The rise of the surveillance industry

The Rise of the Surveillance Industry
Post-911, military spending across the globe rose and governments began taking a look inward for a perceived threat. To help fuel a witchhunt for the new 'commies' of the world, surveillance software began to be in great demand. The general public first became aware of state funded spyware after the exposure of Stuxnet, a joint US/Isreali program designed to control and destroy the Iranian nuclear program. This represents a rare government against government form of spyware but it is by no means the end of things. Much more common is spyware aimed at a government's people. This demand has created a private market for such legally/morally grey tools. The Gamma Group, a British/German surveillance company, which operates by funneling funds through a British Virgin Islands subsidiary, is one of the most well known examples of this new industry. It has been implicated in (and faces charges from the British National Crime Agency for) selling surveillance software to governments such as Egypt and Baharain where it has been used to harass journalists and dissidents inside and outside their borders. The Gamma Group's software is so ubiquitous that "earlier this year, a study by Rapid7, an Internet security firm, identified FinSpy – the control software for FinFisher command-and-control servers – as being active in Australia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Latvia, Mongolia, Qatar, the UAE, and the United States." This accounts for only a single suite of programs by a single of a growing number of companies who operate using questionable economic means, such as using offshore accounts, to deliver what is in effect defense/military software to known oppressive regimes and governments. Disregarding the moral and legal problems with virtually unregulated citizen surveillance; some form of oversight must be put in place to control and regulate this new industry. Whether it is legal or not to create/sell this software, there must be assurances for: the safeguarding of surveilled information, protection against its use by malicious entities, regulation on who may purchase and use such software, laws for the prosecution of surveillers who miss use their power, and so on, and so on, and so on. There are an incredible number of unknowns and unanswered questions surrounding this new industry and it'll be interesting to see if there legality is maintained and how these problems are faced.