Sunday, August 21, 2011

A Prime Aim of the Growing Surveillance State

A Prime Aim of the Growing Surveillance State

by Glenn Greenwald

Several weeks ago, a New York Times article by Noam Cohen examined the case of Aaron Swartz, the 24-year-old copyright reform advocate who was arrested in July, after allegedly uploading academic articles that had been placed behind a paywall, thus making them available for free online.  Swartz is now being prosecuted by the DOJ with obscene over-zealousness.  Despite not profiting (or trying to profit) in any way -- the motive was making academic discourse available to the world for free -- he's charged with "felony counts including wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and recklessly damaging a protected computer" and "could face up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines." 

The NYT article explored similarities between Swartz and Bradley Manning, another young activist being severely punished for alleged acts of freeing information without any profit to himself; the article quoted me as follows:

For Glenn Greenwald . . . it also makes sense that a young generation would view the Internet in political terms.

"How information is able to be distributed over the Internet, it is the free speech battle of our times," he said in interview. "It can seem a technical, legalistic movement if you don't think about it that way."

He said that point was illustrated by his experience with WikiLeaks -- and by how the Internet became a battleground as the site was attacked by hackers and as large companies tried to isolate WikiLeaks. Looking at that experience and the Swartz case, he said, "clearly the government knows that this is the prime battle, the front line for political control."

This is the point I emphasize whenever I talk about why topics such as the sprawling Surveillance State and the attempted criminalization of WikiLeaks and whistleblowing are so vital.  The free flow of information and communications enabled by new technologies -- as protest movements in the Middle East and a wave of serious leaks over the last year have demonstrated -- is a uniquely potent weapon in challenging entrenched government power and other powerful factions.  And that is precisely why those in power -- those devoted to preservation of the prevailing social order -- are so increasingly fixated on seizing control of it and snuffing out its potential for subverting that order: they are well aware of, and are petrified by, its power, and want to ensure that the ability to dictate how it is used, and toward what ends, remains exclusively in their hands.

The Western World has long righteously denounced China for its attempts to control the Internet as a means of maintaining social order.  It even more vocally condemned Arab regimes such as the one in Egypt for shutting down Internet and cell phone service in order to disrupts protests.  

But, in the wake of recent riots in London and throughout Britain -- a serious upheaval to be sure, but far less disruptive than what happened in the Middle East this year, or what happens routinely in China -- the instant reaction of Prime Minister David Cameron was a scheme to force telecoms to allow his government the power to limit the use of Internet and social networking sites.  Earlier this week, when San Francisco residents gathered in the BART subway system to protest the shooting by BART police of a 45-year-old man, city officials shut down underground cell phone service entirely for hours; that, in turn, led to hacking reprisals against BART by the hacker collective known as "Anonymous."  As the San-Fransisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation put it on its website: "BART officials are showing themselves to be of a mind with the former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak."  Those efforts in Britain and San Fransisco are obviously not yet on the same scale as those in other places, but it illustrates how authorities react to social disorder: with an instinctive desire to control communication technologies and the flow of information.

Read the rest here. This is the point I emphasize whenever I talk about why topics such as the sprawling Surveillance State and the attempted criminalization of WikiLeaks and whistleblowing are so vital.  The free flow of information and communications enabled by new technologies -- as protest movements in the Middle East and a wave of serious leaks over the last year have demonstrated -- is a uniquely potent weapon in challenging entrenched government power and other powerful factions.  And that is precisely why those in power -- those devoted to preservation of the prevailing social order -- are so increasingly fixated on seizing control of it and snuffing out its potential for subverting that order: they are well aware of, and are petrified by, its power, and want to ensure that the ability to dictate how it is used, and toward what ends, remains exclusively in their hands.

The Western World has long righteously denounced China for its attempts to control the Internet as a means of maintaining social order.  It even more vocally condemned Arab regimes such as the one in Egypt for shutting down Internet and cell phone service in order to disrupts protests.  

But, in the wake of recent riots in London and throughout Britain -- a serious upheaval to be sure, but far less disruptive than what happened in the Middle East this year, or what happens routinely in China -- the instant reaction of Prime Minister David Cameron was a scheme to force telecoms to allow his government the power to limit the use of Internet and social networking sites.  Earlier this week, when San Francisco residents gathered in the BART subway system to protest the shooting by BART police of a 45-year-old man, city officials shut down underground cell phone service entirely for hours; that, in turn, led to hacking reprisals against BART by the hacker collective known as "Anonymous."  As the San-Fransisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation put it on its website: "BART officials are showing themselves to be of a mind with the former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak."  Those efforts in Britain and San Fransisco are obviously not yet on the same scale as those in other places, but it illustrates how authorities react to social disorder: with an instinctive desire to control communication technologies and the flow of information.

The emergence of entities like WikiLeaks (which single-handedly jeopardizes pervasive government and corporate secrecy) and Anonymous (which has repeatedly targeted entities that seek to impede the free flow of communication and information) underscores the way in which this conflict is a genuine "war."  The U.S. Government's efforts to destroy WikiLeaks and harass its supporters have been well-documented.  Meanwhile, the U.S. seeks to expand its own power to launch devastating cyber attacks: there is ample evidence suggesting its involvement in the Stuxnet attacks on Iran, as well as reason to believe that some government agency was responsible for the sophisticated cyber-attack that knocked WikiLeaks off U.S. servers (attacks the U.S. Government tellingly never condemned, let alone investigated).  Yet simultaneously, the DOJ and other Western law enforcement agencies have pursued Anonymous with extreme vigor.  That is the definition of a war over Internet control: the government wants the unilateral power to cyber-attack and shut down those who pose a threat ot it, while destroying those who resists those efforts.

There have literally been so many efforts over the past several years to heighten surveillance powers and other means of control over the Internet that it's very difficult to chronicle them all.  In August of last year, the UAE and Saudi Arabian governments triggered much outrage when they barred the use of Blackberries on the ground that they could not effectively monitor their communications (needless to say, the U.S. condemned the Saudi and UAE schemes). But a month later, the Obama administration unveilled a plan to "require all services that enable communications -- including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct 'peer to peer' messaging like Skype" to enable "back door" government access. 

This year, the Obama administration began demanding greater power to obtain Internet records without a court order.  Meanwhile, the Chairwoman of the DNC, Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, is sponsoring a truly pernicious bill that would force Internet providers "to keep logs of their customers’ activities for one year."  And a whole slew of sleazy, revolving-door functionaries from the public/private consortium that is the National Security State -- epitomized by former Bush DNI and current Booz Allen executive Adm. Michael McConnell -- are expoiting fear-mongering hysteria over cyber-attacks to justify incredibly dangerous (and profitable) Internet controls.  As The Washington Post's Dana Priest and William Arkin reported in their "Top Secret America" series last year: "Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications."  That is a sprawling, out-of-control Surveillance State.

One must add to all of these developments the growing attempts to stifle meaningful dissent of any kind -- especially civil disobedience -- through intimidation and excessive punishment.  The cruel and degrading treatment of Bradley Manning, the attempted criminalization of WikiLeaks, the unprecedentedly harsh war on whistleblowers: these are all grounded in the recognition that the technology itself cannot be stopped, but making horrific examples out of those who effectively oppose powerful factions can chill others from doing so.  What I tried to convey in my NYT interview was that the common thread in the Swartz and Manning persecutions -- as well as similar cases such as the two-year prison term for non-violent climate change protester Tim DeChristopher, the FBI's ongoing investigation of pro-Palestinian peace activists, and even the vindictive harassment of White House/DADT protester Dan Choi -- is the growing efforts to punish and criminalize non-violent protests, as a means of creating a climate of fear that will deter similar dissent.

It is not hard to understand why the fears driving these actions are particularly acute now.  The last year has seen an incredible amount of social upheaval, not just in the Arab world but increasingly in the West.  The Guardian today documented the significant role which poverty and opportunity deprivation played in the British riots.  Austerity misery -- coming soon to the U.S. -- has sparked serious upheavals in numerous Western nations.  Even if one takes as pessimistic a view as possible of an apathetic, meek, complacent American populace, it's simply inevitable that some similar form of disorder is in the U.S.'s future as well.  As but one example, just consider this extraordinary indicia of pervasive American discontent, from a Gallup finding yesterday (click on image to enlarge): 

The intensely angry "town hall" political protests from last August, though wildly misdirected at health care reform, gave a glimpse of the brewing societal anger and economic anxiety; even Tea Party politicians are now being angrily harangued by furious citizens over growing joblessness and loss of opportunity as Wall Street prospers and Endless Wars continue.  This situation -- exploding wealth inequality combined with harsh austerity, little hope for improvement and a growing sense of irreversible national decline -- cannot possibly be sustained for long without some serious social unrest.  As Yale Professor David Bromwich put it in his extraordinarily thorough analysis of the "continuities" in what he calls "the Bush-Obama presidency": 

The usual turn from unsatisfying wars abroad to happier domestic conditions, however, no longer seems tenable. In these August days, Americans are rubbing their eyes, still wondering what has befallen us with the president’s "debt deal" -- a shifting of tectonic plates beneath the economy of a sort Dick Cheney might have dreamed of, but which Barack Obama and the House Republicans together brought to fruition. A redistribution of wealth and power more than three decades in the making has now been carved into the system and given the stamp of permanence.

Only a Democratic president, and only one associated in the public mind (however wrongly) with the fortunes of the poor, could have accomplished such a reversal with such sickening completeness.

Economic suffering and anxiety -- and anger over it and the flamboyant prosperity of the elites who caused it -- is only going to worsen.  So, too, will the refusal of the Western citizenry to meekly accept their predicament. As that happens, who it is who controls the Internet and the flow of information and communications takes on greater importance.  Those who are devoted to preserving the current system of prerogatives certainly know that, and that is what explains this obsession with expanding the Surveillance State and secrecy powers, maintaining control over the dissemination of information, and harshly punishing those who threaten it.  That's also why there are few conflicts, if there are any, of greater import than this one. 

Copyright ©2011 Salon Media Group, Inc.

Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book "How Would a Patriot Act?," a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, released in May 2006. His second book, "A Tragic Legacy", examines the Bush legacy. His next book is titled "With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful."

19 Comments so far

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Posted by mtdon

Aug 19 2011 - 11:18am

Yet another example where obummer - all on his own - with no help from the teabaggers - is worse than the bush admin -

How can Anyone vote for the oily bomber? ( bp well leaking again)

Ps: just heard an interview w senator ron wyden who expressed barely concealed distain for the president calling him 'that guy' - which is washington dc speech means jerkoff. There goes wydens DNC reelection funds.

Posted by 4thefuture

Aug 19 2011 - 12:51pm

mtdon said, "There goes wydens DNC reelection funds."

Probably not, Wyden's been Israel's go to guy for his entire career. He'll do just fine in the campaign $$. Anyway, he isn't up for re-election until 2016 .

Posted by Obedient Servant

Aug 19 2011 - 12:56pm

"How information is able to be distributed over the Internet, it is the free speech battle of our times," he said in interview. "It can seem a technical, legalistic movement if you don't think about it that way."

[...]

"Read the rest here.
Copyright ©2011 Salon Media Group, Inc."
________________

Gotta love the irony.

Posted by karlof1

Aug 19 2011 - 1:28pm

I have no idea why CD does that. CD has published GG's articles in full several times. I prefer to read them at Salon because they often contain updates no included in those at CD.

Posted by rvrwalker

Aug 19 2011 - 2:34pm

Could be a deal with Salon. To finish reading Greenwald's article we must go to the site, see the ads, maybe sign up for a subscription. CD provides an easy link so it's no big deal. People need to make a living.

Posted by tomcarberry

Aug 20 2011 - 1:24am

Thanks for pointing that link out OS. Missed it in first speed reading. I don't mind Salon forcing me to go to their website to read the rest of that great article. It didn't cost me a lot to close the advertisement window. Greenwald does the great service of linking tons of material. Linking is incredibly easy with most blogging programs, but most bloggers don't have enough interesting material to link to, I guess. A lot of posters to these comments add great links and I thank all of you for that.

Posted by Paranoid Pessimist

Aug 19 2011 - 1:13pm

I don't think the president is "all on his own." He's the front man for the cabal that runs things. The Tea Baggers are dupes who are being manipulated by the same forces that tell the president what to say (those pauses when he speaks are signs of him remembering his talking points -- not quite his "lines," as with Ronald Reagan, but essentially the same thing. He is no more running the country than Alex Trebek is running Jeopardy. The DNC is in cahoots with the bankers and warmongers and funds what is essentially a false opposition which some inbedded in it believe is serious. President George W. Junior was so dumb he believed he was running things, but he wasn't. Neither is the current Oval Office occupant. It's the people behind the scenes who have to be "outed" and brought to public account, if that's possible.

Posted by medmedude

Aug 19 2011 - 2:39pm

the president - this one anyway - is a nwo blow boy

shoe shine artist

the teleprompter reader of a fantasy of good versus evil

he is a scam - and a fraud with a photoshopped birth certificate which he claimed for years didn't exist

with his approval ratings in the sewer he pulls

1. the bin laden bye bye psyop - osama osama we hardly knew ya - too bad he died in 2001

we are so good at killing we have killed several members of the fictitious al qeada several times, howz that for efficiency

"As we have previously reported, every significant Al Qaeda leader appears to have been killed or reported killed several times, indicating that these people are simply names, interchangeable at the whim of the Pentagon, US Intelligence and their corporate media mouthpieces."

http://www.prisonplanet.com/latest-al-qaeda-boogie-man-was-killed-11-months-ago.html

2. the birth certificate that never existed

"Photoshop expert and author of more than 17 books on computer graphics Mara Z. sent this in:
This is so maddening to listen to the media on this recent revelation… it’s such an obvious fake."

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/04/critics-obamas-latest-long-form-birth-certificate-is-a-fake/

both within hours of each other

von obummer's numbers rose for about a minute and then tanked again - it was a sugar buzz - nothing more

clinton used to bomb foreign countries to deflect attention on critical days from that woman - miss lewinsky's - sperm spattered dress

Bill Clinton Bombs an Aspirin Factory

http://www.mega.nu/ampp/khartoumbomb.html

but, as glen says, this is about total control over the peasants and cutting off the least real and free information exchange venue - the internet - is one phase of this multi-pronged attack

and von obummer will sign into law whatever the hell they tell him to sign

like von obummercare

or the wars

or the police state

the nwo send in a black guy to oppress the whites

priceless....

Posted by karlof1

Aug 19 2011 - 1:34pm

I highly suggest reading GG's Thursday posting as it dovetails with several commentators's observations. Plus it provides more damning evidence of how closely the Propaganda System is in cahoots with the Oligarchy and its depth of penetration into the blogoshpere. Indeed, both today's and yesterday's can be seen as a whole. And for those who haven't seen it, the cartoon at this link is priceless, http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-25SJvA_oy3w/TkqM8-dfo2I/AAAAAAAAAG4/5Tuou9wlqgg/s1600/vastleft.png

Posted by rvrwalker

Aug 19 2011 - 2:11pm

the cartoon, perfect!

Posted by vdb

Aug 19 2011 - 5:45pm

"The free flow of information...is a uniquely potent weapon..."

I prefer to think of it as a tool.

Posted by NateW

Aug 19 2011 - 8:48pm

In the Information Age where information is power, the key to power is the control of information. Ergo, what is so surprising about the current powers-that-be wishing to maintain their grip by keeping their grubby paws on the levers of such lest they join their historical predecessors such as fuedal Europe's landed aristocracy & the Catholic clergy whom failed to effectively 'deal with' the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg, and all that followed from it.

Posted by old goat

Aug 19 2011 - 9:59pm

"The free flow of information and communications enabled by new technologies -- as protest movements in the Middle East and a wave of serious leaks over the last year have demonstrated -- is a uniquely potent weapon in challenging entrenched government power and other powerful factions. And that is precisely why those in power -- those devoted to preservation of the prevailing social order -- are so increasingly fixated on seizing control of it and snuffing out its potential for subverting that order: "

I have the deepest respect for Glenn Greenwald and his exceptionally fine journalistic dedication. I would differ on a single point.

I think we do humanity a disservice when we refer to the abuses of power that have resulted in our current state of affairs as 'prevailing social order' . We have a prevailing economic ordering of power that dangles an ethically and morally fragmented tatter of a vestige that survives ONLY by virtue of the unrecognized "social order" that retains what health it has to the extent to which our day to day humanity precipitates as much as possible from the strong arm tactics of predatory capitalism that is seeking to control every aspect of life in this late-stage Bernaysian nightmare..

Posted by webwalk

Aug 20 2011 - 1:37am

Thanks Old Goat for your postings here. OK sometimes your words verge on impenetrable, but then sometimes they verge on poetry! And always you write with integrity. i heart CD as much for the commenters as for the site itself.

Posted by Stone

Aug 20 2011 - 2:11am

It's a stretch to equate copyright protected information with the flow of information on the internet. Aaron Swartz has no legal right to share information that he does not own. Copyrighted information represents the creative work of artists and writers and is their source of making a living. Stealing that information is referred to as piracy. The recording industry has lost one third of it's value since 2003 as a result of piracy. Digital downloads have increased 1000% since 2003 but only represent about 20% of the record industries revenues. CD sales have dropped dramatically but still constitute 49% of the industries revenues. The transition from physical CD's to digital music is rapidly continuing. The industry is attempting to satisfy demand in multiple ways including subscription services to make music acquisition easier. With the introduction of the Cloud, now music can be stored and accessed on multiple platforms wherever the listener is. The legal ramifications and expenses related to the changes are dramatic. Record companies must invest in artist development, songwriting, music recording, pressing, artwork, distribution, and generally spend one third of their profits on promotion. How are artists, companies and their employees supposed to earn a living with people illegally releasing copyrighted materials, written, audio, or visual. There exists a commons license agreement where creators can freely release their work if they choose to do so. Aaron Shwartz is a misguided radical. Comparing him to Bradely Manning is a very serious disservice to Manning. The issues are totally different.

Posted by ralph 442

Aug 20 2011 - 4:24am

Stone: Yes, "the time's they are a chang'n." My gram pa's and my dad's jobs are now in china and I can't do noth'n about it because I forgot how to spell the word "tariff."

No one could protect my pension because that company dun changed it's name.

My old school is now owned by Mr. Gates and they serve his software at the cafeteria for lunch.

My small towns got it's guts sucked out and thrown way down somewhere where two big freeways cross by a walled mart but no one could walk there.

My local preacher been kidnapped and reborn as a carnival huckster selling guns,
greed and goddamn everyone who aint me.

People eat a 140 pounds of meat a year but have never killed anything but moslems.

When I had my gallbladder out it was wrapped in plastic still with the little price tag on it.

All the elite gun-ho deregulators still believe in their patents, copyrights, and lawsuits. Kind of funny and very convenient!

Me I'm just a little guy try'n to make a sad song fun.

Posted by rfloh

Aug 20 2011 - 9:37am

"Copyrighted information represents the creative work of artists and writers and is their source of making a living. Stealing that information is referred to as piracy"

What happens when an artist or writer dies? Does the copyright end? Nope. When should a copyright end? Should it be perpetual, forever, which is what the recording companies want? No, copyright is not the source of artists making a living. The artists abilities are their source of making a living.
"The recording industry has lost one third of it's value since 2003 as a result of piracy. Digital downloads have increased 1000% since 2003 but only represent about 20% of the record industries revenues. CD sales have dropped dramatically but still constitute 49% of the industries revenues"

Yes, and at the same time, there has been a surge in revenues from live performances. Many musicians nowadays, are realising that the future, the money in the future is not going to come from royalties from studio recordings, but rather, from performing live in front of their fans.

"How are artists, companies and their employees supposed to earn a living with people illegally releasing copyrighted materials, written, audio, or visual."

How did artists, musicians earn a living before the days of copyright? You, like the recording companies you defend, are stuck in your thinking. Yes, recording companies fear the end of ultra powerful copyright, because it would mean their end. It would mean the end of recording companies, and their shareholders. Are you a shareholder of a recording company perhaps? If musicians perform live before their fans, the need for the middleman, the recording company is removed. Are you a middleman, is that why you are so fearful?

Posted by mschlee

Aug 20 2011 - 7:39am

*******

Once we drank the internet kool-aid we became commoditized.

FREE AMERICA

REVOLUTIONARY (DIRECT) DEMOCRACY

*******

Posted by WASABIMON

Aug 21 2011 - 5:09pm

we have been a hypocrit nation for years-----no surprise there-----especially recently--i guess democracy is a tradeable commidity----give other countries '' democracy'' and devalue or eliminate ours----while telling us ours is so valuable----and using our tax money to do this to us instead of supplying us with what taxes are intended to do----

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org

Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/19-5

 

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"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

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