GSHQ and the NSA are reading your emails, CCTV cameras are recording your movement and steps are being taken to restrict what we can access on the internet. We are being increasingly monitored in the name of security but the million dollar question is: do you feel more secure?
Revelations that America’s National Security Agency (NSA) has been spying on its own citizens should not be surprising. Ever since 9/11, the American government has consistently demonstrated that there is very little it won’t do in order to guarantee its ‘national security’ against perceived threats. After all, a government that practices a program of extra-judicial murder abroad (2,400 deaths under Obama’s administration and counting), whilst continuing to detain other state enemies in an institution like Guantanamo Bay, is not one to shy away from a bit of domestic spying.
But whilst this kind of skullduggery is the kind that we have sadly come to accept of 21st century American governance, it may be a surprise to some that our own government is equally complicit – if not more so – in this worldwide mass violation of privacy. Recently it has come to light that the UK’s version of the NSA – the Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) – has been running its own mass electronic surveillance programme; the Tempora programme. Established in 2011, Tempora was able to intercept huge amounts of global internet data after data interceptors were placed on the fibre-optic cables which carry internet data in and out of the UK. Tempora thus gave our guardian angels over at GCHQ the ability to record our phone-calls, read our emails and browse through our internet history. As Snowden himself has stated; ‘It’s not just a US problem. The UK has a huge dog in this fight…they are worse than the US’. That’s right guys, we’re number one! Of course the worrying activities of GCHQ aren’t the only ways in which British citizens are being increasingly monitored. The British Security Industry Authority (BSIA) recently estimated that there are up to 5.9 million CCTV cameras in the country – or roughly one for every 11 people in the UK – a fact which makes the UK one of the most widely monitored countries in the world. Everywhere we turn, it seems, there is someone keeping tabs on what it is we’re doing.
But what is the reasoning behind this rise in mass-surveillance? It could be partially because the technology is now capable of doing so; spying on citizens is a lot easier when everyone provides their personal details to Facebook after all. But the main reason seems to be a wide-spread fear of terrorism which now sits at the heart of many states’ security concerns. Since 9/11, the modern state has become increasingly paranoid of its own citizens. Terrorists are now home grown and operate within and across borders. The enemy is no longer the Soviet in Moscow but rather the Islamic extremist in Birmingham. Terrorists, along with international criminals such as sex traffickers and drug dealers, now constitute a fifth column within our societies; seeking to undermine our laws and ways of life with a greater degree of sophistication than previous enemies of the state.
In response, governments world-wide are seemingly attempting to create an all-encompassing web of security in order to catch these criminals out. Not only are we being increasingly surveilled, both by our intelligence agencies and by our police, but governments are making inroads against other key liberties in the name of security. For example, ministers are currently at work formulating plans which will order ISPs to block access to extremist websites and report content deemed to dangerous for online publication by using the model currently used to crack down on online child abuse. The purpose of these measures is to catch the bad guys and make us more secure, but do we really feel more secure knowing that our governments have afforded themselves such powers? History has demonstrated time and time again that governments are capable of inflicting harm on their own citizens by using the same state instruments which were designed to protect them. Once in place, measures designed to catch criminals are capable of being abused and used against innocents; thus we must take care with what it is we allow our government to do.
There must always be a line drawn between liberty and security; but this line has been crossed already. We currently live in a security state where security has become paramount and we are asked to sacrifice core liberties in order to satisfy incremental increases in security. These ever more intrusive measures are akin to paving over the ocean to prevent drowning; it is an absurd, hugely disproportionate response to the threat posed by these criminals. The powers that our government and their associated agencies have permitted themselves to have are far too dangerous and prone to abuse to make any of us feel truly secure. Unless we dismantle our security state, and take measures to protect our liberty in a rapidly changing world, then we remain at risk of having our security violated by the very government which is meant to protect us. Until then, although we may feel that we have nothing to hide, it may very well be the case that we have much to fear.