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You are here: Home / Archives for surveillance

surveillance

Mexico City: Surveillance Technologies in New Urban Battlespaces

December 4, 2018 by Luis Losada Simón-Ricart

By Luis Losada Simón-Ricart

4 December 2018

This image shows one of the 21,000 surveillance cameras installed throughout Mexico City in an attempt to combat crime. (Image credit: Luis Losada)

 

Over the past few years, Mexico has significantly increased the number of CCTV systems in its security forces in an attempt to combat crime. This has led to a complicated discussion on the relationship between security and liberty in security studies, and it raises the question of whether Mexico has surrendered too much liberty in the pursuit of security. Mexico is using surveillance technology to create an illusion of security, and this is a norm that is unlikely to change.

Surveillance technologies, including CCTV, are all based on ‘anticipatory seeing’ or what Bottomley and Moore defined as ‘the military goal of being able to know the enemy even before the enemy is aware of himself as such’[1]. CCTV is considered part of a process of securitization where urban areas, benefited from the liberal economy, are protected from the potential threats represented by the surrounding crowds, the ‘othering’. This process may be less obvious but not less significant and take place dividing the city into secure or non-secure areas, what Nelson Arteaga called ‘security archipelagos’ or ‘islands of order’. [2] As a result, cameras often ‘displace criminal behaviour to neighbouring areas something (…) that at a broader societal level hardly counts as progressive development’.[3] This process was already seen in past centuries when ‘cities were built with the idea of cutting out islands of order from a sea of chaos’. [4]

In Mexico, 80 percent of the population lives in urban areas, a number that is expected to increase to 89 percent by 2050.[5]The gradual increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas takes place in parallel with growing insecurity and violence. In the mid-1990s, a number of aforementioned factors created a time of political and social instability that led the country into a wave of insecurity, resulting in the implementation of new militarised approaches to reduce insecurity. Today, the country and Mexico City are suffering from growing insecurity as the numbers revealed through the last years. In Mexico, murder statistics show 2017 to be the deadliest year on record, with a murder rate of 20.51 per 100,000 inhabitants — that is 70 homicides a day. In Mexico City, the murder rate increased to 12.31 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2017, which is the highest rate since 1997. [6]

Homicides in Mexico City from 1990 to October 2018 (Source: Mexico Crime Report)[7]
Homicides in Mexico from 1990 to October 2018 (Source: Mexico Crime Report).[8]
 

The strategy implemented in Mexico City since the mid-1990s until today aims at permeating the police forces with the military-related technologies and tactics. The strategy followed two procedures to address the increased crime. On the one hand, it targeted some sectors from areas of the city where crime rates were higher, establishing checkpoints and control points under the authority of police or military forces.[9] On the other hand, it involved a strategy of securitisation that aimed to establish ‘a logic of monitoring, classification and control of the population´s movements’ dividing the city into quadrantsand establishing a video surveillance program. [10] For Nelson Arteaga, the strategy led to categorisation of ‘the citizens into sources of targets and threats’[11], in a time where ‘only seven percent of crimes committed in the city were solved’.[12]

The strategy received important criticism from some sectors of the population that were affected due to the sometimes-tricky processes to identify ‘potential targets’ affecting the check points or car searches, especially from the inhabitants that considered themselves victims and not threats. Consequently, the CCTVs were introduced to continue with the same securitisation process but through information technologies that are less intrusive. The so-called Surveillance Turn of Mexico City took place under the Lopez Obrador Administration in 2001. For the new government, the deployment of police forces based on military strategies was not proving effective and new approaches were needed. The technological response was seen as the ideal method to allow and ease the detection of criminals. The proposal was based on the rehabilitation of Mexico City downtown, through the installation of surveillance cameras in areas mostly occupied by low-income people and rough sleepers at that time.[13]

Today, 21,000 cameras[14] are installed throughout the city with 15,310 monitoring the highways and streets and approximately 6,000 in the underground with an estimated cost of US$4,000 per camera.[15] Further, during 2018, Mexico City authorities signed agreements with five shopping centres and the American retail company Walmart to connect their surveillance systems to C5, focal control center, and add one thousand new cameras.[16]

Official map showing in blue and red the current location of 21,000 cameras (Source: CDMX Report, 2013).

 

In order to increase the effectiveness of surveillance cameras, a deep reform took place within the police forces’ procedures aiming to improve the police response to different emergencies. The most significant reform was the division of the city into quadrants. The city is divided into 847 quadrants of 1.2 km, each under the authority of one police officer and a patrol.[17] The quadrants are selected based on route access, criminal incidence, population density and orography.[18] According to Victor Hugo Ramos Ortiz, Former Chief of Staff of Mexico City Police, ‘ their priority is to be present in less than three minutes in any reported emergency with more than one patrol’.[19] For the 15,310 cameras installed in the main highways and streets, there are 1,200 police officers’ monitoring 24/7, meaning that each police officer is responsible for monitoring approximately forty cameras.[20] Despite the number of cameras in Mexico City, they are still passive technologies that do not create alerts or patterns automatically.

Surveillance is here to stay having become a popular norm. The widespread use of CCTV is based on the role of cameras in promoting deterrence and detection; however, there is not conclusive evidence that this is effective, apart from the limited domain of car parks[21]. Further, we are part of a society ‘that constantly reminded us to feel afraid, to look fearfully around and take precaution’.[22] Our societies are raised in fear, and Bauman reminds us that ‘fear breeds fear’.[23] Since the end of the Cold War and following 9/11, our obsession with feeling ‘secure’ has grown in size and scope. Mexico City represents an example of how CCTV has permeated the security strategies implemented in urban areas as a technological solution with the intention of being perceived, creating an illusion of security. It must be remembered that there is no single or straightforward process to end criminality, and the only viable solution must be based on a holistic approach where the structural elements behind the growing insecurity and violence are taken into consideration.


Luis Losada is currently working at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Costa Rica and previously completed an MA in International Conflict Studies at King´s College London and a BA in Law and Political Science at Complutense University, Spain. You can follow him on Twitter @Luis_losada_.


Notes:

[1] Stephen Graham, “Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism”, Verso, London and New York, 2011, 66.

[2] Stephen Graham, “Cities Under Siege …”, 149.

[3] Kirstie Ball, Kevin D. Haggerty and David Lyon., “Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies”, Routledge, London and New York, 2014, 241.

[4] Zygmunt Bauman and David Lyon, “Liquid surveillance: A conversation”, Policy Press (2012), 103.

[5] UN DESA, Country Profile: Mexico, Percentage of population in rural and urban areas”, World Urbanization Prospects 2018, Population Division. Available at https://population.un.org/wup/Country-Profiles/ (Accessed by 26/11/2018).

[6] Observatorio de la Ciudad de Mexico, Reporte Anual 2017: Incidencia de los delitos de alto impacto en México, 2017. Available at http://onc.org.mx/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Reporte-Incidencia-delictiva-CDMX-2t2018.pdf (Accessed by 29/08/2018).

[7] Mexico Crime Report, Homicides Rate since 1990. Available at https://elcri.men/en/ (Accessed by 26/11/2018).

[8] Idem.

[9] Nelson Arteaga Botello, “Urban Securitization in Mexico City: A New Public Order”, Policing Cities, Urban Securitization and Regulation, Taylor and Francis Group, 231-245 (2013), 241.

[10] Ibid. 242.

[11] Ibid. 231.

[12] Nelson Arteaga Botello, “Urban Securitization in Mexico City”, (2013), 235.

[13] Ibid, 236.

[14] Some of the cameras in the streets are equipped with emergency buttons (10,074) and voice alarms speakers (12,364) [14] that in theory connects directly to a local police officer and aimed to ease the process of crime reporting.

[15] EL UNIVERSAL, “Más de 35 mdd, costo de cámaras de video vigilancia”, El Universal (2013). Available at http://archivo.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/930851.html (Accessed by 29/07/2018) and Lucia Jasso- Personal Interview, Mexico City (22/05/2018).

[16]MILENIO, “Conectan al C5 Cámaras de cinco plazas en la CDMX”, GRUPO MILENIO 2018. Available at http://www.milenio.com/estados/conectan-al-c5-camaras-de-cinco-plazas-mas-en-la-cdmx (Accessed by 29/07/2018)

[17] Víctor Hugo Ramos Ortiz- Personal Interview, Mexico City (25/05/2018).

[18] Idem.

[19] Idem.

[20] Idem.

[21] Víctor Hugo Ramos Ortiz- Personal Interview, Mexico City (25/05/2018).

[22] Zygmunt Bauman and David Lyon, “Liquid surveillance”, (2012), 105.

[23] Idem.

Filed Under: Blog Article Tagged With: CCTV, Mexico, mexico city, securitisation, surveillance

Is remote control effective in solving security problems?

October 20, 2015 by Strife Staff

By: Chad Daniel Tumelty

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/MQ-9_Reaper_UAV.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/MQ-9_Reaper_UAV.jpg

Editors note: Remote Control is a project hosted by the London-based think tank Oxford Research Group, set up to examine changes in military engagement, in particular the use of drones, special forces, private military companies and cyber warfare. They recently hosted an essay competition for participants in response to the question ‘Is remote control effective in solving security problems?’ Both Chad Tumelty and Archie Jobson of King’s College London achieved runner up. Strife is proud to feature them as your long read of the week over the coming two weeks.

* * *

Drones manifest both the concept and operation of remote control. As more states acquire and use drones to perform tasks previously performed by manned aircraft the effect that this transition of control will have upon wider state security will become clear. However as yet it is not. As such it is important to not only to think about how effective drones may be in solving security problems but also the wider impact this may have. The argument presented here is that the effectiveness of drones in solving state security problems will not be determined by the technology that allows them to be controlled remotely but in how states utilise that technology without impacting upon the security of other states. While drones can increase a state’s security by performing sorties that manned aircraft cannot, offering unparalleled persistence over borders and maritime interests, in areas where relations between states are strained such employment may be misperceived and create a security dilemma. Although drones enable states to conduct dangerous reconnaissance flights remotely without any risk to a pilot, epitomizing the concept of post-heroic warfare, this risks states becoming more inclined to conduct more politically precarious operations, potentially eroding security.

Introduction

Drones represent the perfect manifestation of both the concept and operation of remote control in technological form. The growing ubiquity and employment of drones represents one of the most salient technological developments to impact upon state security in recent times. Both the number of states acquiring drones as well as the number and variety they are acquiring is growing; with over ninety states now operating them, and a further twenty actively developing them.[2] Commonly referred to as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or more accurately remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), drones allow states to exercise many of the same operations performed by manned aircraft through systems of remote control, sometimes at greater efficiently or at lower risk. Although certain elements of some drones operations are automated, such as take-off and landing, they are often confused as being autonomous systems; ones that can perform a task or function without human input once activated.[3] While drones are being increasing used to perform security tasks instead of manned aircraft, the effect that this transition to remote control will have upon on state security is not yet clear.

The current U.S. exceptional use of armed UAVs to conduct targeted killings of suspected terrorists and insurgents outside of traditional battlefields, such as in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, by President Obama’s administration has raised both the profile and controversy surrounding drones.[4] Despite this, even before the first armed General Atomics MQ-1 Predator was tested in 2001 the use of drones was a growing feature of state security activity in non-lethal intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) roles; such as the American use of such systems in the Gulf War and operations in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as frequent Israeli deployment of drones since the 1980’s.[5] Historically drones have been operated as such intelligence gathering platforms, most notably by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) throughout the Cold War.[6] Outside of military and intelligence applications, drones are now also being used for a variety of non-lethal ISR roles by both state and non-state actors, including counter-trafficking surveillance, border patrols, search and rescue operations, and environmental monitoring, while it is as widely considered that drones have the potential to be used in almost ‘endless’ commercial applications.[7] Many also view the limited use of UAVs by Hezbollah as the possible prelude to their widespread use by other terrorist groups.[8] Given their proliferation, it is important to understand how effective the use of remotely controlled drones will be in solving a state’s security problems but also to consider the wider impact this may have upon their security.

The impact that drones will have upon security will not be determined by the technology behind making an aircraft unmanned but on how states utilise the remote control that drones offer and how other states will react to this in turn. In order to evaluate how effective remote control is in solving security problems this essay will explore the employment of drones by states to perform security functions associated with ISR applications. It will argue that while the uses drones in such roles may increase a state’s security in a number of ways by performing onerous functions that manned aircraft cannot, the perceived low risk to their employment may potentially erode security however by increasing the inclination of states to undertake more intrusive operations against others, both politically and physically, which they would not do with manned aircraft. In order to illustrate this, this essay will consider both the ‘dull’ surveillance and ‘dangerous’ reconnaissance tasks that drones are commonly conceived as being especially suited for, as reflected in both British and American doctrines on RPA.[9] The first section will consider how by performing surveillance flights previously considered too dull for manned aircraft the remote control offered by drones can effectively increase a state’s security by enabling persistent loitering over borders, waters and other national interests, and then consider the potential impact this may have in creating a security dilemma. The second section will explore the issue of greater concern and the use of drones to conduct dangerous reconnaissance and intelligence gathering missions over an adversaries territory, and how this risks creating insecurity between states through this post-heroic use of airpower.

Dull Surveillance

It is often the limits of human endurance that constitutes the weak link in the time that an aircraft can remain airborne. Occasionally exceptional efforts have been made to overcome these limitations, such as during the Kosovo intervention when American Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit bombers flew with two crews on-board during their thirty hour roundtrip missions from their base in the continental U.S. to Serbia.[10] However pilot fatigue has mainly been the constraining factor of flight-times and not aeronautical engineering. By removing the manned element in the aircraft drones ameliorate this issue through remote control and allow for missions requiring significant endurance that have been previously classified as either too dull or difficult to be flown. For example, the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk, often suggested in the U.S. as a replacement for their Lockheed U-2 spy plane, nicknamed the ‘Dragon Lady’, is able remain airborne in excess of thirty hours over long ranges but can operate either through automation on preprogramed flight paths or by pilots working in shifts through remote control, negating the constraint of fatigue.[11] Drones then, as put by former Royal Air Force Air Chief Marshal Sir Brian Burridge, enable the ‘holy grail of air power: persistence’ which in turn opens up new ways in which such aircraft can be utilised to increase state security enabled through remote control.[12]

It is through this persistence that drones offer states which confers upon them the ability to improve their security situation by increasing the protection of previously vulnerable areas or assets through extended surveillance. RPA are commonly referenced by many as a suitable solution to protecting and monitoring ‘vulnerable targets at sea’, such as merchant shipping, tankers, oil rigs and pipelines, through the exploitation of the persistence offered by remote control.[13] The British vision for drones primarily involves them undertaking many maritime security tasks, that are either not suited to naval assets or that are currently performed by manned aircraft but require multiple sorties; such tasks include littoral monitoring, anti-submarine patrols, counter-piracy tasks, fisheries protection and ocean scanning.[14] Both the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy already employ a number of UAVs to conduct these tasks.[15] Drones can also increase a state’s terrestrial security by performing dull flights. In 2005, the U.S. Congress authorized its Customs and Border Protection to purchase unarmed Predators to conduct its border patrols and surveillance more effectively and easily.[16] Since then a number of other federal agencies including the Missile Defense Agency, Drug Enforcement Administration and Department of Transport, as well as growing number of local sheriff and police departments, have acquired a multitude of drones for the purpose of increasing U.S. national security.[17]

By offering the ability to perform flights previously considered too dull, laborious or costly drones can effectively increase a state’s security. The persistent ISR capability that drones offer through remote control at decreased manpower and aircraft fatigue means that previously vulnerable assets or exploitable areas can now be protected. For example, during initial operations in Afghanistan the U.S. Air Force was able to operate twenty four separate Predator missions to provide ‘coverage round the clock’ in supporting troops; a task that would have proven extremely demanding on both aircraft and personnel if attempted with manned assets.[18] This capability can be easily adapted to increase national security or protect national interests. It should be noted that such operations do come at a high cost however, meaning that not all states could afford to mount such operations and most could not do so over multiple areas at once. A single Predator for example costs a little under $4.5 million, of which a quarter accounts for just the surveillance package, while it requires 168 people working across multiple areas to operate one for, and maintain it after, just twenty four hours of flight.[19] As developments in UAV technology continue to advance and market dynamics ensue it is likely that more advanced drones will be become widely available. It should be noted that not every state will require expensive high altitude, long endurance UAVs such as the Global Hawk or Predator, and will be able to adapt the wide variety of cheaper commercially available drones to meet their own unique security needs. The growing sophistication of drones costing even hundreds of dollars means that they have the potential capacity to produce significant security effects if sophistically deployed.[20]

The use of RPA in such dull surveillance roles may have unforeseen consequences however. Widespread state use of drones on interstate borders and over common waters may invoke a ‘security dilemma’; where steps taken by one state to increase their security undermines the security of other states.[21] When outlining the dilemma in 1978, Robert Jervis noted that ‘inspection devices can ameliorate the security dilemma’ by providing states with a ‘warning of coming dangers’ over their border and waters, but warned that; ‘attempts to establish buffer zones can alarm others who have stakes there, who fear that undesirable precedents will be set, or who believe that their own vulnerability will be increased.’[22] It is through such employment that drones have the potential to create security problems for states. Although the widespread use of drones by various U.S. federal agencies over its shared borders has not concerned either Mexico or Canada this is jointly due to the historical norms of friendly relations between the U.S. and its neighbours and the bi-lateral security benefits of their border protection, ballistic missile defence and counter-narcotics missions.[23] In regions where there are contested territorial disputes, such as the South China Sea, or where relationships between neighbours are particularly strained or actively hostile, then the introduction of similar practices with drones may increase tension between states. For example, despite repeated calls to do so the U.S. has refused to provide even unarmed UAVs to Ukraine to perform ISR roles, fearing that it might antagonise Russia further and prompt an escalation in the use of force.[24]

A way of evaluating this potential effect of such security operations with drones is through the lens of the offense-defence balance. This theory suggests that when it is technologically easier for a state to mount offensive action there is a greater probability of conflict, but when defence has the advantage the reverse is true.[25] Therefore if drones are seen as an enabler of territorial conquest and annexation then their widespread use over international boundaries and waters may induce friction between states, however if they are perceived as performing a security function then they could reduce the potential for conflict.[26] While it is difficult to classify technology as either offensive or defensive, Jack Levy has argued that some characteristics such as mobility will inherently offer greater offensive potential than others, such as armament, protection, endurance or even striking power.[27] On a similar vein, recently Peter Singer has noted how emerging technologies such as drones and robotics ‘are perceived as helping the offensive side in a war more than defence’ due to their ability to be operated remotely.[28] Although a fierce critic of the use of drones to conduct targeted killing operations, General Stanley McChrystal has reported how RPA employed in ISR roles were an effective force multiplier for the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command when he led them in Iraq, in that they provided unparalleled situational awareness and improved command and control which enabled his forces to conduct multiple commando raids per night.[29] Therefore there is the potential that drones could produce friction between states when performing surveillance security tasks over shared areas or borders, regardless of their armament, due to the inherent quality of some of their traits, including remote control, in enabling states to conduct offensive operations.

Dangerous Reconnaissance

Reconnaissance flights over an adversary’s territory have historically been the most dangerous mission undertaken by aircraft.[30] The recent downing and subsequent execution of Jordanian pilot Lieutenant Muadh al-Kasasbeh at the hands of Islamic State and Iraq and the Levant over Syria on the 24th December 2014 illustrates the danger that ISR sorties over an enemy’s territory can entail.[31] In addition to the risk to a pilot’s life reconnaissance flights have also carried the most political risk. On the 1st May 1960 the Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 flying over its territory, captured its pilot Major Gary Powers, and then proceeded to arrest him for spying and paraded him on television, causing ‘a devastating blow to the U.S.’s international prestige’.[32] The ensuing political fallout meant that American manned reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union ceased; ‘What had been an acceptable risk on 1 May became unacceptable politically and militarily on 2 May.’[33] It was these very risks that drones helped to eliminate through remote control. As previously noted, it has been in the ISR role over hostile territory that drones have historically been employed. For example, drones were extensively employed to monitor China’s nuclear program and throughout the Cold War the NRO flew numerous drone reconnaissance sorties over the Chinese nuclear test site at Lop Nor to gain details of their nuclear testing and arsenal.[34] On the 15th November 1964 China shot down a U.S. Ryan AQM-34 Firebee in an event which ‘made the front page of The New York Times, but created little controversy.’[35] The loss of seven more drones over China between 1965 and 1975 ‘went virtually unnoticed’ with these events creating almost no political fallout despite conducting essentially the same activity that Powers had been over the Soviet Union.[36] It is due to this record that Ann Rogers and John Hill argue that drones solve what they term the ‘Gary Powers problem’ simply by being unmanned and remotely controlled, appearing to ‘manifest a less obvious trespass than a manned incursion’.[37] It is this perception of drone reconnaissance flights that may potentially carry with it the greatest risks to state security.

The fact that drones are piloted remotely means that the calculation of risk concerning their employment for dangerous flights such as reconnaissance sorties is altered. In other words, drones allow leaders to ‘take risks’ that they would ‘hesitate to do with manned aircraft’.[38] The legacy of RPA use throughout the Cold War as well as their current employment stands testament to this. David Dunn argues that because they are controlled remotely and therefore disembodied, drones ‘disrupt the calculus of risk’ in those who employ them by convincing them that their use in sensitive mission can be conducted with ‘domestic political impunity, minimal international response and low political risk’.[39] Peter Singer terms this the ‘dark irony’ of drones, in that by removing the potential risk of the loss of life related to dangerous missions through remote control drones ‘may seduce us into more wars’ by making it more likely that leaders would employ them.[40] The recent Birmingham Policy Commission report on drones stated that it found such arguments of drones ‘lowering the threshold to the use of force’, as they are unmanned and controlled remotely, unconvincing based on the evidence they heard.[41] It should be noted that this was only in a British context however, and this perception of drones may indeed invoke such reckless use by other states. In a 2011 doctrine publication on drones the U.K.’s Ministry of Defence stated that; ‘an opponent that succeeds in shooting down an unmanned aircraft has little to show for it but some wreckage – which they can easily be accused of fabricating, or for which ownership can simply be denied’. [42] This illustrates that, contrary to the Birmingham Policy Commission’s findings, there may be some within British policy making circles that disregard the risk of drone employment on sensitive reconnaissance missions.

The view that drones may increase the risk of confrontation between states by presenting no risk to a pilot’s life is tied to the idea of post-heroic warfare. Coined by Edward Luttwak, post-heroic warfare describes a condition where force may be employed easily and without restraint by states provided that doing so carries no risk of casualties, enabled by the full exploitation of technologies which remove humans from harm.[43] It is frequently noted that for many states; ‘It is becoming harder to envision sending manned reconnaissance assets into denied, hostile airspace’, due to the casualty aversion of their societies.[44] Drones solve this issue through remote control by offering leaders the ‘seductive’ ability to conduct dangerous missions without risking the sacrifice or political blowback entailed with manned aircraft.[45] In this way drones therefore embody the concept of post-heroic warfare. Peter Singer notes that; ‘By removing warriors completely from risk and fear, unmanned systems create the first complete break in the ancient connection that defines warriors and their soldierly values.’[46] The effects of this separation are not yet clear, but the wider employment of drones by many states would appear to clarify that it has changed the perception of risk in conducting dangerous or politically sensitive missions. Examples of this have already been seen with Israel’s extensive use of drones to gather targeting information and intelligence over Syria, or more recently Russia’s use of unarmed UAVs over Ukraine to support the separatists with artillery observation.[47]

Although there is some suggestion that states currently appear to view drone reconnaissance sorties as unobtrusive events politically, as these systems become more widely utilised by a greater number of actors this norm could become eroded. The Birmingham Policy Commission noted that many states are beginning to recognise that their air defence posture is unsuitable for drones and are already pursuing research and development projects into anti-drone defences in order to remedy this, indicating that this shift in norms may already be taking place.[48] For example, while current U.S. air defences can defeat a wide range of aerial threats a significant gap exists in that low flying, small UAVs cannot be detected by their ground based radar arrays, meaning that such drones could easily penetrate their airspace.[49] This is related to the offense-defence balance. Although the characteristics of drone technology may make it inherently suited to offense, the balance is also about the relative resources that a state must invest in their own defences in order to counter an opponent’s offensive capabilities; ‘When a technological innovation changes the relative costs of offensive and defensive capabilities, the offense-defense balance shifts.’[50] As most states do not possess the necessary means to counter the wide array of RPA that exist the continued proliferation of drones and their use in the air space of other sovereign state may upset the offense-defence balance. This issue may become more prominent as technical developments continue to make stealth technology cheaper and more widely available.[51] If this occurs then drones flying dangerous reconnaissance missions could destabilise relations between states, potentially leading to a security dilemma. This could be particularly perilous during periods of increased tension between states. A prominent example of this was on the 27th October 1962 when an American U-2 was shot down conducting reconnaissance over Cuba at the height of the Missile Crisis in an event that heightened tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and almost induced miscalculation at a period when the potential of a nuclear exchange was very real.[52]

Conclusion

In conclusion, while drones may be effective in solving some state security problems this may come at considerable political cost that will have a profound impact on wider state security, the effects of which are not yet clear. Drones can increase state security by performing surveillance sorties that manned aircraft cannot by offering the persistence needed to protect national borders, waters and other national security interests through remote control. In areas where relations between states are strained however such employment may be misperceived under the security dilemma. By enabling states to conduct dangerous reconnaissance flights remotely without any risk to a pilot, epitomizing the concept of post-heroic warfare, drones create a perception of low risk to their employment which may potentially increasing the inclination of leaders to take risks. This carries with it the risk that states will be more inclined to conduct more politically and physically intrusive operations that will erode relations between states impacting security. The effectiveness of drones in solving security problems will not be determined by the technology that allows an unmanned aircraft to be controlled remotely but upon how norms of use are developed over time as to how states can utilise that technology to solve their security problems without impacting upon the security of another state.

Chad is currently studying for an MA in Science and Security at King’s College London. He is writing his dissertation on the bulk collection of metadata by the U.S. National Security Agency. Previously Chad completed a BA in War Studies, also at King’s College London, for which he was awarded a first class honours. He is currently interning at Realeyes, a tech start-up, which provides facial coding and emotions analytical services to brands, advertising agencies and media companies.

[1] An earlier version of this essay was submitted in partial requirement for the postgraduate module “Current Issues in Science and Security”, at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, on the 25th March 2015.

[2] Kelley Sayler (2015), A World of Proliferated Drones: A Technology Primer, (Washington, D.C.: Center for a New American Security), p. 8

[3] Paul Scharre (2015), Between a Roomba and a Terminator: What is Autonomy?, War On The Rocks, http://warontherocks.com/2015/02/between-a-roomba-and-a-terminator-what-is-autonomy/ , 18/02/2015

[4] Kenneth Anderson (2010), Rise of the Drones: Unmanned Systems and the Future of War, testimony submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, (23rd March 2010), p. 1

[5] Air Chief Marshall Sir Brian Burridge (2003), UAVs and the dawn of post-modern warfare: A perspective on recent operations, The RUSI Journal, (148:5, pp. 18-23), p. 18

[6] Thomas P. Ehrhard (2010), Air Force UAVs: The Secret History, (Washington, D.C.: Mitchell Institute Press), pp. 2-5

[7] Medea Benjamin (2013), Drone Warfare: Killing By Remote Control, (London: Verso), p. 15

[8] Brian A. Jackson & David R. Frelinger (2009), Emerging Threats and Security Planning: How Should We Decide What Hypothetical Threats to Worry About?, (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation), p. 7

[9] Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005), Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2005-2030, (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense), p. 1; and, Joint Doctrine Note 2/11(2011), The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems, (Shivernham: Ministry of Defence), p. 3-4

[10] Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005), Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2005-2030, p. 2

[11] Richard A. Best Jr. & Christopher Bolkcom (2000), Airborne Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance (ISR): The U-2 Aircraft and Global Hawk UAV Programs, (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service), p. 2

[12] Air Chief Marshall Sir Brian Burridge (2005), Post-Modern Warfighting with Unmanned Vehicle Systems: Esoteric Chimera or Essential Capability?, The RUSI Journal, (150:5, pp. 20-23), p. 20

[13] Peter W. Singer (2009), Wired For War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the Twenty-first Century, (London: Penguin), p. 227

[14] Joint Doctrine Note 2/11(2011), The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems, p. 3-4

[15] Jeremiah Gertler (2012), U.S. Unmanned Aerial Systems, (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service), p. 23

[16] Benjamin (2013), Drone Warfare, p. 75

[17] Gertler (2012), U.S. Unmanned Aerial Systems, p. 23

[18] John D. Blom (2010), Unmanned Aerial Systems: A Historical Perspective, (Fort Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute Press), p. 108; and, Singer (2009), Wired For War, p. 33

[20] Sayler (2015), A World of Proliferated Drones, p. 29

[21] Robert Jervis (1978), Cooperation Under The Security Dilemma, World Politics, (30:2, pp. 167-214), p. 169

[22] Ibid, pp. 169-181

[23] Benjamin (2013), Drone Warfare, p. 75

[24] Adam Rawnsley (2015), Ukraine Scrambles For UAVs, But Russian Drones Own The Sky, War Is Boring, https://medium.com/war-is-boring/ukraine-scrambles-for-uavs-but-russian-drones-own-the-skies-74f5007183a2, 20/02/2015

[25] Sean M. Lynn-Jones (1995), Offense-Defense Theory And Its Critics, Security Studies, (4:4, pp. 660-691), p. 661

[26] Jack S. Levy (1984), The Offensive/Defensive Balance Theory of Military Technology: A Theoretical and Historical Analysis, International Studies Quarterly, (28:2, pp. 219-238), p. 223

[27] Ibid, p. 225

[28] Singer (2009), Wired For War, pp. 321-332

[29] Gideon Rose (2013), Generation Kill: A Conversation with Stanley McChrystal, Foreign Affairs, (92:2 , pp.2-8), pp. 4-5

[30] Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005), Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2005-2030, p. 2

[31] Martin Chulov & Shiv Malik (2015), Isis video shows Jordanian hostage being burned to death, The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/03/isis-video-jordanian-hostage-burdning-death-muadh-al-kasabeh, 04/02/2015

[32] Major Christopher A. James (1997), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): An Assessment of Historical Operations and Future Possibilities, (Montgomery: Air Command and Staff College), p. 3

[33] Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005), Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2005-2030, p. 2

[34] Ehrhard (2010), Air Force UAVs, pp. 9-10

[35] Ibid.

[36] Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005), Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2005-2030, p. 2

[37] Ann Rogers & John Hill (2014), Unmanned: Drone Warfare and Global Security, (London: Pluto Press), p. 2

[38] Lynn E. Davis, Michael J. McNemey, James Chow, James, Thomas Hamilton, Sarah Harding & Daniel Byman (2014), Armed and Dangerous? UAVs and U.S. Security, (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation), p. 11

[39] David H. Dunn (2013), Drones: disembodied aerial warfare and the unarticulated threat, International Affairs, (89:5, pp. 1237-1246), p. 1238

[40] Singer (2009), Wired For War, p. 322

[41] Birmingham Policy Commission Report (2014), The Security Impact of Drones: Challenges and Opportunities for the UK, (Birmingham: University of Birmingham), p. 59

[42] Joint Doctrine Note 2/11 (2011), The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems, p. 3-7

[43] Edward N. Luttwak (1995), Toward Post-Heroic Warfare, Foreign Affairs, (74:3, pp. 109-122), p.112

[44] James (1997), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), p. 55

[45] Singer (2009), Wired For War, p. 321

[46] Ibid, p. 332

[47] Patrick Tucker (2015), In Ukraine, Tomorrow’s Drone War Is Alive Today, Defense One, http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/03/ukraine-tomorrows-drone-war-alive-today/107085/, 09/03/2015

[48] Birmingham Policy Commission Report (2014), The Security Impact of Drones, p. 29

[49] Davis et al. (2014), Armed and Dangerous?, pp. 4-6

[50] Lynn-Jones (1995), Offense-Defense Theory And Its Critics, p. 667

[51] Davis et al. (2014), Armed and Dangerous?, p. 4

[52] Rogers & Hill (2014), Unmanned, p. 21

Filed Under: Long read Tagged With: Afghanistan, drones, Predator, Reaper, security, surveillance, UAV

Interview - Sir David Omand on Iraq, the terrorist threat, and surveillance

March 27, 2015 by Strife Staff

Interview by Lee Watkins:

Professor Sir David Omand GCB, talking at Chatham House in September 2013. Photo: Chatham House (CC)
Professor Sir David Omand GCB, talking at Chatham House in September 2013. Photo: Chatham House (CC)

Sir David Omand, former Director of GCHQ, on the current security climate and the recent IPT rulings on GCHQ’s information gathering.

***

Besides your role as Director of GCHQ from 1996-1997, what are other highlights from your career?

I was Principal Private Secretary to the Defence Secretary during the Falklands War. That was a very intense experience, seeing things at close quarters. The other defining experience was the Bosnian War. I was Deputy Undersecretary of State Policy and in charge of the MoD’s policy, which eventually led to the NATO intervention and brought the conflict to a close. That was both extremely hard but also rewarding. A lot of people lost their lives.

I supported NATO’s intervention. This was a period of extreme tension between the US Congress and most of the parliaments in Europe. And so getting something everyone could agree on – that’s the kind of policy work that’s really rewarding. The UN, when it works well, is extremely good. But if you haven’t got full consensus from the Security Council, then it’s very difficult. Getting it under control by reconciling Europe and the United States and then getting NATO to take the lead transformed the situation.

Additionally, you contributed to the 2010 Chilcott Inquiry into the UK’s role in the Iraq War. What was your role during that war?

I wasn’t involved in the Iraq decisions myself, but I was a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee at the time of the Iraq War. I was security and intelligence coordinator in the Cabinet Office. At the time I was deeply involved in constructing the UK’s domestic counterterrorism strategy.

How would you respond to criticism that the Iraq War may have been counterproductive by creating more militant jihadists than it has deterred?

Islamic extremism predated the invasion of Iraq and the War on Terror; for instance the 1998 US Embassy bombings in East Africa carried out by Al-Qaeda or the attack on the USS Cole. You can’t draw a cause and effect conclusion, nor can you say that there’s a direct relationship. Denmark was just attacked just over a month ago and no one would accuse Danish foreign policy of being aggressive.

But there is no doubt that passions were aroused by the invasion of Iraq and I expressed that at the Chilcott Inquiry. The British intelligence committee’s assessment was that as a result of our actions in Iraq the threat level would go up. This didn’t necessarily mean they should not go ahead, but they had an awareness of this assessment. They judged that that was manageable.

What about statements by Al-Qaeda and other groups that their attacks are in response to Western foreign policy, for instance that 9/11 was retaliation for US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia?

They’re going to say that anyway. I think that the Far Enemy thesis applies. If someone like Zawahiri [the current leader of al-Qaeda] believes that the West will prevent the creation of an Islamic state in Egypt or Algeria, then they will try to strike back at the power of the United States. They see the United States, the West, Israel, as implacably hostile to the creation of a Caliphate, of an Islamic State – which we are, because we are so diametrically opposed. It is a clash of values. Which is not to say that these values are intrinsic to Islam – very few Muslim communities in the US or the UK would see eye-to-eye with them.

Public anxiety has been mounting for several years, not only about terrorist attacks but also about government surveillance. Are these fears well-founded?

Some of this is inevitable because the more you know about the threat, the more anxious you are liable to be. If you’re in a happy state of ignorance, your anxiety is less – until something happens. The UK’s terrorist threat level [recently raised to “Severe”] is a way to condition the public to the existing level of risk. That way you don’t have a gross overreaction - shouts of “This must never be allowed to happen again!” and legislating away our human liberties. We make it clear that it’s not possible to stop all attacks, and that isn’t the objective.

The intelligence community’s objective isn’t to stop all attacks?

The formal objective of the UK counterterrorism strategy is to reduce risk so that people can freely go about their normal lives with confidence. You want to stop every goal from being scored by the opposing team – but you know that that’s actually impossible. No team ever succeeds in keeping out all the goals, but at any one moment you’re desperately trying to stop them from scoring. In no way does that imply that you’re taking a relaxed or casual approach. It is the reality that actually, your team is not going to win every game. If you try to give an absolute guarantee, you get driven into actions that are counterproductive.

What is your response to the recent Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) court ruling that the intelligence-sharing relationship between the NSA and GCHQ was illegal?

The IPT’s first ruling determined that British intelligence was in conformity with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the British Human Rights Act. The second again upheld the way the intelligence mission was being conducted. They determined that this was not mass surveillance, but targeted surveillance. However, under ECHR, the UK has the obligation to keep the public informed of how the law applies to them [the intelligence-gathering authorities].

Specifically there were two GCHQ guidelines not in the public domain. These safeguards applied to information collection by the US about people in the UK. In essence, an analyst was required to have the same level of authority [the Secretary of State’s authority] to access this information as if it had been the UK who collected it. But the difficulty came in where the UK was physically not in a position to get the access but the US was. The safeguard meant that the legal equivalent of a warrant, a secretary of state’s authorization, enabled the analyst to go to the US and say, “Have you got anything on this guy?” So it’s essentially a safeguard.

The court determined that two paragraphs in the government’s evidence should be public. They are now public. One of them is entirely theoretical. Technically the government had been in breach of its obligations for the preceding seven years because it hadn’t made these conditions clear. It has now made them clear, so it is now in the right. They should have done this when they first had access to the US material. So I think that’s a good decision, because it reminds the government of their obligation to explain to the public how it all works, and it’s also an excellent decision from the government’s point of view because it reaffirms that the court believes that what is currently going on is lawful, and is consistent with ECHR and it’s not mass surveillance.

I’m slightly confused by your positive response to the ruling because my impression was that GCHQ’s protocol was deemed a human rights violation.

Interception law, which requires warrants and authorities – all of that was being complied with. You’ve got various safeguards for external communication, but because of the way packages switch networks you pick up a domestic communication instead. GCHQ explained that in those circumstances you still require the same level of authority to access the material. But what they hadn’t done was make themselves understandable to the public, under ECHR regulation. And if you look at the 2008 statement, it doesn’t cover this at all. A lawyer would say it does, but if you were a layperson and you read the act, would you understand it? And the answer is no, you wouldn’t.

The government should have done more to explain. And what they’re not explaining is safeguards, which is slightly paradoxical. But the public has a right to know what those safeguards are. Immediately when the judgment came out, all the civil liberties groups jumped on it – but simultaneously GCHQ said they were delighted with the judgment, that what they were doing was legal.

Yes, in part my surprise at your reaction comes from statements by groups like Privacy International, which has launched a campaign titled “Did GCHQ spy on you?” that has gathered 6,000 signatures. Is it not your impression that people feel their privacy is being invaded?

This is simply mischief-making. This is what lobby groups do – try to create this impression. Their privacy was not being invaded, but their right to have the law explained to them was not being upheld. Would they be entitled to any compensation? I hope not.

Do you feel that there has been an escalation of public fear of being spied on? A case of increasing paranoia, if you like.

Yet the polls show that two-thirds of the British public think that more powers should be given to intelligence agencies because of the threat of terrorism. This is a very vocal campaign run on behalf of a minority. Now, they need to be taken seriously – they should be taken seriously – but I don’t think you should run away with the idea that there is huge British public unease. On the contrary, the majority of the British public want the agencies to go on trying to stop attacks.

So you feel that the fears of a terrorist attack are higher than the fears of privacy intrusion? Both of these public concerns put pressure on the intelligence community.

A lot of unease is down to a simple conceptual error in confusing mass surveillance with bulk access. This problem has bedevilled the whole argument. The IPT judgment discusses bulk access. GCHQ has the ability to capture quite a lot of external communication – it’s still a tiny part of the internet – and then a filtering is applied by computers, looking for the specific indicators of the targets they’re allowed to access. What is allowed to be seen by an analyst is tiny. If analysts are seeking, say, Syrian jihadists, then they are only allowed to view what is permitted to them on the relevant certificate. That’s why the IPT concluded that this was highly targeted and not mass surveillance. But it does involve computers looking at the major bearers of information in order to find useful material.

When you think about it, there’d be no other way to find the IP address of a computer being used by a terrorist. How would you find the communication? There are arguments over whether you should feel that your privacy has been intruded upon, even if it’s just the computer whizzing through and throwing your stuff away, because it’s not what they’re looking for. And that argument will go on, but it wasn’t accepted by the IPT.

The key for me is, it’s not about the tools being used by the agency. They are essential. They’re needed to catch paedophiles and criminals and terrorists. Law enforcement is all about digital intelligence these days. Worry about the oversight. Who gets to sign the authority? Who checks they’re actually complying with the regulations?

So you feel it’s a question of human integrity rather than technology?

Yes. This is where the IPT comes in. The report by Rt. Hon Sir Anthony May, Interception of Communications Commissioner, again concluded there’s no mass surveillance going on. He has free access to all the analysts’ stuff at GCHQ and he was previously an appeal court judge, so he’s quite a formidable character.

In the UK, I personally think that we have the model for the rest of Europe to follow. We’ve got parliamentary oversight, judicial oversight, got a specialist court for all of this. The bit that hasn’t been right has been the transparency vis-a-vis the public. The more transparent the government is, the more the public supports it. What Snowden has done is unleash a kind of worry – “What are they doing? How can I trust them?” – and in fact the more that comes out, for example through the IPT, the more people should be reassured that it’s a very organised system, it’s got checks and balances.

We’ve discussed concerns over too much information – what about worries over too little? In many cases, including the recent Charlie Hebdo attack, preceding a terrorist attack there is a trail of tweets, of blog posts, of other online clues that an attack will occur. Is there perhaps not enough access to information?

If you can get private correspondence, rather than public blogging, that will give you a better clue as to where they are – and do they have something big in mind? They may tip someone else off and say, “We’re going to do it on Saturday.” You can’t conclude one way or another about the Charlie Hebdo attack. It’s very important that people understand: intelligence work is a jigsaw puzzle. It’s putting together several jigsaw puzzles simultaneously. The pieces are all muddled up and you haven’t got the lid of the box. You can’t pick up one piece and say, “Without this, the attack wouldn’t have happened.”

It’s kind of a crazy question: “How many terrorist attacks has digital intelligence stopped?” Well, how long is a piece of string? If you’ve got reasonably good coverage of the people who mean you harm, you will stop most of them. The director of the security service indicated recently that the last dozen attempts in the UK have been stopped. Will the next one be stopped? Who knows. At least the score rate is good. And one would not want it the other way around.

Thank you.


Sir David Omand GCB is a visiting Professor in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. He was the first UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator, responsible to the Prime Minister for the professional health of the intelligence community, national counter-terrorism strategy and “homeland security”. For seven years he served on the Joint Intelligence Committee. He was Permanent Secretary of the Home Office from 1997 to 2000, and before that Director of GCHQ. During the Falklands conflict he was Principal Private Secretary to the Defence Secretary, and he served for three years in NATO Brussels as the UK Defence Counsellor. He has previously written on some of these issues for Strife. You can find his article here.
Lee Watkins is an MA student in the Terrorism, Security and Society programme in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London.

Filed Under: Blog Article Tagged With: david omand, GCHQ, intelligence, Iraq, NSA, surveillance, terrorism

Understanding digital intelligence from a British perspective

February 5, 2015 by Strife Staff

By Professor Sir David Omand GCB:

GCHQ building at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Photo: Ministry of Defence (creative commons)
GCHQ building at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Photo: Ministry of Defence (creative commons)

The Snowden revelations revealed much that was never intended to be public. But to understand them they must be seen in their context, of a dynamic interaction over the last few years between the demand for intelligence on the threats to society and the potential supply of relevant intelligence from digital sources. All intelligence communities, large and small, and including those hostile to our interests, have been facing this set of challenges and opportunities.

First, the challenge of meeting insistent demands for secret intelligence. For the UK this is, for example, to counter cyber security threats and provide actionable intelligence about the identities, associations, location, movements, financing and intentions of terrorists, especially after 9/11, as well as dictators, , insurgents, and cyber-, narco- and other criminal gangs. The threats such people represent are real and - in many respects - getting worse and spreading.

These demands for intelligence have coincided with a digital revolution in the way we communicate and store information. The internet is a transformative technology, but is only viable because our personal information can be harvested by the private sector, monetized and used for marketing. So the digital age is able to supply intelligence about people, for example by accessing digital communications, social media and digital databases of personal information. And for intelligence communities, new methods of supply call forth new demands from the police and security authorities that could not have been met before the digital age. And their insistent demands for intelligence to keep us safe call forth ever more ingenious ways of extracting intelligence from digital sources.

For the democracies (but not for others such as the Russians and Chinese), there is an essential third force in operation: applying the safeguards needed to ensure ethical behaviour in accordance with modern views of human rights, including respect for personal privacy. For the UK, the legal framework for GCHQ is given in:

  1. The Intelligence Services Act 1994 (Article 3 confers on GCHQ the functions of intelligence-gathering and information assurance with the sole purposes of national security, prevention and detection of serious crime and safeguarding the economic well-being of the UK from actions of persons overseas; Article 4 relates to obtaining and disclosing information).
  2. The Regulation of Investigative Powers Act 2000 (Article 1 outlines the terms of unlawful interception; Article 5 outlines the powers of the Secretary of State to issue a warrant to make interception legal); Article 8 describes domestic and external warrants; Articles 15 and 16 provide safeguards and controls on storage, handling and retention of data).
  3. The Human Rights Act 1998 including incorporating a ‘necessity and proportionality’ test to everything GCHQ does.

Like some elementary experiment in mechanics the resultant of these three forces – of demand, of supply and of legal constraints and public attitudes – will determine the future path of our intelligence communities.

Into that force-field blundered the idealistic Edward Snowden, the Wikileaks-supporting information campaigners Poitras and Greenwald, plus a posse of respectable journalists.

Some are tempted to see Snowden as a whistleblower. But he certainly did not meet the three essential conditions for a legitimate whistleblower as far as the UK is concerned. He did not expose UK wrongdoing, he did not exhaust his remedies before going public, and he did not act proportionately by stealing and leaking so many secrets (including 58,000 British intelligence top-secret documents) to make his main case against the US National Security Agency’s collection of metadata on the communications of US citizens.

Close examination has shown that there is no scandal over illegal interception, or other unlawful intelligence activity, by GCHQ. The three elements of the ‘triple lock’ on GCHQ’s activities - the Foreign Secretary’s authorisations, the oversight by the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), and the legal compliance by the independent UK Interception Commissioner and the independent Investigative Powers Tribunal - have each separately concluded everything GCHQ does is properly authorized, and legally properly justified including under Article 8 of the European Human Rights convention regarding personal privacy.

The documents from these different oversight bodies are well worth reading for the unparalleled detail they provide into how interception by the UK authorities is authorized, carried out and audited so as to be always within the law:

  1. The ISC Report.
  2. The Interception Commissioner’s Annual Report for 2013.
  3. The Investigative Powers Tribunal Judgement.
  4. The Foreign Secretary’s Statement.
  5. The Home Secretary has also described her role in authorizing legal interception of UK communications, including by GCHQ, here.

The inescapable conclusion from these documents is that GCHQ operates entirely within the law, including the 1998 Human Rights Act and therefore the European Charter of Human Rights in respect of freedom of expression and personal privacy.

What the documents do reveal is bulk access to the internet (authorized under Section 8(4) of RIPA 2000) in order to be able to reconstruct communications whose packets have been sent on different routes and to discover new communications of targets (who, to avoid surveillance, will adopt different identities). Targeted surveillance is what is conducted by the UK intelligence agencies. They will continue to need to try to collect intelligence on authorized targets for which the necessary legal authority exists, for example jihadist extremists from the UK who are fighting in Syria and Iraq and who may return to the UK as hardened and dangerous terrorists.

What Snowden and his supporters have failed to do therefore is to distinguish bulk access by computers to the internet – which the US and UK, France, Germany, Sweden and many other nations certainly do have – and so-called ‘mass surveillance’. Mass surveillance implies observers - human beings - who are monitoring the population or a large part of it. As the ISC, the UK Interception Commissioner and the IPT confirm, no such mass surveillance takes place by GCHQ; it would be unlawful if it did.

A similar misconception has arisen over the use of so-called metadata. The media have not explained that the UK uses a strict legal definition of ‘communications data’ (laid down in RIPA 2000) which covers the traditional ‘who called whom, for how long, when and where?’ of old-fashioned telephone billing, not the much looser concept of ‘meta-data’ obtained from internet and social media use. Thus accessing browsing history or other detailed digital metadata, whether from US or UK sources, is for British analysts equivalent to accessing ‘content’ which requires the relevant UK warrant signed by a Secretary of State. For domestic communications (both ends in the UK) that is the Home Secretary and for communications with one or both ends overseas by the Foreign Secretary.

Given the packet-switched nature of global internet communications it is possible that a domestic communication will be picked up in the course of overseas interception – but RIPA 2000 makes explicit provision to allow for this possibility, and provides safeguards (Sections 15 and 16) to ensure the same level of authorization is obtained.

So the issue is not the powerful tools themselves; they are necessary for public and national security. Nor is it the legality of how these tools are used today. The issue is how we the public can be sure that under any future government these tools cannot be misused.

We would be well advised not to have blind trust in the benevolence of any government. ‘Trust but verify’ should be the motto. With increasingly robust executive, Parliamentary and judicial oversight and publication of the results of their work we can and must ensure those tools will only be used in lawful ways that do not infringe beyond reasonable necessity our right to privacy for personal and family life or impose unconscionable moral hazard.


Professor Sir David Omand GCB is a visiting Professor in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. He was the first UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator, responsible to the Prime Minister for the professional health of the intelligence community, national counter-terrorism strategy and “homeland security”. For seven years he served on the Joint Intelligence Committee. He was Permanent Secretary of the Home Office from 1997 to 2000, and before that Director of GCHQ. During the Falklands conflict he was Principal Private Secretary to the Defence Secretary, and he served for three years in NATO Brussels as the UK Defence Counsellor.

 

Filed Under: Blog Article Tagged With: GCHQ, intelligence, Snowden, surveillance

Deconstructing the panopticon

May 1, 2014 by Strife Staff

By Andreas Haggman:

Anonymous graffiti on the wall of the British Museum, London
Anonymous graffiti on the wall of the British Museum, London

Surveillance is always a contentious issue. Whether in the physical realm (CCTV cameras) or digital realm (phone tapping, electronic snooping), proponents and opponents trade blows over arguments of necessity and efficacy versus invasion of privacy and erosion of liberty. While there are no clear-cut answers as to the ethical and practical utility of public surveillance, it is obvious that the issue sparks passionate debate.

The Snowden leaks have made evident the breadth and depth of digital surveillance techniques available to modern intelligence agencies. The gist of what has been revealed so far is that every electronic device is liable to surveillance intrusion, whether this be at a metadata or content level. The scope of this is somewhat frightening and quite difficult to come to terms with. CCTV cameras have a visible presence which, perhaps, contributes to some sense of security. Digital surveillance techniques, by contrast, are invisible which – it can be contended – makes it more difficult to garner a sense of security from them. In addition, we are treated to the positive effects of CCTV on numerous television programmes (such as Crimewatch) which reinforce their contribution to public security. There is no digital equivalent of this, partly due to classified information and partly because one can’t see electronic signals, so our only options are either media speculation or official reports – neither of which is an overly attractive alternative for reliability.

The surveillance programmes which have come under closest scrutiny are the NSA’s PRISM and GCHQ’s Tempora. Both of these take advantage the fact that the US (primarily) controls the physical backbone of the Internet. In having access to the hardware through which the majority of the world’s Internet traffic passes, the NSA and GCHQ have been able to intercept vast quantities of data using techniques such as tapping fibre optic cables and setting up fake servers. As an example, the Quantum programme, which makes use of the latter technique, intercepts targets’ requests for a webpage and sends a cached version of the page back infected with malware which installs a surveillance programme on the target’s computer (a useful explanation with leaked diagrams can be found on The Intercept).

These revelations have led to accusations of Big Brother states and invocations of Jeremy Bentham’s old construct of the panopticon. Humans instinctively revert to physical metaphors as they are easier to understand and relate to than digital concepts. Often used in relation to incarceration facilities, a panopticon is a building with a focal vantage point from which every cell – arranged around the internal perimeter – can be viewed. While the imagery conjured is certainly powerful, there are also two critical flaws which undermine the applicability of this picture to reality: mutual visibility and constraint.

Firstly, in the traditional panopticon, jail guards stationed in the central tower can view prisoners through their transparent cell door (whether this be made of iron bars or Perspex). Likewise, prisoners can see the guards and so they know when they are being watched. The watchers and the watched therefore have mutual visibility of each other. In the digital realm of Quantum Insert, the prisoner does not know they are being watched because the cell door is not transparent. The door can instead be likened to a screen on which the guards in the central tower project an image. To the prisoner, the image shows the guards having their backs turned, when in reality they are intently watching that particular cell. The lack of mutual visibility is therefore an important difference between the panopticon construct and digital surveillance.

Secondly, a traditional panopticon is a jail in which prisoners are trapped by physical constraints. There are actual impediments like walls which stop the prisoner from moving around within the panopticon to avoid the guards’ gaze and stop them from leaving the panopticon altogether. In the digital world, these physical constraints are not present. Users are free to walk away from or switch off their computers, thus avoiding surveillance. It can be argued that in an increasingly interconnected world, going completely offline is becoming increasingly difficult and it therefore becomes more difficult to avoid surveillance. Whilst this is certainly true, more difficult does not equal impossible. Using a computer, a smartphone, a mobile phone or even a telephone is a choice. Granted, choosing to not do so is a significant disadvantage in the modern world, but it is still a choice over which we ultimately have control. In the panopticon, prisoners do not have a choice and they do not have control. To say that the digital surveillance exercised by intelligence agencies resembles a panoptic state is therefore an illogical attempt at imposing a physical concept on a digital world.

Having deconstructed the panopticon, the problem becomes re-imagining a construct which more accurately reflects the current state of affairs. The great problem for political philosophy is that it has yet to incorporate the technological advancements of the 21st century. The advent of video recording was embraced by thinkers and has been expediently conveyed in works such as Orwell’s 1984 or the film The Truman Show. However, the difficulty of constructing an image from something we cannot see (digital signals) hinders the digital surveillance debate from metamorphosing into an easily relatable concept.

The contentiousness of surveillance will continue to provoke fierce debate. It is clear that new technologies endow authorities with unparalleled tools for monitoring activity in the digital realm. In describing this state of affairs we must be careful, however, of invoking imagery, concepts and constructs offered by our predecessors. Ideas are always conceived in context, so what was applicable in the past does not necessarily translate to the present. Therefore, while we do not live in a Bentham’s panopticon, the time is certainly ripe for the modern generation to critically reflect on the technologies they live with.

____________________

Andreas Haggman is a MA student in Intelligence and International Security at King’s College London. His academic focus is on cyber security, particularly the development of weaponised code and organisational responses to cyber security issues.

Filed Under: Blog Article Tagged With: intelligence, privacy, surveillance

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