If youthink Prism has made a mess in the US, you should see the reactionin China。
“棱镜”计划不止在美国引起轩然大波，中国网民的讨论更激烈。
China has a very active Twitter-like “microblog” calledSina Weibo, with over 400 million registered. They activelydiscussed Prism and Snowden, with over two million postings anddiscussions. The overall tone was very clear – microbloggers wereangry about the perceived hypocrisy, they were sympathetic toSnowden, and they were disillusioned about the US as a democraticrole model。
中国版“Twitter”——“新浪微博”在中国的知名度极高，共有4亿多个注册用户。近日，“棱镜”计划和斯诺登成了微博网民的热议话题，网民发送和评论的微博数量已高达200多万条。人们的观点很一致——他们同情斯诺登，指责美国政府虚伪，并对美国标榜的所谓“民主”感到失望。
Thefirst reaction for most Chinese netizens was anger towards the USgovernment. Prism was portrayed as a broad-scale surveillanceproject targeting “non-US citizens outside the US。” To them, thiswas a blatant invasion on their privacy committed by a
foreign country which has no jurisdiction over them. Manymicrobloggers showed concern for the Chinese First Lady, who wasphotographed to be using an iPhone during her visit to the US. Themicrobloggers asked “Would the US government access her privatedata through Apple’s iCloud?”
对于美国政府，大多数中国网民的第一反应是“愤怒”。“棱镜”是一项针对“美国境外的非美国公民”实施的大规模监视计划。在网民眼中，这是一个外国政府对个人隐私明目张胆的侵犯，而这个“外国政府”根本就无权管辖他们！许多人在微博上对中国的“第一夫人”彭丽媛表示关注，因为在她访美期间，有张照片上显示，她使用的是一台iPhone手机。人们纷纷在微博上质疑：“美国政府会不会通过苹果iCloud，获取她的个人隐私呢？”
Thenetizens also felt Prism revealed American hypocrisy. Just prior tothe Prism news, the US pointed fingers at China forcyber-espionage. But through Prism, the US appears to be doingexactly what it accuses China of. Another recentreport by ForeignPolicy about NSA’s ultra secret China hacking group furtherexacerbated the matter. While media coverage was moderate, the mostimportant state-owned media CCTV and Xinhua both covered the news,and the latter quoted Snowden saying that he “exposed the truthabout America being the Hacker Empire。” These reports left littledoubt in the microbloggers’ mind that the US was “one thief callinganother thief。”
网民们还认为，“棱镜”计划显示出美国政府的虚伪。当“棱镜”计划还未被公之于众时，美国政府还指控中国进行“网络间谍活动”。而透过“棱镜”计划，人们看到，美国也在做同样的事情。据《外交政策》最近的一篇报道称，美国国家安全局设有专门针对中国的黑客小组，这进一步引发了人们的关注。中国媒体，如央视CCTV与新华社，也以较小的篇幅报道了斯诺登事件。新华社援引斯诺登的话说，他“揭露了美国‘黑客帝国’的真面目。”上述报道使中国网民们进一步确信，美国政府是在“贼喊捉贼”。
Theissues above extended into a credibility crisis for the USgovernment and even its founding principles and values. The USgovernment is considered by the reform-minded Chinese netizens asthe role model for protecting human rights and freedom of speech.And the Chinese blogosphere is often enlivened with heated debatesbetween the hardliners vs. the reformers about whether the USgovernment and its founding principles and values were applicableto China. In this case, the hardliners gained an upper hand, andpushed to question: Whatever happened to protecting human rights?How can you trust this hypocrite? Does this demonstrate that thesystem of democracy, “checks and balances”， “due process” and “ruleof law” has failed? The blasting caused further collateral damage,as the hardliners challenged Google, Microsoft, Apple products --might your beloved product be secretly handing your information tothe CIA? The US government’s irresponsiveness didn’t help elucidatewhether this situation was a terrorist-targeting project, anisolated event, or a systemic breakdown. So the reformers generallyremained quiet as the hardliners piled on sarcastic comments andinsults。
“棱镜”与斯诺登事件引发了一场对美国政府的信任危机，人们甚至开始怀疑美国政府的根本准则和价值观。一直以来，在中国“改革派”眼中，美国政府是维护人权和言论自由的典范。在中国的博客圈内，存在着两派网民： “强硬派”与“改革派”，两派人之间经常激烈争论：“美国政府的根本准则和价值观是否适用于中国？”而现在，“强硬派”在争论中占据上风。他们向对手提出追问：看看美国政府到底是怎么保护人权的吧！你还能相信虚伪的美国政府吗？美国的所谓“民主”、“法制”，根本就是个失败！他们甚至对谷歌、微软和苹果产品提出质疑：“小心你心爱的美国互联网服务吧，说不定中情局正在下载你的个人隐私呢！”对此次“棱镜”事件，美国政府表示出一副“事不关己”的态度，但是，他们始终没能说清楚，“棱镜”计划到底是什么，是针对恐怖分子的专项计划？还是一项孤立的事件，或是一次系统的崩溃？面对“强硬派”网民的冷嘲热讽，“改革派”们只能保持沉默。
Naturally, then, the great majority of the netizens weresympathetic to Snowden, feeling that he was a righteouswhistleblower who had the courage to expose a conspiracy. Quite afew netizens called Snowden a hero. Netizens eagerly discussed andadmired how he gave up a $200,000 salary and a beautifulgirlfriend. They even gossiped about his modeling career and hisgood looks. Ironically, there were almost no mention of how hebroke the law and his contractual promise to the US government. 81%of the microbloggers supported China to offer Snowden asylum, andonly 3% supported extraditing him back to the US。
大多数网民都同情斯诺登，人们觉得，他是个敢于揭露阴谋的正直之人。许多人称赞他是“英雄”，因为为了揭露真相，他不惜放弃20万美元的高薪，远离美貌的女友。甚至他曾经的模特生涯和英俊的外表都成了网民的议论话题。相对的，几乎无人在乎，斯诺登此举是对美国法律和政府的背弃。81%的网民认为，中国政府应给斯诺登提供庇护，只有3%的人认为，应将他引渡回美国。
Finally, a small number of netizens pondered global and Chinaimplications. Did the digital age and network technologies give allgovernments a powerful and irresistible tool to violate netizens’privacy and freedom? How far can “national security and citizenshipsafety” go to justify invasion of privacy? If a system like the US,with checks and balances, could do something like Prism, how farmight other governments go? Is at least the Western free mediaworthy of praise, as they acted as government watchdogs withoutfear of retribution? These issued were raised but quickly buried bythe furious discussions about espionage, hypocrisy, heroism, anddisillusionment。
也有少数网民开始思考，“棱镜”计划对于全球和中国而言，究竟会产生哪些影响？在这个数字和网络时代，是否所有政府都能肆无忌惮地运用侵犯个人隐私和言论自由？“国家安全”、“公民安全”是否就是政府侵犯个人隐私的理由？连美国这样重视自由、平衡的国家都在实施类似“棱镜”的计划，那么其他国家的政府岂非更加肆无忌惮？至少西方媒体值得表扬，因为他们冒着受罚的威胁，持续监督政府的作为。有人在微博上提出上述问题，但很快，就被淹没在网民们激烈的口水仗之中了。
At this point US governmentneeds to respond with a comprehensive response。
Was Prism lawful? If so, is something wrong with the law; if not, who broke the law to implement it?
What was the role of the companies? How can theirdenial be reconciled with Snowden’s allegations?
How does the government get data from thecompanies? Direct access from their servers? Delivered on USB, after proving reason? Requiring a search warrant from thecourt?
Who were targeted by Prism? Terrorists only? Anyone targeted by CIA? Thosesuspected of crime? All citizens?
What steps and actions would theUS government take to calm people’s fear for invasion of theirprivacy, and restore people’s faith in the USgovernment?
当前，针对人们的质疑，美国政府应给予综合、全面的回应
“棱镜”计划是否合法？如果它合法，那就是法律本身有问题；如果它不合法，那又是谁违反了法律，实施了这项计划？
企业在“棱镜”计划中扮演什么角色？他们怎样辩驳斯诺登的指控？
“棱镜”计划是针对多大一批人的的？(恐怖分子？任何有嫌疑的？任何需要追踪的线索？任何人？)
“棱镜”计划向企业要数据，是可以直接从服务器提取，需要提交理由后经过U盘提取，还是要有法官签搜索令才能提取？
美国政府将如何行动，使人们消除隐私泄露的疑虑，重拾对美国政府的信任？
A lucid and no-nonsense response by the US government isimperative, not just to address domestic skepticism, but to avoidglobal distrust; not just to close the allegations toward oneproject, but to open a process to protect human rights in thedigital age。
美国政府应当给出一个明确而直接的回复，不仅要回应美国内的质疑，还要缓解全球信任危机。美国政府要做的，不是停止棱镜计划的争议，而是开启保护数字时代的人权。
