[Vision2020] Ron Deibert on CBC Ideas Aired 9-26-22: "world is run by a transnational class of gangsters"

[Ted Moffett]

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/15938847-the-new-world-disorder-or-the-future-democracy

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https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/is-democracy-doomed-two-former-cbc-massey-lecturers-argue-there-s-hope-1.6596050

Excerpts:

"It seems to me that the world is run by a transnational class of
gangsters," said Deibert, " "If you want to understand the world today,
think less of Churchill, Bismarck and Roosevelt. Think more of the villains
from James Bond movies. I mean, that better captures what is really going
on. I'm exaggerating a little bit. But I think this is what I've seen
progress over the last 40 years or so, as my career has tracked all of
this. And it's led to horrible abuses of power."

These aren't simply the ultra-wealthy, observes Deibert, but also former
security specialists, who've privatized their services and sell them to the
highest bidder, whatever the outcome may be.

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For Deibert, it's the continual struggle to tell truth to power.

"There has been, and still is, a very organized, persistent, systematic,
well-funded campaign to discredit science by the fossil fuel industry that
continues to the present day. And they are responsible for pushing out
disinformation and using targeted espionage by private intelligence firms
to neutralize civil society. That's what's going on right now," he
explained.

"We did a report called Dark Basin
<https://citizenlab.ca/2020/06/dark-basin-uncovering-a-massive-hack-for-hire-operation/>
in
which we uncovered a massive hack-for-hire operation. And all of these very
civil society organizations were hacked and their private email
correspondences were manipulated, tainted and leaked in the media and on
the internet, to try to discredit and neutralize them. It's not clear who
actually hired them, but we turned over the data that we collected to the
Department of Justice and the Southern District of New York, [which] itself
was actually a target of this hacker-for-hire operation. And we discovered
that the company behind it all was — get this — a single firm in Delhi,
India. So this is bizarre stuff, but it's real."

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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