Mass surveillance: the toxic hope to fight against terrorism?

Mass surveillance emerged 20 years ago, exploded with 9/11 and hasn’t stopped growing since. Many of the most powerful democracies in the world have now fully adopted mass surveillance and helped developed, both in the public and private spheres, this ever growing market.

Anti-terrorism has become a prime concern for everybody, at least everytime an attack takes place, in France, the UK or elsewhere. But we tend to talk much less about surveillance in public debates, although it is deeply linked to it.

Unfortunately, both are strongly linked and they do not necessarily have our best interests at heart.

GROWING THE HAY STACK: THE BIG DATA TSUNAMI

Surveillance isn’t different from any other market: data volumes have exploded in every sphere and it is tempting to keep on with this dynamic. We are using and relying on more and more data to better know our customers, better understand public behaviors and, in the case of anti terrorism, ensure that we detect future terrorists and prevent any other attack.

BtoB and BtoC marketing, IT security, health: all these sectors rely on more and more data and have fully embraced what internet and digital transformation have brought us. It is the same for the surveillance market. Video footage from public places and buildings, audio and written files, emails, text messages, etc: surveillance data include many different formats but only a restricted number of actors to analyze them.

Public organizations and governments just don’t have enough qualified staff to study data they receive and have access to. Data volumes simply cannot be fully processed or it takes generally too much time to analyze all of themfast enough.

What could be more frustrating? Authorities and other related organisations for anti-terrorism often have access to the information but do not have time to process it or cannot find it (in time). We have been (are) growing the haystack but not focusing (yet) on finding the needles more efficiently.

KNOWING AND SURVEILLING EVER MORE: THE PRIME REFLEX

The question is why are growing the hay stack when we know it is already too big to handle? When we think about it, it is an understandable reaction to have. We feel we need to know more.

No, wait, we need to know EVERYTHING in troubled times like ours. We need to get all the available information on anyone that could be related, become or be a terrorist. We need to be reassured above anything else. The threat can keep growing but if we feel reassured enough we will keep functioning as usual and this is what matters to most of us. This feeling of security (versus the reality of security). Above freedom? Let’s see that a bit later.

It is thus an understandable feeling. We have the impression, especially governments of Western democracies, that we will be safer by knowing more. Also that we will be able to fight better and prevent terrorist threats. People counselling the public opinion, as well as the media encourage this trend.

The result? Great Britain now has the strictest surveillance legislation in the world, France is still under “état d’urgence” (emergency state) and the mass surveillance market has never been healthier. So we now understand why we tend to react that way, and by “we” I mean citizens and governments.

It seems logical that private actors set profit as a prime goal as it is their known priority, even though some companies have proven that profit and ethics aren’t incompatible… But, we can look at it differently, and we need to, when we understand that mass surveillance has become a very lucrative market for private and public actors pulling the strings.

Private actors, especially the armament giants, have now taken control of this ever growing market, benefit from strong links at the highest levels in the public sphere and are now dominating the market.

Somehow, this is no suprise but why are so few of us aware of it? Why are even fewer trying to challenge this state of things?

TARGETED, RESPECTFUL AND IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS: THE SOLUTION?

Fortunately, solutions have been found and are starting to pick up. Even though surveillance and anti terrorism rhyme more with profit than with efficiency and risk mitigation for now, some innovations are trying to reverse the trend and this could be the key to “saving” us.

In the States in the late 1990s and, more recently, in the last five years in Austria , two very similar projects were conducted to efficiently analyze open source information to better prevent attacks and find potential terrorists before any lethal action is carried out.

The American project in the late 1990’s was named Thin Thread and could have quite certainly prevented 9/11 if it had been chosen as key solution for the fight against anti terrorism by decision makers at the time. Fifteen years later, a similar solution was created in Austria with the same goals, one of them being data privacy along with citizens’ security.

This second project is quite simple on its basic way of functioning. This solution analyzes the interactions between individuals based on their digital footprint and relying on open source data (social networks for example). The content isn’t analyzed but the interactions in themselves, their number, the absence of interaction for a period of time, geographical location, etc. It is the interactions, relationships between individuals that are important much more than the content itself; the latter being why it takes so much time for analysts to process data they receive.

Indeed, if authorities and security organisations need to examine the content for any text message or Facebook conversation potential terrorists have all the time they need to prepare an attack before being detected. And this is precisely what happened in a number of attacks in Europe in the last 2 years. With this solution, information is highlighted only if a certain risk is detected, data privacy is applied for all and keys used by three different parties are necessary to access data regarding a suspected individual.

But why implement this constraint? Of course, it is simple: to prevent from using this solution for other goals…

In fact, the mass surveillance market and its development have enabled private actors, states and governments to apply this surveillance to many targets, other than potential terrorists. Political actors, Greenpeace opponents, potential whistleblowers and many other are under surveillance today thanks to the “anti terrorism measures” in many countries including Western democracies.

The stakes are thus very high to find the proper balance between security and data privacy, security and freedom, fighting terrorism and letting powerful actors set us under surveillance for any action or behavior considered as “deviant”. Rings any bell?

BEWARE OF WHAT SOME THINK IS GOOD FOR US

We now see that what we think is good for us, to ensure our security, isn’t happening the right way and isn’t stopping attacks from happening.

The only result has been the growth of the mass surveillance market, giant profits for few actors and increased surveillance in all spheres and for all of us, not only for potential terrorists.

It makes me think of Michel Foucault’s discourse regarding coercition. This famous French philosopher analyzed the meaning and implication of coercition as well as its different “levels” through his study of imprisonment and punishment over several centuries.

I often think about one of his strongest statements on this topic: the highest level of coercition is when you manage to get the concerned individual to think by himself that what you want from him is what he wants and he is convinced that it is the right thing for him, without consciously feeling any pressure from the exterior.

Self convincing, coercition with minimal effort but maximum efficiency. I tend to relate this to what we are living right now and what we think is best to do regarding anti terrorism. We think we need an emergency plan and extended power for our governments to ensure our security. We tend to think we need more and more data to know anything and everything about potential terrorists — and thus help the mass surveillance market grow — and we are convinced of this.

Media, public and private actors, all tend to say it is the right thing to do but we are starting to realize that maybe it isn’t after all and maybe we should’nt want this for ourselves. I do think in some way that we have reached the highest level of coercition according to Foucault regarding the anti terrorist fight through mass surveillance.

Freedom is at stake although it shouldn’t be freedom at the expense of security but the other way around because our security isn’t really better ensured with all this, actually less for those under surveillance. We are losing data privacy but aren’t really better protected. We are just convinced that we are more secure and that is why we need to be more careful.

Regarding anti terrorism we need to chose the proper tools for an efficient fight and, first of all, we need to be convinced of this and let our governments know about this choice. Let’s stop growing the hay stack and start finding the real needles but not at the expense of our data privacy and freedom of speech.