Rebirth of England.

Chapter 910 Prism Gate

What is the problem with America?

Many people say that America’s manufacturing industry is hollowing out. After all, the “Rust Belt” was first proposed to refer to America’s Great Lakes region.

The so-called Rust Belt refers to the period after America's industry has been adjusted to be dominated by the tertiary industry. The once traditional industrial areas, especially the heavy industrial areas, such as the Great Lakes region, including industrial cities such as Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Milwaukee, Dayton, Cleveland, Chicago, Harrisburg, Bethlehem, Buffalo, and Cincinnati, have begun to decline in industry. Large areas of factory buildings and equipment in these once bustling and developed industrial cities have been idle, leaving only mottled rust.

There is no other way. After all, the most developed industries in America are finance, media, and entertainment...

For almost all elites, the first choice is to enter the financial industry, which is where you can really make a lot of money.

For capital, who would still work hard to make machine tools, clothes, electrical appliances and other things to make money when they can easily rely on America's global hegemony and make huge profits by sucking blood from the world?
In fact, this is true in any country, including Europe, Japan, South Korea and China. Those who can control the financial industry all have close ties with power - after all, making money by using information can be said to be the easiest.

It’s just because of America’s hegemonic position in the world that their financial capital is particularly strong.

The United States itself has entered such a cycle. With their dollar system and global hegemony, even if they have a lot of foreign debt, they can continue to reap the world through finance.

As long as they can maintain this status, they don't have to worry about the collapse of their system, after all, the whole world will pay for their debts.

Therefore, Barron's industrial layout in the United States is mainly focused on finance, media and entertainment industries.

Although the Sinclair Group is far behind in terms of asset size compared to Barron's other industries, it is also valued by Barron because of its media attributes.

That's why he didn't allow Vanguard to get involved.

Before, if John Smith could always stand on his side, he would not mind the Sinclair family continuing to maintain control of the company - after all, at certain times, when he needed the Sinclair Group to help him "build momentum", the Sinclair family in the open would be more helpful in hiding his existence.

But unfortunately, John Smith ultimately made the wrong choice, which led to Barron having to remove him from the position of chairman of the group.

But now, Jenny has become the chairman of the Sinclair Group and can also maintain the Sinclair family's presence in the company, which can be considered a Happy Ending.

Of course, Barron's would not allow Vanguard to continue to expand its stake in Sinclair, even if they were able to facilitate Sinclair's acquisition of Forum Media Group.

Under the current circumstances, even if Vanguard Group is unwilling, it cannot continue to oppose Barron, especially within the Sinclair Group. Because of John Smith's accidental death, it can be said that their cooperation with the Sinclair family has also failed.

It’s not that they didn’t try to contact other people, but the results were disappointing. Not only did Jenny have no intention of talking to them, but Quentin Smith and Barbara Smith also rejected them outright.

In fact, apart from Jenny, who is the chairman of the board of directors in the company, Quentin Smith is the only one in charge of a department in the Sinclair family. Barbara Smith has long left the family group to pursue her own business. Quentin Smith is not a very ambitious person, otherwise he would not have chosen to support his brother John Smith instead of confronting David Smith himself.

Naturally, he had a clearer understanding of the situation of the Sinclair Group. Whether in terms of funds or resources, the Sinclair family was no match for Barron and the Vanguard Group. Just within the Sinclair Group, choosing Barron as a partner was naturally better than the Vanguard Group.

Next, Ivanta personally came forward and, together with the new CEO of Sinclair Group, discussed with Vanguard Group the specific matters regarding the acquisition of Forum Media Group.

Barron naturally doesn't need to deal with these things personally. What he is concerned about now is another matter.

As we enter June, the Prism Gate scandal is about to break out.

In fact, as early as last December, some European journalists received a letter signed by "Citizen Four" via encrypted email. The other party claimed that he was a senior employee of the US intelligence agency and that he had some information that he hoped to share with the other party...

“From now on, every border you cross, every item you buy, every phone call you make, every cell phone tower you pass, every friend you make, every article you write, every place you visit, every word you type in a subject line, every packet you send is controlled by a system with unlimited reach but limited protection…”

In the email, the "fourth citizen" reminded the other party that the emails between them were likely to be monitored by the US intelligence agencies, and warned the other party that once the other party obtained those documents, his life safety would be threatened.

Those who received this encrypted email included French documentary director Laura Poitras, British The Guardian senior reporter Glenn Greenwald, and Independent reporter Lawson Wilson.

When Barron received the email from Lawson Wilson, he already knew that this "CitizenFour" was Edward Snowden, who became world-famous for exposing the US "Prism" program in his previous life.

PRISM is a top-secret electronic surveillance program implemented by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States since 2007.

The official name of the program is "US-984XN". According to documents later disclosed by Snowden, the National Security Agency of the United States has access to a large amount of personal chat logs, stored data, voice communications, file transfers, and personal social network data.

Barron naturally understood how great an impact the Prism Gate would have. It is no exaggeration to say that after exposing this plan, Snowden became the primary target of the American intelligence agencies who wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible.

And he knew that as a senior intelligence officer, Snowden would eventually be able to make the Prism program public, so there was no need for him to get involved.

Moreover, even if Snowden had not announced the plan, he was very clear about the content of the plan - after all, Woaw Technology, which he controlled, had to open the access interface of the relevant servers to the American intelligence agencies.

This is also a prerequisite for Woaw to operate smoothly in the United States and around the world. After all, giants like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Apple have to do this. If you refuse, you will be investigated in minutes and sanctioned under various names.

Taking this situation into consideration, Barron did not let the reporter from The Independent participate in this matter. Instead, he decided to let Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald contact Snowden according to the development of the original time and space.

(End of this chapter)