The news that Angela Merkel’s phone has been wiretapped by the USA exposes the biggest wiretapping lie ever – that mass surveillance is targeted at catching terrorists and pedophiles. The German Chancellor is rightfully furious, and she should be furious on behalf of her citizens, too. Mass surveillance was never about terrorists or pedophiles: it is a tool of pure and raw domination.

With the exposure of German Chancellor Merkel’s phone being wiretapped by the US surveillance agencies, the mass surveillance has received yet another spotlight. This is welcome as it intensifies the discussion on civil liberties and the freedoms of speech, assembly, opinion, and the press – and how these freedoms need to carry over into the online environment.

To some extent, it is sad that it takes a personal insult against a leading politicians for something as grave as a threat to democracy itself to come to light, but still, here we are. The mass surveillance has been rolled out en masse without much protest, due to leading politicians smoothing over any worries by using worse scarewords, a common tactic.

We have frequently and repeatably been told that mass surveillance and wiretapping is necessary to “catch terrorists”. Pedophiles are also mentioned from time to time. This is a complete and utter lie.

In that context, it is also said that the mass surveillance, sweeping across all citizens, is necessary to find the needles in the haystack. You may be wiretapped so that governments can find the somebody-else terrorist, and you’re just randomly caught in the dragnet, we’re falsely told.

However, we also have news that Barack Obama personally approved the wiretapping of Angela Merkel. This means that there wasn’t a random element involved; she was directly, personally, and individually targeted.

This begs the inevitable question: Was Angela Merkel considered a terrorist or a pedophile? It has to be either one, given the justifications we’ve heard for wiretapping. So which one was it?

The obvious answer, now that we have the information, is neither – because the surveillance was not intended to catch neither terrorists nor pedophiles. It was just a lie, a big bold lie, a big oft-repeated lie.

The purpose of wiretapping was always domination. Geopolitical domination over other countries; governmental domination over citizens. Pushing down people into their shoes; kicking away the ladder when you’ve climbed to the top. Whoever holds the information advantage dominates other people.

Do note that Chancellor Merkel is only upset that her own phone has been wiretapped. She has not expressed outrage at the 82 million other Germans or the 500 million other Europeans that share her fate. Unless we keep talking about civil liberties, politicians will stop wiretapping each other and concentrate on governmental mass wiretapping of citizens. That’s nowhere near okay, either.

If you are being wiretapped, and you are, it is because somebody desires to dominate you.

(See also the article that tells how we know with 100% certainty that the mass surveillance never caught a single terrorist plot. No wonder: that’s not why it’s there.)