Between Fear and Hope: Snowden’s strategy and the hidden war

by Rafael A. F. Zanatta & Urbano Reviglio

Edward Snowden’s article published last week in the New York Times (“The World Says no to Surveillance”) should be read carefully for two basic reasons. First, because Snowden advances the thesis that we are in a turning point regarding civil resistance against mass surveillance. Second, because there is a clever move to fight politicians, mainly from conservative parties, that want to expand social control in a digital age.

Let us focus on the first issue: the thesis that the “post-terrorism generation” is shifting the balance of power, rejecting “a worldview defined by a singular tragedy”.

Snowden begins his piece claiming that two years ago he did not know what would be the effects of his revelations about the structure of data collection of the National Security Agency, popularized in the mass media with the help of Glenn Greenwald. He feared that “the public would react with indifference, or practiced cynicism, to the revelations”.

Snowden claims that he was wrong. For him, the situation is profoundly different in 2015: the USA modified the Patriot Act (ending mass surveillance of phone calls), the European data retention directive was cancelled by the Court of Justice of the European Union, Brazil created a Bill of Rights for the Internet in a democratic way and the United Nations declared mass surveillance a violation of human rights.

Besides the advances in law and politics, Snowden points to a second effect: developers and coders of all over the world engaged in correcting failures in communication securities and popularizing encryption. As recently announced by the Anonymous Group, coders are also developing an encrypted social network with transparent algorithms — the opposite of Facebook.

Behind law and technology, for Snowden, there is a strong civil society that operates with a “post-9/11 logic”: instead of reaction and fear, society relies now on resilience and reason.

It is obvious that there is an exceeding degree of optimism in Snowden’s text. It is hard to see this “turning point” in a context in which almost all European countries are easily approving new data retention laws using the rise of the Islamic State as an excuse. But we should understand the political strategy behind the text: Snowden is being coherent with the program of civil resistance he set up in his manifesto of 2013 (“A Manifesto for the Truth”).

This optimism should not blind us. While Michael Hayden — former director of the NSA — mocked the “surveillance reforms” in a meeting organized by the Wall Street Journal, Rick Falkvinge — founder of the Pirate Party — identified attempts of permanent audio recording by Google Chrome, increasing the level of surveillance conducted by huge companies like Google.

The second point we would like to focus in our analysis is the way Snowden uses the concept of “open society” against the conservatives and supporters of mass surveillance. Snowden writes that in the early 2000s, “few imagined that citizens of developed democracies would soon be required to defend the concept of an open society against their own leaders”. This is a very clever move.

The use of the words “open society” is not aleatory. The concept is directly linked to Karl Popper — who wrote in 1945 an influential book on the errors and “dangers” of the philosophy of Plato, Hegel and Marx (The Open Society and Its Enemies) — , one the main intellectual influence of liberals in the fight against authoritarian governments in the 20st century.

Snowden is clever enough to criticize David Cameron’s attempt to expand “anti-terrorist surveillance” in the United Kingdom and, in the following paragraph, use Popper’s concept in a different perspective, turning it against the so-called liberals. This leads to a fundamental question in the 21st century: who are the real enemies of the “open society”?

Snowden is giving a new meaning for the idea of open society, using it to fight progressive and conservative governments that rely on mass surveillance to advance and protect the “national interest”. His subtle strategy is provoking but, at the same time, risky.

What was fascinating about this debate is that it was assuming the character of a battle based on fear: on one side, people appealing to the reason of liberty fearing the end of the ‘open society’; on the other side, people appealing to the reason of security fearing the spectre of terrorism. Indeed, the battle grounds on a typical modern relation, that between liberty and security. A trade-off dichotomy: the more you have of security, the less you have on liberty. Fake security and fake liberty. We know it.

However, the “security advocates” have a far more powerful tool to appeal on fear: shocking images of death. One terrorist attack would be able to forget more complex and indirect risks for our society in the blink of an eye. And, of course, awareness about the risks of mass surveillance is far to be mass spread. Indeed, the “liberty advocates” have to deal with a very different approach to increase civic awareness through appealing to fear: the knowledge of a ghost or a gas, namely mass surveillance. You know there it is, but you don’t know how it works, and how it would work.

It’s clear that people are more suggestible to an irrational fears than a more rational but complex argument, and Snowden should know it very well. Nevertheless, in order to make his opinion attractive, he is not betting on fear-driving like his enemies in order to don’t let their guard down. Snowden builds on a strategical hope engine. This is absolutely bold. And dangerous. Somehow, we are still in a battle.