Moderator’s remarks
Nowadays we are witnessing on-going debate about surveillance practice of the United States launched by Edward Snowden. This issue becomes significant in the process of negotiating EU-USA free trade agreement as well. Surely, most of the citizens are not satisfied with the idea being spied over their personal matters (internet communication or phone calls). But the problem is much deeper as it might be obvious from first glance. Therefore, we invited two speakers whose aim was to argue rationally about the surveillance techniques in general.
Obviously, first fundamental clash which arises from the motion is question between preserving liberty and keeping citizens safe from outside threat. Both speakers introduced this in their first points very clearly. Decisive question which everyone should ask himself/herself in this clash is whether the development of new technologies and social media influence our perception of personal freedom. Dhruv, affirmative speaker, claims that civil liberties are still unchanged even by the occurrence of the Internet and high-speed communication. On the other side, Saurav, opposition speaker, calls for revising the understanding of civil liberties in the time of hugely interconnected technological world where the threat to citizens is acute and sudden.
Second idea that illuminates from both opinions is the idea of keeping the rules of the game. The demonstration of the theory of social contract, by Dhruv, shows us that government breaks the rules of the game with its citizens. Apart from that, we see, in Saurav’s case, on the example of Edward Snowden that the topic of national security which refers to the security of citizens is delicate affair for governments. The question that divides both speakers is what the purpose of the government is.
Last point covers principal position as well. Dhruv argues with the principle of presumption of innocence that civil liberties put significant limitations for government powers that court’s consent is essential and cannot be neglected. On the other hand, Saurav argues that if the principle of national security is at place and government does not use obtained data from surveillance to bargain with third power, court’s consent is not necessary condition for action.
We are looking forward to your comments and opinions in this controversial matter.
Affirmative speaker: Dhruv Singhal (AEGEE-Karlsruhe)
Opposition speaker: Saurav Raj Pant
Ivan Bielik, Moderator of debate
Defend the motion
Dhruv Singhal, student of Mechanical Engineering at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
In light of recent developments and revelation of widespread internet surveillance I present the following arguments to defend the motion.
Infringement of civil liberties
The most prominently cited argument is the defense of our personal freedom. Large scale surveillance clearly infringe on your freedom of opinion and expression (granted by the Universal declaration of human rights), as spying techniques like the recently uncovered internet data mining, can be used for thought policing. In a crude sense this might include reluctance to hold opinions and beliefs that might be deemed critical to the government and established norms, thus weakening the foundations of democracy itself. This argument might seem dull when compared to the desire for larger good and security but it must not be forgotten that true security can never be achieved by compromising liberty. A review of history teaches us the same lesson- a collective of individuals (often unidentified) were created by tyrannical governments, projected as being impeding to the general welfare of the society and were persecuted, be it the Third Reich or Stalinist USSR. Consider the security of women believed to be evil witches in early modern Europe and you’ll fathom that liberty is as significant in the discussion as life itself.
Rule of man vs. Rule of law
To comprehensively analyze the issue from this stand point, we consider the basic premise on which every working society is based on – an idea of social contract. As sentient beings, we humans recognize the need of cooperation from other social beings and hence participate in a so called ‘social contract’ from our birth as member of the society, by the virtue of which we mutually agree to protect our lives and liberties. This ‘contract’ manifests as the constitution and the legal code. If the government, an executive organ doesn’t exercise the powers granted by the citizens in a democratic state according to the constitution, then these acts are, but an aggression to such a social contract, signifying involuntary consent of the people. This would then imply authorization to any organized group of people to spy on individuals in/outside it’s collective.
Right to presumption of Innocence
The idea of the right to presumption of innocence has been conceived since at least the third century AD. Summarized by the Latin expression ‘Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat’ (the burden of proof lies with who declares, not who denies), this right today finds its place in the legal codes of nearly all modern democracies and republics. The existence of the same is exactly what prevents State agents like the Police to carry out custodial interrogation or “grilling” of random citizens. The consent of the court is required and is obtained only when sufficient basis for such an act against an individual is established. Since this is not possible when the suspected collective is large and unknown, clearly general public spying infringes on our rights.
But then who will protect us? The constitution and a government that adheres to it.
Against the motion
Saurav Raj Pant, Student and Outreach Coordinator of JVE-Nepal
It is obvious truth that government should be potential to gauge between national security threats and individual privacy. These are by some means the building blocks of healthy, democratic and liberal society. As far as I am concern, spying intersects with diverse indicators on which they are likely to be the decisive factors of nation’s maturity. Any breed of intimidation on Socio-economic, military and political arenas from the inside-outside rudiments is the issues of severe alarm. And combating against this should be the preliminary priority of any governments of the world. If I have to be concise, a presently national security undergoes and tackles with some kind of ‘supernatural’ foe which is probably being developed from the digital world. Rationally speaking, such new models of tentative objects are making more vulnerable to the nation’s overall infrastructures. Virtual world (Internet) is likely to have been going beyond to the ideology of constitutional framework of the country. It will be purely the matter of imprudence, if I say digital world should be free. Or I say it has to be the Free State. Absolutely, we are now living in the fully democratized world where one’s civil liberties are valued. But; reluctantly I have to say every basic should be guided from the specific country’s principle.
Let us talk about, Edward Snowden. This young man who is accused of leaking US PRISM secrecy is now the main hunt of Obama’s administration. I would like to observe Snowden’s episode in two ways. Talking about US Supreme court ruling held in 1980, it describes that no one are allowed to disclose national classified information. If such information are disclosed it will seriously violate the national interest. Yeah! Absolutely every country is accountable and responsible towards their citizens. And, country will act or intervene with any form with other parties should be and need to be for their people. According to this ruling, he violated the Supreme Court ruling and need to prosecute. On the other side of the coin, it is now inevitable that there is always limbo on spy and civil liberties. Digitally promising power blocs are noticeably spy on lesser potential country. And, how to deal with these Internet giants who provided our info’s to the Government from the backdoor? This is also against the policy paper which they show before using their page. For me I say, this Snowden’s folder truly divulges the future prospect of national data security and Internet giants.
Truly, individual privacy is staid issue in the Northern World. Spying to own citizen truly betrayed the constitutional privacy policy of the First world. But, we have to be clearer and strong in this instance that now our digital world has becoming the ‘safe harbor’ for some cluster of folks. Those clusters are probably dismantling our fundamentals of the society. I personally feel that, we should not worry until then when our mined info’s should not be the ‘bargain’ point of our competent leaders to the third parties.
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The legitimacy of the actions of the government and that of Mr. Edward Snowden are two different issues, not affecting each other in any sense. If transparency and the principle of no aggression is to be maintained by the government then, whistleblowers like Mr. Snowden won’t exist, let alone thrive.
Dhruv has been forthright and has been able to hit the nail. It is nothing but an act of perversion by the US Govt. No Govt, Society or Individual has any right to peep into our lives and justify it in the name of National Security.
There are a lot of interesting points in this discussion. Saurav is right in pointing at the ‚trade-off’ between the security in the internet (the anonymity of the internet became a ‘safe harbor’ for criminals) and the interference of individual privacy by a state spying out its own citizen in the name of law and order. There are different issues to consider to analyse this ‘trade-off’: First, the general architecture of the internet. The big internet companies like google, facebook or microsoft are trying to ‘centralize’ web applications: facebook and google have a central server where it saves all data, with google docs you save your documents not anylonger on your pc but at their server ect ect. This brings certain advantages for the clients, allows the big companies to maintain their dominating position in the market and allows it to governments to easily control everything that is happing in the web. A decentralized web-architecture would allow more diversity in the market (companies/ products with higher data privacy standards would be able to survive in the market) and would it make much more difficult for the government to spy its citizens (and especially to spy the citizens of other countries).
The danger in the current discussion and public opinion lies in the different kind of danger that derive from security threads and threads to individual privacy. Everybody understands easily that criminals are using the internet for their affairs. However, as long as the trust in the state is high, people do not see the danger that derives from the spying activities of the state, that Dhruv evaluated in his arguementation. Most people say they do not have anything to hide, so they do not really care. However, I am convinced that everything that is possible will also be done by someone one day. Supressing single members of the society by using the information they revealed in the social media will therefore happen one day. Democratical principals are already at risk, if it is only done for a small group of politically active citizens. So if a government one day uses facebook informations to intimdate only a very small group of politically active citizens, the whole democratic process doesn’t work anymore efficiently. Also if 99% of the people were not affected by this action.
To become aware of the risk that derives from the fact that all our data is safed on some few serves of big internet companies just imagine the following case: imaging one day a political activist would succeed to hack the servers of facebook and google and would make all information that they have about all their users accessable on a public server. This would make it possible to check which facebook sites your boy-/ girlfriend vistied, to whom he wrote which messages, which porn sites he/she usually visits, ect. ect… Apart from a lot of divorces, a drastic erosion of trust (and theirfore of the social contract) would be the consequence. Suddenly your whole life is transperent. The only way to avoid this is to avoid acting at all.
The example above makes also clear the ‘trade-off’ that a wistle-blower is facing. Publishing all facebook and google data would definitly raise the awareness of the data privacy problem to an ultimative level. However, it would be at a drastical high cost that can not be justified. Publishing secret government reports, like Assange or Snowden did, can maybe be justified, maybe not. But the important thing is, I think, to create other instruments that give you the possibility to change something without breaking any law. This is what we proposed with the European Citizens Initiative‘OpenFacebook’ in the European Democracy Project (see other thread).
Another important issue in this regard is who should be the agent that can guarantee both: security and liberty in the internet. National government fail to guarantee both, as the internet doesn’t stop at national borders. The only way to make national states an efficent agent would be to limit the internet to national borders. This is what some authocratic states try at the moment in order to avoid to have their internet controlled by foreign powers. However, limiting the internet to national borders also means limiting the communication between people to national borders. But it is only the deep connection between people that can guarantee peace between the people in the long run. Division and walls between people makes war more easy. If you don’t know the other than you are more likely to accept the use of violence.
I think therefore it is important to decentralize big parts of the internet and to create an international agent that allows the citizens to define the rules of the internet and the right balance between security and liberty. However, as long as national governments are acting they must be at least controlled by their national courts to guarantee the liberty of its citizens. I therefore defend the action.