Can I kick it? No, you can't.

Bringing people together

Nokia/Siemens is defending its sale of eavesdropping programs to the Iranian government last year. The government has very brutally and effectively used the technology to track people using cell phones to convey information to each other and the outside world, via phone calls, emails, texts and the internet.

I first assumed that the company's defense would be based on the premise that they sell things, and the Iranian government had money, but there was more.

A spokeswoman named Riitta Mard, expressed surprise at the negative reaction once people became aware of Nokia/Siemens' involvement. Mard pointed out that the company had followed trade rules and acted ethically, and also claimed that the technology permits the monitoring of local calls, but it does not allow monitoring international calls, Internet communications, or SMS or picture messages.

"Local calls, but not international?" Sure, that's believable.

Just 'fess up, admit that Nokia/Siemens saw the chance to make a sale, and made it. We buy oil from Saudi Arabia, even after fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers came from there, and we sold weapons to Saddam Hussein in the 80s.

Religion, ideology, politics, they all fade to obscurity when there's a buck to be made.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009