Surveillance Capitalism

Mitsotakis is the Prime Minister of Greece and, along with his party, New Democracy, bears responsibility for the authoritarian transformation of this southeastern pillar of the EU and NATO.

Greece is on the front lines of the war on migration (Pylos massacre, 1), tramples over corpses as a pioneer of neoliberalism and corruption (Tempi train “accident,” 2), has an impressive track record of police killings (3) and also deserves to be held accountable for the imprisonment of comrades in the Ambelokipi case.

Impairing this regime’s ability to act can save many lives. The personnel who, on behalf of the Greek government, commit numerous murders, acts of torture, arrests, and pushbacks, require a constant supply of substantial financial resources and social legitimacy. These resources must be targeted.

The police cooperation agreement reached in December shows the direction New Democracy is heading. The following quote is not satire:

“Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chryssochoidis and China’s Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong signed a police cooperation agreement Tuesday in Athens, strengthening ties between the two countries on key security issues. According to a ministry statement, the agreement focuses on combating organized and financial crimes, drug trafficking and managing illegal migration. It also includes provisions for information sharing, technical expertise and officer training to enhance operational capabilities.
Chryssochoidis proposed forming a coordinating committee to prioritize actions against organized crime, aiming to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of both countries’ police services.

The meeting at the Greek ministry was attended by senior officials from China’s Public Security Ministry, China’s ambassador to Greece, the head of the Hellenic Police, and high-ranking Greek police officials, as well as the minister’s diplomatic advisor.
Both sides reaffirmed strong cooperation between Greece and China, emphasizing their shared commitment to addressing common security challenges and promoting social stability.“

(from the regime-controlled media: ~~https://www.ekathimerini.com/politics/foreign-policy/1255251/greece-and-china-sign-police-collaboration-agreement/~~)

What “social stability” in the Chinese model means for Mitsotakis is evident in the increasing permanent surveillance of several city districts by drones and the crackdown on universities, where any opposition is to be stifled in order to make them compliant as think tanks of the old elites. In drone development, Greek universities are collaborating with ELTA Systems of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), despite student resistance.(4) Continue reading “Germany: Switch off the Mitsotakis regime!” →

DEMOCRACY IS THE OTHER FACE OF FASCISM

Since two years we live in a state of emergency without end, following the advance of a virus that has become a global pandemic. Sooner or later it had to happen in a globalized and capitalist world that for mere profit destroys the natural environment, where goods and people move in a short time from one end of the planet to another (and only the poor are rejected at the borders) and where more than half of the world’s population lives crowded in mega-urbanized cities.

The emergency proclaimed, however, has been used by the state not to put hand to the health sector, decimated by continuous cuts that governments have made over the years and that have caused so many preventable deaths (not only because of the virus), but in order to accelerate all those authoritarian and coercive mechanisms of which the democratic regime is capable.

We are not only talking about the compulsory vaccination for certain categories (health workers, teachers, over 50) about which there would be much to discuss, but especially about the social control put in place, not least the instrument of the Green Passport, which is still only a step towards the race to forced digitization of all the data that concern us. Controlling and trading digital data, as we know, is the new frontier of “surveillance capitalism,” which through emergency management is gaining momentum.

From tracking apps to facial recognition cameras, from the internet of things to artificial intelligence, technology at the service of masters and states, which was not born to simplify our existence but to monitor us, will be increasingly present in our lives, but it is only with the digitization of data and their transmission (5G, ultra-wideband) and interconnection (home automation, smart-city) that this will be possible. It is no coincidence that the PNRR of the Draghi government, the Italian Recovery Fund financed with European money, for a large part serves to channel astronomical sums towards surveillance technologies and the digital modernization of all essential sectors: school, work, telecommunications networks, mobility and health (with telemedicine). It is also not by chance that the Draghi government has made it easier for public administration bodies and institutions to collect and process personal data, through an article of the Capienze Decree that last October abrogated article 2 of the Privacy Code, also reducing the role of the Guarantor in charge of data protection.

For many people perhaps it is not a problem that their data are used by private companies, multinationals and state institutions, through massive surveillance. People still think that because they do nothing wrong, their data is not a secret. But social control is never something that concerns only the sphere of personal freedoms and privacy; there are several reasons to oppose the digitalization of data and invasive tools such as the Green pass, among the most immediate: from the ease of the employer in monitoring his own employee (and riders and Amazon employees know something about it!) to those living in a situation of forced illegality (see undocumented migrants) who see their lives continuously threatened by the increase of increasingly sophisticated monitoring devices. Let’s not forget then the discrimination of those who already today do not have access to new technologies, that is often the poorest people in society, who see their access to rights and social services undermined, conquered years ago at the cost of hard struggles. Continue reading “Italy: Democracy is the other face of fascism” →