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Civil liberties: the world at their fingertips Civil liberties: the world at their fingertips
(3 months later)
In June 2008, the head of the US National Security Agency, Lt Gen Keith Alexander, visited Menwith Hill, the giant listening station near Harrogate in Yorkshire, and set the audience of British and American intelligence staff a provocative challenge: "Why can't we collect all the signals all the time?" he asked. "Sounds like a good summer project for Menwith." The tone sounds almost jaunty – but it meshes with a similar and entirely serious ambition revealed in internal documents from within GCHQ, the sister UK organisation charged with monitoring communications – mastering the internet. MTI for short.In June 2008, the head of the US National Security Agency, Lt Gen Keith Alexander, visited Menwith Hill, the giant listening station near Harrogate in Yorkshire, and set the audience of British and American intelligence staff a provocative challenge: "Why can't we collect all the signals all the time?" he asked. "Sounds like a good summer project for Menwith." The tone sounds almost jaunty – but it meshes with a similar and entirely serious ambition revealed in internal documents from within GCHQ, the sister UK organisation charged with monitoring communications – mastering the internet. MTI for short.
"All the signals all the time." Until comparatively recently, such an ambition was the stuff of fiction and Hollywood. Now we are forced to confront the reality that we are moving into a new age of human existence where every digital action – be it by phone, text, search, chat or email – can be collected, searched and stored. The implications are profound. The pace of technological change is more rapid than the law or oversight can possibly cope with. The gravitational pull towards total surveillance is as inevitable as it is secret."All the signals all the time." Until comparatively recently, such an ambition was the stuff of fiction and Hollywood. Now we are forced to confront the reality that we are moving into a new age of human existence where every digital action – be it by phone, text, search, chat or email – can be collected, searched and stored. The implications are profound. The pace of technological change is more rapid than the law or oversight can possibly cope with. The gravitational pull towards total surveillance is as inevitable as it is secret.
There is a clear and powerful security justification for employing every available technological means to have the potential to track everyone, always. The first duty of a state is to protect life, and securocrats can plausibly argue that the ever-advancing capability of interception means that we can all sleep a little more soundly in our beds. The bad guys – be they drug dealers, paedophiles or terrorists – will (some of them) be caught in this boundless dragnet. Don't confuse the haystack with the needle. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.There is a clear and powerful security justification for employing every available technological means to have the potential to track everyone, always. The first duty of a state is to protect life, and securocrats can plausibly argue that the ever-advancing capability of interception means that we can all sleep a little more soundly in our beds. The bad guys – be they drug dealers, paedophiles or terrorists – will (some of them) be caught in this boundless dragnet. Don't confuse the haystack with the needle. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.
The corollary of this approach is that there must be complete secrecy about the existence of the capability. Anyone who reveals it or discusses it will simply alert the bad guys, who will then change their behaviour. The system depends on a vast and – at least in Britain – unprecedented infrastructure of secrecy, including closed courts, private hearings, confidential commercial undertakings and restrictions on the ability of the British media to say or write very much about it at all. The less debate, the happier the government and the intelligence agencies.The corollary of this approach is that there must be complete secrecy about the existence of the capability. Anyone who reveals it or discusses it will simply alert the bad guys, who will then change their behaviour. The system depends on a vast and – at least in Britain – unprecedented infrastructure of secrecy, including closed courts, private hearings, confidential commercial undertakings and restrictions on the ability of the British media to say or write very much about it at all. The less debate, the happier the government and the intelligence agencies.
But there has to be debate – and over the past fortnight in America and Europe there has, indeed, been a vigorous discussion sparked by the revelations of the NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden. Under what laws is this combination of state and commercial surveillance authorised? What are the processes for giving authority for building this gargantuan digital haystack – and then for finding the needles within it? In a world of such secrecy who can meaningfully oversee and audit such an infinite trawl of data? Do lawmakers understand the utterly changed circumstances in which legislation designed for an era of crocodile clips on copper wires is being stretched to cope with legions of engineers and analysts with the world literally at their fingertips? Numerous voices have engaged in that debate, from the US president himself to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who spoke so impressively at the Olympics opening ceremony. "Unwarranted government surveillance," he said last week, "is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society."But there has to be debate – and over the past fortnight in America and Europe there has, indeed, been a vigorous discussion sparked by the revelations of the NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden. Under what laws is this combination of state and commercial surveillance authorised? What are the processes for giving authority for building this gargantuan digital haystack – and then for finding the needles within it? In a world of such secrecy who can meaningfully oversee and audit such an infinite trawl of data? Do lawmakers understand the utterly changed circumstances in which legislation designed for an era of crocodile clips on copper wires is being stretched to cope with legions of engineers and analysts with the world literally at their fingertips? Numerous voices have engaged in that debate, from the US president himself to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who spoke so impressively at the Olympics opening ceremony. "Unwarranted government surveillance," he said last week, "is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society."
He's right. Mastering the internet may seem desirable and harmless to some in a comfortable era of coalition politics and – still – comparatively benign economic conditions. But a three-hour flight from London will take you to places where there is much less political and social stability. We are creating a system of total surveillance which could, indeed, bring great benefits in terms of security but which, in the wrong hands, could severely curtail protest, reporting, privacy and hard-won freedoms of association and speech. That much is at stake.He's right. Mastering the internet may seem desirable and harmless to some in a comfortable era of coalition politics and – still – comparatively benign economic conditions. But a three-hour flight from London will take you to places where there is much less political and social stability. We are creating a system of total surveillance which could, indeed, bring great benefits in terms of security but which, in the wrong hands, could severely curtail protest, reporting, privacy and hard-won freedoms of association and speech. That much is at stake.
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