On November 5th 2013, American officials offered some concessions over its spying tactics abroad. This includes some changes to how the US government conducts its phone and Internet surveillance programmes as long as they do not undermine the programmes’ effectiveness, U.S. officials told a privacy oversight board.

Comment:

“It’s almost incomprehensible and more than tragic that this kind of adversarial relationship exists between the government and the people; where fear and distrust prevail and government policies and actions are tearing down the Constitutional foundations of this nation. And if this descent into the deepening darkness of totalitarianism is not somehow aborted, then America will become a living hell.”—Michael Payne

With each passing day new revelations about the extent of US spying operations both at home and abroad are making headlines across the world. At home the National Security Agency (NSA) has been spying on millions of Americans by sweeping up metadata, and tapping data centres of leading American companies such as Google. Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google attacked NSA practices and said, “It’s really outrageous that the National Security Agency was looking between the Google data centres, …The steps that the organization was willing to do without good judgment to pursue its mission and potentially violate people’s privacy, it’s not OK.”

However, Schmidt’s remarks do not absolve American companies from the brewing spy scandal. On the contrary, the existence of the notorious PRISM programme, which collects internet communication in collaboration with leading US tech companies such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, belittles Schmidt’s remarks. Additionally, PRISM is the number one source of raw intelligence used for NSA’s analytic reports, and it accounts for 91% of the NSA’s Internet traffic acquired under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) section 702. This squarely places American tech companies at the forefront of the digital spying efforts.

The scale and magnitude of the spying operation led by NSA on foreign shores is simply mind boggling. For instance it is claimed that between December 10, 2012 and January 8, 2013 NSA spied on 70.3 million phone calls in France. In Spain, NSA secretly tracked 60 million phone calls in Spain in a single month. The agency has also spied on at least 35 foreign leaders and the most high profile victim is Angela Merkel whose phone was tapped for at least 10 years. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff cancelled a visit to the US in protest, and a statement on behalf of Merkel said, “Among close friends and partners… there should be no such monitoring of the communications of a head of government.” The statement also said that Mrs Merkel had told Mr Obama: “Such practices must be prevented immediately.”

Leaving aside America’s enemies, American citizens and America’s allies abroad must be wondering what crimes they have committed to warrant such extensive intrusion into their privacy. The Obama government has sought to play down the outpouring of rage over NSA tactics by offering feeble justifications ranging from the prevention of terrorism to every country spies and America is no different. For instance, NSA’s Director, General Keith Alexander, claimed the NSA surveillance had contributed to the prevention of 54 terror plots. But after media furore of over the claims, NSA’s deputy Director admitted that only one terror plot was foiled due surveillance.

The fallout from America’s spy programme has been immediate and far reaching. American technology giants such as Microsoft, Google, Verizon, AT&T are facing credibility issues after being caught red handed in aiding and abetting NSA, and the EU is reconsidering its intelligence cooperation with the US. Meanwhile Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC countries) are accelerating plans to complete the building of a new internet.

So clearly then the crisis for America is not limited to overturning its trust-deficit with allies and other countries. Rather, America the harbinger of freedom and democracy faces a much graver threat i.e. its behaviour is incompatible with the values it espouses. Already, some notable American personalities are raising their voices. For example, when Jimmy Carter was asked about Edward Snowden’s exposure of Washington’s secret global surveillance system, he said, “America does not have a functioning democracy at this point in time.”

Islam has specified clear rules about the Islamic state spying on its citizens.

Allah سبحانه وتعالى says in the Holy Quran:

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اجْتَنِبُوا كَثِيرًا مِنَ الظَّنِّ إِنَّ بَعْضَ الظَّنِّ إِثْمٌ وَلَا تَجَسَّسُوا وَلَا يَغْتَبْ بَعْضُكُمْ بَعْضًا أَيُحِبُّ أَحَدُكُمْ أَنْ يَأْكُلَ لَحْمَ أَخِيهِ مَيْتًا فَكَرِهْتُمُوهُ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ إِنَّ اللَّهَ تَوَّابٌ رَحِيمٌ

“You who have iman! Avoid most suspicion. Indeed some suspicion is a crime. And do not spy and do not backbite one another. Would any of you like to eat his brother’s dead flesh? No, you would hate it. And have taqwa of Allah. Allah is Ever-Returning, Most Merciful.”

(Surah Al-Hujurat, 49:12)

In relation to this verse, Abdur Rahman ibn Awf reported: He would patrol the city at night with Umar ibn Al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, and on one occasion they were walking when the lamp of a household caught their attention. They approached it until they heard loud voices inside the door. Umar grabbed the hand of Abdur Rahman and he said, “Do you know whose house this is?” He said, “No.” Umar said, “This is the house of Rabia ibn Umayyah ibn Khalaf and they are inside drinking wine right now! So what do you think?” Abdur Rahman said, “Indeed, I think we have done what Allah has prohibited for us. Allah the Exalted said: ‘Do not spy’ (49:12) and we have spied on them.” So Umar turned away and he left them alone.

The return of the Islamic Caliphate will set a new benchmark in governance and how people will live in peace and security. They will have no fear of being spied upon by the authorities or being subjected to the extensive surveillance as witnessed by the West.

Written for The Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by

Abed Mustafa