This article was first published in the January 2016 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
The post-2013 attacks on state surveillance occasioned by the Edward Snowden revelations have been inappropriate in three ways: they have exaggerated the harm that state surveillance currently inflicts on civil liberties; they have offered few solutions to the security-versus-privacy dilemma; and they have ignored the actual harm imposed by private surveillance.
Yes, the tools for harming privacy are becoming ever more powerful. Snowden argued that the 1984 scenario has become an understatement. To him, George Orwell's "technologies now seem unimaginative and quaint. They talked about things like microphones implanted in bushes and cameras in TVs that look back on us." It's true - although Orwell gave us Big Brother and the rest of the vocabulary by which we describe the surveillance state, the means for effective surveillance have exploded since his book appeared in 1949.
Yet, equipped with these tools of oppression, political leaders in western democracies have shown more restraint than some of their precursors. In the past, successive presidents allowed the FBI to keep political dissidents and gay people under surveillance and to harass them. The UK government was complicit in a political purge of the BBC in the 50s and 60s. Such abuses of power are not occurring today.
Those who criticise the NSA and GCHQ have failed not only to assess the actual harm those agencies cause, but have also not redressed a difficult policy issue. The proposal by the UK government for an investigatory powers Act attempts to address that issue. Wanting to curb organised crime and terrorism, home secretary Theresa May is attracted to the idea that the law should proscribe encrypted messaging, for example on Snapchat, Apple iMessage and WhatsApp. This is problematic because such a ban on encryption would leave online banking high and dry. Putting a blockade on imported encryption devices would mean filtering all internet traffic entering the UK. But what is the solution? Like Karl Marx, Orwell and Snowden have offered a critique of our world without supplying any answers.
Today's antistatist critics have, like Orwell, neglected the harmful effects of private surveillance. Private surveillance can be beneficial, as in the case of businesses that investigate other businesses to assess their creditworthiness - market forces cannot operate properly without informed trust. But private surveillance has a darker side to it as well.
To give two well-known examples, there's the "market research" that lies behind the cold call, the pop-up ad and the inexplicably declined mortgage application. Once you place millions under apparently benevolent surveillance - for example, by compiling an electoral register - it is all too tempting for public officials to sell on the information to private concerns. A second and high-profile example, in the UK, is the unrepentantly intrusive behaviour, notably phone hacking, by sections of the privately owned newspaper industry.
Less well known are the practices of private-detective agencies. "Divorce work" has been a staple source of income for them but to an even greater extent, especially in the US, they have engaged in "labour work", spying on workers to ensure they don't join unions or complain about safety. Worker surveillance is now commonplace. Specialist firms have come into being with the specific object of blacklisting "troublemakers". Perfectly respectable people - working on oil rigs, on bridge construction - lose their jobs and are prevented from working again. The damage is measured in terms of divorce, suicide and depression. There's the harm and it's not just potential - it occurs daily.
Edward Snowden's revelations triggered a debate that usefully illustrated the extent and potential danger of state surveillance. But his timing and his aim were poor. Today's harm comes from private, not state surveillance.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
