WILL US STOP SURVEILLANCE OF KENNY & CO?

WHAT SNOWDEN SAYS ABOUT KENNY, RICHARD & COMPANY

 

In which we get a brief history of recent surveillance of St Lucian leaders, learn how they called it on themselves and consider what situation we are in now.

On, January 17, 2014, US President Barack Obama made a funny speech where he joked that the US will do more to protect individual privacy while doing almost nothing at all to restrict American government surveillance of everyone and everything.

Obama, moments after promising to curb mass surveillance

As it was very high brow humor, most people would not get the jokes, unless they are explained – which, of course, sucks all the funny out of it. Suffice it to say that technology has overtaken the primitive human notion of privacy and there’s nothing that Obama can do about it.

Most people also probably don’t realize that Obama’s speech on the American spy machine has serious implications in the Eastern Caribbean.

"I don't understand. It's like insects are attracted to my phone.

I wonder if anyone else has this kind of problem with bugs."

But when Obama said that leaders of friendly nations would no longer have their communications intercepted, was Kenny Anthony on that list? Or is he still on the list of people who should be watched because of his failure to co-operate on investigations into the police, his stalling of inquiries about a former minister and his fetish for flirting with communists, Iranians and other people who write poetry about destroying America.

Kenny Anthony was once considered the most highly respected prime ministers in the small islands by the US State Department. But while  recent developments in Iran have lessened pressure on him to get the hell of out ALBA, his continued stalling on implementing US State Department recommendations relating to the police force remain a major impediment to better relations between the US and St Lucia.

And so, he might still be subject to non-stop surveillance – and not just by the US. Even if  the  Americans decide he’s a good friend and doesn’t deserve being spied on, Chinese, Taiwanese, British and Iranian sources all have Kenny’s  number. And it seems he’s none the wiser.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF RECENT SURVEILLANCE

George Odlum: The person dangerous person to never be phone tapped

In the old days of George Odlum and Maurice Bishop, the spies had to be here, pretending to be a person on your side. Nowadays, the spy is in a factory shell in the middle of West Virginia  or whatever, listening a Caribbean leaders posture and pose and lie on the phone and on the internet.

Ever since the 2020-11 extra-judicial police killings and the Dudus affair in Jamaica, St Lucia became a prime Caribbean target for American surveillance. The American surveillance of St Lucia may not have been sparked off by then opposition leader Kenny Anthony and his minions crying on the shoulder of anyone in the US Embassy in Bridgetown every chance they got. But it certainly didn’t hurt.

Scene hot.Dudus talking...

The financial jimmy-flicks, fast-talkery and self-serving audacity of the then Flambeau government was what really brought the heat down on St Lucia. Members of that government were the subject of criminal investigations from Europe as well as attracting surveillance from as far away as Morocco. That was not a joke. I am not making this up. Morocco was using ‘every means necessary’ to keep tabs on at least one St Lucian minister in the Flambeau government. Smh.

"You think we forget about you, Kafir.

You take our money but you no build stadium.

You no build nothing.

"You think we forget?"

When Labour came into power, they had a real shot at making all this go away. After all, Labour foreign allies (communist China, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran) were happy to see their friends in power while Flambeau’s  special friends (Taiwan, America, Taiwan and of course,  Taiwan) were pissed out of their minds at the betrayals, corruptions and excesses of the men who propped up Stephenson King’s government. Kenny Anthony could have been like Bob Marley, causing old rivals to join hands on the St Lucian stage.

Every single nation on the planet except North Korea was rooting for Labour in December 2011. All they had to do was something called The Right Thing. They didn’t even have to do it for the right reason.

The US wanted to take part in a special investigation of the cops, they wanted St Lucia to back away from ALBA and to stop pretending to be half-assed communists in the United Nations. It was so simple that you didn’t even have to do all of it.

The only thing Kenny Anthony had to do was implement the recommendations of the US State Department report wholesale and let the chips fall where they may. He got that report by January 2012. If he had done that, all that heat about ALBA and subbing US Vice President Joe Biden would not have been such a big deal. And the blacklisting of Lucian cops would never have happened.

But for some reason, the brightest prime minister in the Caribbean could not do The Right Thing even though the US pressured for it, his Cabinet colleagues begged for it and it was written down in point form in black and white in a language that even a law professor would easily understand. A year and a half after first ignoring the report, he called a special investigation but gave the US the middle finger by leaving them out of it. People in the international community (and the cabinet) began thinking that maybe Kenny Anthony was deliberately  frustrating progress on this issue.

They started thinking that Kenny Anthony had something to hide.

Oh Lord, Jason, why you have to bring this up?

I thought you were my friend...

What effect do you think that had on the surveillance of St Lucian leaders? That’s right. It made things worse.

It was for this reason that ALBA became a bigger issue here than it was in any other island. Things that were no big deal anywhere else were being used as leverage against St Lucia. Then the Iranians who were using ALBA to infiltrate the Western Hemisphere arrived in St Lucia and the surveillance of St Lucia escalated to levels previously experienced only by Cuba and Venezuela in this region.

SITTING DUCKS OF ST LUCIA GOVERNMENT

Meanwhile, the Labour government was clueless when it came to cyber-security.

The Flambeau government was clueless, attracting endless negative attention and  surveillance, while acting with impunity as though they were not just immune but innocent, no matter how  bad what  they did was.

St Lucia Parliament

also known in the international intelligence community as

"The Sitting Ducks"

Everyone in the international community knew Kenny Anthony’s Labour was smarter than that.  Unfortunately, Kenny & Company were merely playing a different game from Flambeau. And they were doing it all without any more security than setting their phones to withhold their numbers. Because that’s what PhD’s are for.

While attracting the attention of intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the Far East, North America and Europe, St Lucian government leaders merrily continued on their way as though it was still 1969. None of them use encryption on their phones or computers, very few use dedicated, secret emails, very few of them use proxies or VPNs and very few even know what a TOR Browser is.

And so, novice who has read Hacking for Dummies can gain access to the personal information has all the tools he needs to gain access to the most secret data of St Lucia whether it be personal or national.

(You can just imagine US and Taiwanese officials shaking their heads when St Lucian officials try to mamaguy them.)

SO IS KENNY STILL UNDER SURVEILLANCE OR WHAT?

Please Jah, tell me Barack isn't listening to my calls, anymore..

The most accurate answer to that question is, “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course he is.” This part is reasoned speculation, because we at The FLOGG considers the US to be our friends and we must allow them enough room to plausibly deny that they ever did what they have always done.

Obama promised to not to spy on friendly leaders anymore. But surveillance technology is like disease and nukes and other stuff that came out of Pandora’s  box. You can close the box but you can’t put the stuff  back in. Once it’s out, it’s out.

One understands that America has to make the world feels more safe as it continues the exercise of godlike powers that the rest of us are only just beginning to develop. (Or in the case of St Lucia, doing our best to stifle.) But one also understands that no one gives up and advantage especially when other people would never give  up their advantages either.

This is not even to mention that Kenny Anthony, personally, has pissed America off,  for no better reason than protecting a person that he made everyone think was ‘the most dangerous.’  It’s like he ratted out a child abuser and then when the police came, he wouldn’t help them find the bastard.

Kenny, is that you flirting with Iran?

I thought we were just joining ALBA, bro...

When Iran’s new President started flirting with Barack Obama, the US pressure on Kenny went down considerably, because now ALBA is just an organization of pretend Chavos instead of the radical threat it would be if Iran was still digging for uranium in Bolivia.

But as the continued US blacklisting of Lucian cops demonstrates, America is not yet ready to kiss and make up. They want something very specific from Dr Anthony.  And until he gives it to them, you can probably safely bet that they are very, very interested in every lie he tells, every secret he keeps, every single breath he takes.