of these countries experienced major popular uprisings in 2011.
BAE worked with a Danish cyber-security company called ETI to develop the system, called Evident, which helped authoritarian leaders keep tracks on their citizens' communications.
A former ETI employee told the BBC that the technology could “intercept any internet traffic.
"If you wanted to do a whole country, you could. You could pin-point people's location based on cellular data. You could follow people around. They were quite far ahead with voice recognition. They were capable of decrypting stuff as well."
Mass surveillance during and after the popular uprisings of 2011 was used to facilitate the mass incarceration of dissidents, leading to the eventual crushing of the popular movements.
"I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said more than 90 percent of the most active campaigners in 2011 have now vanished," Yahya Assiri, a former Saudi air force officer said, in reference to Saudi pro-democracy activists on social media.
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