Social media surveillance and Mission 2020

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Editor's note: Things with WhatsApp surveillance in particular and social media in general are taking a fairly dystopian turn in India. Here’s from Bloomberg: India’s government said on Tuesday it’s “empowered” to intercept, monitor and decrypt digital information in the public interest as long as its agencies follow the law. Laws allowed federal and state governments to intercept ‘any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer resource’, G. Kishan Reddy, junior minister for India’s Ministry of Home Affairs told Parliament in a written reply when asked by an opposition lawmaker whether the government had snooped on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Viber, and Google calls and messages. Information can only be intercepted by ‘authorized agencies as per due process of law, and subject to safeguards as provided in the rules’, the statement said. From India Says Law Allows State to Snoop in WhatsApp • Bloomberg For a subject that has been mired in if and did they snoop, this statement is clear as daylight. The government will snoop, as and when it deems necessary. It says it has the regulatory authority, and …