Originally published on Bella Caledonia and Source / Common Space.

In this video Alistair Davidson introduces his new report for the Common Weal think-tank, Scottish Sovereignty in the Age of Mass Surveillance, arguing for a transition in Scotland to open source software to protect itself from GCHQ spying.

Davidson looks at the wider context of Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA’s global spying network, which manipulates proprietary software to insert ‘back-doors’. He argues that Scotland should follow the lead of Brazil in moving towards open source, and proposes how this could be done, protecting Scottish sovereignty and opening up an emerging open source market.