Why Mass Surveillance is Different
Update: the UK’s House of Lords is debating the proposed Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill on Monday 26th, 2015. 18 pages of amendments, largely extracted from the recently rejected Communications Data Bill (or “Snooper’s Charter”), have been added to the Bill, will little or no time for proper scrutiny. It looks like mass surveillance will arrive in the UK next week, by the backdoor (of course). More info on the Open Rights Group and EFF sites.
Watching everyone, all the time, is a very different proposition from spying on individuals, but the UK government seems determined to ignore this distinction, and no one outside of the Internet’s libertarian pro-Snowden camp seems to understand it.
In the wake of the Paris murders, and the subsequent arrests in Belgium, the question of cyber-security and surveillance has again risen to the top of the news agenda. I’m not going to add to the debate here, beyond pointing out that I have a libertarian viewpoint on this; I’ll leave it for others more articulate than myself to make the larger argument for me.
However, since I spend a lot time explaining to people why mass surveillance is a bad thing, I thought I would share this analogy, in case anyone else finds it helpful.
I recently heard an interview on the radio in which an ex-spy from the Cold War days waved away objections to surveillance on the basis that back in the day they (spies) were regularly intercepting people’s mail; steaming open envelopes, reading the contents, re-sealing the envelopes and sending the letter on its way. This is individual surveillance. They targeted someone (sender or recipient), and intercepted their mail. Most people, myself included, despite my views, have little or no fundamental issue with this. At an individual level this can be overseen — if you’ve seen The Wire you know how (in theory at least) it works — you apply to a judicial authority for permission, they get to assess the validity of your claim, and it’s granted for a period of time to serve a specified purpose. At the end of that period of time, the permission is revoked.
This is *not* what the UK Government would like to see.
A more realistic analogy is this: the government simply tell the Post Office (the UK national delivery service) to steam open every letter, from anyone to anywhere, photocopy the contents, file them away, and then send the letter on. Keeping the contents so that they can refer back to them retrospectively. And whilst the Post Office are busy filing your records, BT (UK national landline carrier) is busy recording every single phone conversation you make. It’s the equivalent of having that message “Your call may be recorded for training purposes” built in to the telephone network.
And whilst, in theory, access to these back-dated records can also be overseen, the data has already been recorded, and is therefore subject to extraordinary levels of abuse.
(For the nerds amongst you, it’s a bit like Forward Secrecy — with individual surveillance orders, anyone abusing their authority will only have access to limited information, starting from the date on which the order is approved; without it (e.g. mass surveillance), that same person will be able to access everything that has been captured historically. And rest assured, it will be abused — it’s too valuable a commodity not to be.)
Mass surveillance is different — and it is a Rubicon of sorts — if it is allowed to pass into law, it won’t ever be repealed. This is for life.
