With Eyes Wide Shut

When people are overwhelmed with the volume of information confronting them, it is hard to know what to focus on. Attention rather than information becomes the scarce resource, and those who can distinguish valuable information from background clutter gain power.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr.  “Public Diplomacy and Soft Power”

To take a slightly different angle on what Joseph Nye Jr has argued, we might say that the 21^st century is the era of total espionage, where the government makes every effort to pay close attention to the total volume of information available within the country or which is relevant to national security, as officials claim. This is what all officials say, without quoting their source. The internet and virtual technologies are rapidly penetrating everyday life and becoming woven into its fabric thanks to computers or mobile phones (in many countries of Africa and Asia, especially in South-East Asia), the terrorist threat is rising, and the thirst for power is unquenched. These and certain other factors are creating a favourable environment enabling governments with increasing frequency to frame laws at the highest legislative level which purport to protect citizens from a potential external/internal threat.

One of the first countries to take this kind of initiative in the form of a law was the USA, with the Patriot Act, signed by George Bush Jr in 2001. This legislative initiative undoubtedly got the green light following the tragic events of September 2001, when American intelligence was unable to prevent a disaster on a scale that was not just national but international. The 9/11 events marked a watershed in modern history, and from that moment on the question of “security or personal space” became a more burning and urgent issue than ever. The scales in this debate are also steadily tipping towards security. Virtually all the provisions of the Patriot Act have been extended to 2019, with a few concessions in the form of the “Freedom Act” (the US security services are apparently prohibited from unlimited access to metadata and from requesting information from internet service providers without a court order), which was signed by Barack Obama in June 2015 in response to public pressure after Edward Snowden’s disclosures. Even three years after these disclosures the USA has not managed to make up the damage to its reputation – and to be honest, it’s unlikely to do so.

Russia too is not far behind in this area. In the last two or three years Russian domestic policy has undergone significant changes, gravitating increasingly towards imperialist conservatism. The information sphere has not been neglected either. In June 2016 Russia’s State Duma approved a pair of bills known simply as the “Yarovaya Law”, which amended Russia’s anti-terror laws.

Despite the fact that these laws impose severe restrictions (balancing on the brink of violating the constitutional rights of Russian citizens), they are essentially stillborn. The law significantly expands the authority of the law-enforcement agencies and enables them to have unlimited access to data held by mobile phone and Internet service providers. Also service providers who receive a request from representatives of the relevant authorities will be obliged to help them decrypt internet data communications.

All these measures are aimed at preventing the spread of terrorism on the Russian-language internet. But how they are going to do this remains an open question, as Russia lacks the necessary infrastructure to satisfy the aspirations of the powers that be. It also turns out that the country lacks the electricity to power the data centres, not to mention the fact that if it nevertheless starts to put the law into effect, the costs of internet access and mobile communications will shoot up. Then we might as well go back to the days of horse racing in tsarist Russia. Unlike the USA, where it is possible to implement such procedures, Russian service providers face an impossible task, and so far the chances of the law being fully implemented look decidedly slim. However, the fact that such an initiative has been approved brings us back to the question of “security or personal space”. The Russian-language internet is ceasing to be a platform for free expression of thought.

But one should not forget that any attempts by the state to spy on its own citizens cannot succeed yet. The Internet is based on free exchange of information, and a Darknet with no barriers has been created in order to avoid these kinds of restrictions. And anyone can take advantage of this. Frightening, isn’t it?

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