Author Archive | HAX

For democracy to be a meaningful concept the people need to know what their governments are up to. If this is not the case, the process of electing politicians will be pointless and holding those elected accountable will be impossible.

Power is carried out in more and more murky ways, becoming increasingly opaque. (Ironically, this happens at the same time as our governments roll out new systems of mass surveillance of the people.)

There are the things we know. Most laws are made this way. This makes it possible to participate in an open process, to influence and to have a constructive public debate.

Then we have what we know that we do not know. But when we know what it is we don’t know – at least we can relate to it, try to find out what’s going on and demand openness.

And then there are the things that we do not know that we do not know. Things completely going on in the dark. Things that the people is not supposed to be aware of at all. The dirty little secrets of the few and powerful.

Naturally, there are some things that ought to be kept secret. At least for some time. This could concern certain ongoing diplomatic discussions, ongoing military activities and data concerning private citizens. But most things should get out in the open, as soon as possible.

Consider the US Embassy Cables, made public by Wikileaks and Chelsea Manning.

The US government–elected by the people–has one official policy and another, secret one on important issues.

This nullifies the very purpose of democratic elections. What is the point in voting, if politicians have a secret agenda that voters are not informed about? How should you know who to vote for? And how could you ever be able to evaluate and keep an elected government accountable?

And the Iraq and Afghanistan war diaries: If war is conducted in name of our countries, our values and for our tax money–why should the people not be allowed to know what’s really going on? And how can we even assume that our western military forces are doing the right thing, if relevant information is blacked out? “Trust us” is not a satisfactory answer.

Then we have the Snowden files: Government keeping secret from the people what it is doing to the people. This is a democratic faux pas, if there ever was one.

Or take negotiations on international trade agreements (ACTA, TTIP etc.) that are held behind closed doors.

When government functionaries have come to an agreement, nothing can be changed. What is stated in these agreements often have the same effects as law. And elected politicians in our parliaments can only adopt or reject these agreements in one piece. Nothing can be changed. This creates a fait accompli that short circuits the open, democratic process.

This is about democracy. For real. Governments are trying to suffocate it–and whistleblowers are trying to reanimate it.

And, trust me, there are lots of shady government policies and actions that we don’t even know that we don’t know about. At least not yet.

/ HAX

For years, politicians have claimed that we have to “give up liberties to be safe”.

What exactly does that mean? What liberties are we expected to give up? To what extent?

A clue might be the phrase “to strike a balance between fundamental rights and security”. That is an expression often used when the EU deliberate on mass surveillance issues.

Fundamental rights are called fundamental because they are. They are essential. They mark a red line, that should never be crossed in a democracy. They exist to protect citizens from politicians and from the state.

To “give up” civil liberties or to “balance” fundamental rights is always to restrict them–changing the rules to incapacitate the people, handing more power over to Big Government.

From my point of view, to give up liberties or fundamental rights is to make people less safe.

To give up privacy, to compromise on rule of law and to limit free speech does only make society more safe if you define “society” as politicians and their functionaries. But if you think of society as the people, as citizens or as an open dynamic system–this kind of “safety” or “security” is pure newspeak.

At the same time government is getting evermore opaque.

It seems that we are caught in some sort of dark, Orwellian irony.

/ HAX

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has released a very interesting report on the right to privacy in the digital age.

Among other things he disapprove of “collect-it-all” mass surveillance, mandatory data retention, and tech backdoors. Read more about this at EFF. »

He also urges the US not to prosecute Edward Snowden. »

Read the Human Rights Councils report on the right to privacy in the digital age here (PDF). »

We all know that the NSA, GCHQ and others are involved in gathering information by means of mass surveillance.

Information is power and mass surveillance is a gold mine for government institutions and politicians.

Now we learn that the british NSA affiliate GCHQ is involved in manipulating information on the Internet.

It is nothing new that western intelligence organisations sometimes use aggressive methods, such as IT-attacks. But that they manipulate, influence and change information on the net is. (At least in their own countries. Even though we might have suspected it.)

This is something different than surveillance. This is deception on a Mind Control scale. This is government trying to change the way the general public perceive the world. This is the ruling classes undermining citizens possibilities to make informed choices. This is Orwellian.

Such methods simply do not belong in a democratic society.

Government officials and civil servants ought to remember that their job is to to serve the public. Politicians should remember that they are in office to represent the people. But apparently they do not.

/ HAX

Links:
The Intercept: Hacking Online Polls and Other Ways British Spies Seek to Control the Internet »
The Guardian: GCHQ has tools to manipulate online information, leaked documents show »