A Necessary Evil: What It Takes For Democracy to Survive Surveillance
Editors Note: Given Richard Stallmans longtime role in promoting software that respects user freedom (including GNU, which just turned 30),his suggested remedies for all the ways technology can be re-designed to provide benefits while avoiding surveillance like the smart meters example he shares below seem particularly relevant.
The current level of general surveillance in society is incompatible with human rights. To recover our freedom and restore democracy, we must reduce surveillance to the point where it is possible for whistleblowers of all kinds to talk with journalists without being spotted. To do this reliably, we must reduce the surveillance capacity of the systems we use.
Using free/libre software, as Ive advocated for 30 years, is the first step in taking control of our digital lives.We cant trust non-free software; the NSA uses andeven creates security weaknesses in non-free software so as toinvade our own computers and routers. Free software gives us control of our own computers, but that wontprotect our privacy once we set foot on the internet.
Bipartisan legislation to curtail the domestic surveillance powersin the U.S. isbeing drawn up,but it relies on limiting the governments use of our virtual dossiers. That wont suffice toprotect whistleblowers if catching the whistleblower is grounds for access sufficient to identify him or her.We need to gofurther.
Thanks to Edward Snowdens disclosures, we know that the currentlevel of general surveillance in society is incompatible with humanrights. The repeated harassment and prosecution of dissidents, sources, and journalists provides confirmation. We need to reduce thelevel of general surveillance, but how far? Where exactly is themaximum tolerable level of surveillance, beyondwhich it becomes oppressive? That happens when surveillanceinterferes with the functioning of democracy: when whistleblowers (suchas Snowden) are likely to be caught.
If whistleblowers dont dare reveal crimes and lies, we lose the last shred of effective control over our government and institutions. Thats why surveillance that enables the state to find out who has talked with a reporter is too much surveillance too much for democracy to endure.
An unnamed U.S. government official ominously told journalists in 2011that the U.S. would not subpoena reporters because We knowwho youre talking to. Sometimes journalists phone call records are subpoenad to find thisout,but Snowden has shown us that ineffect they subpoena all the phone call records of everyone in the U.S.,all the time.
Opposition and dissident activities need to keep secrets from states that are willing to play dirty tricks on them.The ACLU has demonstrated the U.S. governments systematic practice of infiltrating peaceful dissident groups on the pretext that there might be terrorists among them. The point at which surveillance is too much is the point at which the state can find who spoke to a known journalist or a known dissident.
When people recognize that the level of general surveillance is toohigh, the first response is to propose limits on access to theaccumulated data.That sounds nice, but it wont fix the problem, noteven slightly, even supposing that the government obeys therules. (The NSA has misled the FISA court, which said it was unable toeffectively hold the NSAaccountable.)Suspicion of a crime will be grounds for access, so once awhistleblower is accused of espionage, finding the spy willprovide an excuse to access the accumulated material.
The states surveillance staff will misuse the data for personalreasons too.Some NSA agents used U.S. surveillance systems to tracktheir lovers past, present, or wished-for in a practice calledLoveINT.The NSA says it has caught and punished this a few times; we dontknow how many other times it wasnt caught. But these events shouldntsurprise us, because police have long used their access to driverslicense records to track down someone attractive, a practice known asrunning a plate for adate.
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A Necessary Evil: What It Takes For Democracy to Survive Surveillance