Published: 01 December, 2011, 22:03

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks at a press conference at City University London in central London on December 1, 2011 (AFP Photo / LEON NEAL)

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange says that governments worldwide have been using electronic devices, such as smart-phones and computers, to monitor what people are saying, where they are going and what they are writing.

The controversial journalist spoke at a panel of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism held at the City University in London on Monday. The panel inaugurated Wikileak’s new project: the Spyfiles. They provide details on the deals private surveillance companies made with various governments all over the globe to design monitoring software integrated into electronic devices, which could be used to monitor the activities of whoever these governments want to keep track of.

“Who here has a BlackBerry? Who here uses Gmail? Well you are all screwed!” Assange exclaimed. “The reality is intelligence contractors are selling right to countries around the world mass surveillance systems for all of those products.”

The Wikileaks founder went on to say that these international surveillance companies, based mostly in “more technologically sophisticated countries,” often sold their technology to less advanced countries: states that have often been despised by the West for their allegedly authoritarian political regimes.

These include the Gaddafi regime in Libya, to which French company Amesys sold equipment designed to keep track of the then opposition members living abroad. Some of these dissidents are now part of the current ruling elite, but what raises eyebrows is that Gaddafi’s intelligence was able to pry on his opponents in the US, the UK and Finland.

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