Forced Transparency or Equivellant Transparency, post-Snowden (or who is challenging the state’s surveillance agenda of radical transparency?)
by Vian Bakir & Andrew McStay
With the centrality of digital communications
to everyday life, people generate vast amounts of data about themselves and
each other. Some of this is intentional and voluntary, such as through people’s
own social media postings. Much, however, is incidental and involuntary such as
being captured in other people’s social media feeds, as well as more abstract
surveillant practices such as cookies and analytics (McStay 2011). Through ‘Big
Data’ analytics, all digital data
is potentially channeled, linked and exploited by commercial organisations for
marketing purposes, although with care taken to de-identify data to preserve
people’s anonymity. This includes online data (such as sites visited) and
transactional data (such as banking and consumer histories) bought by market
research firms such eXelate and Acxiom.
As
well as surveillance for commercial purposes, the 2013 leaks by US national
security whistle-blower Edward Snowden revealed intelligence agencies’
indiscriminate bulk data collection and storage of suspicionless citizens’
digital communications. The leaks showed that through PRISM, internet and telecommunications companies were secretly
being compelled by intelligence agencies in the USA, UK and other liberal
democracies, to collect and hand over citizens’ digital communications data.
This is complemented by ‘Upstream’
collection where intelligence agencies tap into underwater fibre-optic cable
networks that carry telephone and internet data into and out of the country. With PRISM data
stored in the USA for five years and upstream data stored for two years, this
facilitates targeted future analysis of identified suspects and their networks
to prevent terrorism and crime (Simcox 2015, ISC 2015).
So,
we are dealing with a techno-cultural condition of increased and normalised
transparency. However, transparency of whom and for what ends?
Transparency types
Transparency
takes several forms. Liberal transparency
is, historically, a liberal and enlightenment norm that opens up machinations
of power for public inspection, rationally using the knowledge gained as a
force for promoting societal net benefit and happiness (Bentham 1834). Radical transparency opens up not just
public processes but also the private lives of citizens for inspection (Bentham
1834; McStay 2014). Where this is done without citizens’ knowledge or consent,
we enter the domain of forced
transparency where resistance to surveillance is tantamount to guilt, and
where choice, control and autonomy are stripped away (McStay 2014). In a less
dystopian vein, equiveillant transparency
is achieved when the
forces of surveillance and sousveillance balance
out (Mann and
Ferenbok 2013: 26).
Are we in in a state of forced
transparency, post-Snowden, or are we closer to equivellant transparency?
Before
Snowden’s revelations, we didn’t know about intelligence agencies surveillance
of our digital communications. Once these were leaked, the mantra ‘nothing to
hide, nothing to fear’ took sway among many. These both suggest a dystopian condition
of forced transparency. The
pre-Snowden secrecy about surveillance means that the
surveillance took place without citizens’ knowledge or consent. The
post-Snowden mantra of ‘nothing to hide, nothing to fear,’ strongly implies
that resistance to surveillance is tantamount to guilt.
However,
Snowden’s revelations have also provoked resistive challenges (paradoxically
including by corporations who exploit our data for commercial gain). So, have
we moved a little closer to equiveillant transparency?
For
Mann and
Ferenbok (2013) equiveillant transparency is where surveillance (ie monitoring from a position of political or commercial
power by those who are
not a participant to the activity being watched)
is counter-balanced by sousveillance (ie
monitoring from a position of minimal power, and by those who are participating in the
activity being watched). Accepting the
inevitability of surveillance, Mann and Ferenbok (2013: 26) seek to
counter-balance surveillance by increasing sousveillant oversight from below
(‘undersight’). They suggest this can be facilitated through civic and
technology practices such as better whistle-blower protection, public debate,
participatory projects and systems innovations.
Examination of post-Snowden resistance
to surveillance in highlights where these civic and technology practices need
strengthening, to move us closer to equiveillant transparency.
Whistle-blower protection. Let’s just say this is bad. After all, Snowden fled the USA in order to leak, and he is still in exile in Russia.
Public debate. Published
research on the quality of public debate is hard to find, as systematic
analysis of this is ongoing (eg by our Cardiff colleagues), but impressionistic analysis suggests that public debate
has been globally patchy.
o
Journalism. Impressionistic
analysis suggests extensive reportage in the USA and Germany, but minimal reportage
in the UK, confined largely to The
Guardian, that broke the story of the leaks. The Intercept has since been the source of many stories.
o
Films. Laura
Poitras’ documentary film (CitizenFour (2014) won an Oscar – but how understandable are its core issue of NSA data surveillance to
an uninformed audience? Probably more hinges, in terms of public understanding
and capturing the public imagination, in Oliver Stone’s forthcoming film, Snowden (2015) – to be released at Christmas. Unfortunately, however,
block-busters are not renowned for historical accuracy, narrative complexity,
or the ability to relay complex and abstract information.
Participatory projects.
o
A wide range of civil liberties, human rights, privacy, transparency and
press freedom groups were consulted by Obama’s
post-Snowden surveillance review boards in the USA.
o
Academics investigating
public acceptability of surveillance oriented technologies across Europe have
held citizen summits (eg those arising from the EU-funded SURPRISE
project examining factors affecting public
acceptance and acceptability of security-oriented
surveillance technologies.
o
NGOs (eg Open Rights Group
in the UK) and academics have held hackathons to educate the public to the
importance of encryption
Systems innovations.
o
Legal challenges:
§ Communication Service Providers in the USA, worried about the
pro-privacy public outcry and associated damage to their brands following
Snowden’s revelations, challenged the US government in court;
§ In the UK, Privacy International, Bytes for All, Liberty, and Amnesty
International have been pursuing a legislative
remedy against the British surveillant state since Snowden’s leaks.
o
Technological solutions:
§ Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo! And WhatsApp
recently started to automatically provide encryption for their users.
§ And the pro-privacy movement and encryption industry is courting the
public to take their own action in encrypting their communications.
So, whistle-blower protections and public
debate seem to be sorely lacking compared to participatory projects and systems
innovations.
Plus
ca change?
We have a confluence of interests here –
libertarianism and money.
With participatory projects and systems
innovations, we see an alignment between pro-privacy NGOs and libertarian big
corporations keen to minimize state interference in their activities while
retaining market trust.
With public debate, we see an alignment
between the libertarian leaker, Snowden, and rich individuals backing the
anti-state surveillance voice:
o The Intercept is where most stories have come out. The Intercept belongs to First Look Media, founded by billionaire
ethical investor and eBay founder, Pierre Omidyar, in October 2013. (It’s
grounded in the principle that its journalists would enjoy absolute editorial
freedom and journalistic independence.)
o Laura Poitras, the independent documentary film-maker is from a family of
wealth.
Which must lead us to ask, is sousveillance
most powerfully expressed when libertarianism meets private and corporate
wealth?
Is this the sort of ‘undersight’ we want?
References
Bentham, J. 1834. Deontology. London: Rees, Orme, Brown, Green
and Longman.
Clapper, J. 2013. Welcome to IC on the Record. Office of the Director of National
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ISC. 2015. Privacy and Security: A Modern and Transparent Legal Framework.
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Lyon, D. 2014. Surveillance, Snowden,
and big data. Big Data & Society,
Jul–Dec: 1–13.
Mann, S. 2015. Priveillance. http://wearcam.org/mannventions-password-stefanosmannaz13/priveillance.htm
Mann,
S. 2013. Veillance and reciprocal
transparency: surveillance versus sousveillance, AR Glass, Lifeglogging, and
wearable computing. http://wearcam.org/veillance/veillance.pdf
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Mann, S. & Ferenbok, J. 2013. New
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Pew Research
Center. 2015. Americans’ Privacy
Strategies Post-Snowden.
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Research Center. 2014. Public Perceptions
of Privacy and Security in the Post-Snowden Era.
Simcox, R. 2015. Surveillance
after Snowden: Effective Espionage in an Age of Transparency. London: The
Henry Jackson Society.
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Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. 2014. Report on the
Surveillance Program Operated Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act.
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