Five Eyes EOTO

Five Eyes, or FVEY for short is an intelligence alliance between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US. Created after World War II, the Five Eyes alliance was originally developed to monitor the communications of the former Soviet Union sand the effects of Communist regimes in the world in general. At its inception this group acted as an extension of the Allied powers, securing the allyship between the large, capitalistic countries of the western world. As the 20th century came to a close and the subsiding of the prevalence of Cold War, FVEY tilted their mission to primarily being used as a weapon for the War on Terror.

Now in the new millenia, recently unclassified Five Eyes documents show that countries involved in the organization are intentionally spying on each other’s citizens. Using the War on Terror as their alias, these countries have gone behind the backs of each other collecting information and sharing it amongst themselves. Edward Snowdan, the American whistleblower who copied and leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency in 2013 when he was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee and subcontractor, called FVEY a “supra-national intelligence organization that doesn't answer to the laws of its own countries." Yes, that is as horrifying as it sounds. 

Many influential figures were under the scrutinous eyes of the Five Eyes alliance. Famous actor Charlie Chaplin was placed under surveillance due to his alleged ties to communism, philanthropist Nelson Mandela was denounced as a terrorist by critics, his (mostly peaceful, mind you) work was placed under intense surveillance by British SIS and US CIA agents, and finally Beatles frontman John Lennon was landed under FBI surveillance due his involvement and outspokenness in protesting the Vietnam War. 

The Five Eyes relationship had two major ways of collecting public data, the PRISM program and Upstream Collection. The PRISM program gathers user information from technological agencies such as Google, Apple and Microsoft; while the Upstream system gathers information directly from the communications of civilians through fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past and the interception of phone calls. This is horrifying because as technology advances and we as a world continue to find ourselves more and more incredibly online, avenues in which the Five Eyes intelligence organization or anyone really can use to monitor and intrude upon the goings on of everyday individuals. Is it okay to live in a world where the intentional spying on individuals of your own country is the norm? Where our government can diffuse their blame by "subcontracting their dirty work" to other countries? 

This is the reality of the world we live in. Five Eyes is still operational, and is still gaining intelligence on the citizens of each others countries in the name of protection against terrorism, but at the cost of the privacy and individuality of those citizens they claim they are protecting. Where is the line between the protection and intrusion? How much should we as citizens be willing to give up, how much of our lives are we willing to have invaded by our government in order to protect us from being invaded by those we consider the enemy? Or do we as citizens have to reconsider who we feel is the true public enemy.