NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] France Threatens the Internet: "Censorship or Shackles!"
France Threatens the Internet: "Censorship or Shackles!"
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001019.html
Regular readers have likely seen me write this so many times that you
may be rather sick of it by now: "Public is public."
The concept is simple enough. Pretending that information already
public can be somehow clawed back, the genie returned to the bottle,
is foolhardy, inane, and subject to various impolite invectives as
well.
As we've seen again and again ... and yet again ... attempts to block
information that has already been widely seen on the Internet will
nearly always fail, as the associated data will have been mirrored in
so many locales that efforts at retroactive control will only trigger
the dreaded "Streisand Effect" -- drawing far more attention to the
information in question than would otherwise have been the case. (The
Streisand Effect is named after efforts years ago by entertainer
Barbra Streisand to suppress posted photos of her Malibu mansion,
which resulted in far greater dissemination of those photos as a
presumably unintended consequence).
But there's a corollary to my "public is public" axiom that is much
less frequently quoted. Even though attempts at Internet censorship
will almost all fail in the end, governments and authorities have the
capability to make groups' and individuals' lives extremely
uncomfortable, painful, or even terminated -- in the process of
attempts at censorship, and equally important, by instilling fear to
encourage self-censorship in the first place.
We might expect variations of this behavior from China, North Korea,
and other totalitarian states with entrenched censorship mentalities,
but now comes a startling example from France, the traditional land of
"liberty, equality, fraternity" itself.
The details are quite breathtaking for their broader implications.
Last month, the DCRI -- pretty much the French equivalent of the
British MI5 internal security organization -- asked Wikipedia to
remove an article concerning a French military communications
facility, an article apparently based entirely on public sources.
This piece had apparently been present on the French Wikipedia version
for several years.
When Wikipedia asked for justification to remove the article, DCRI
reportedly provided none, and the article stayed available.
Late last week, DCRI summoned a French Wikipedia volunteer with
article deletion privileges, who had no prior association or even
knowledge of the article, and demanded that he delete it.
DCRI apparently threatened to hold him in confinement and prosecute him
if he did not immediately comply ( http://j.mp/Y6UI2A [Guardian UK] ).
Despite his protests that Wikipedia did not operate in this manner,
the volunteer was justifiably terrified, and deleted the article.
The aftermath was easy to predict. The original French version of the
article was restored by other Wikipedia editors. That page became the
most referenced page in the French Wikipedia version over the last few
days. And the page has now been translated into various other
languages in other Wikipedia editions.
Streisand Effect fully engaged.
But it would be an enormous mistake to assume -- as many observers are
doing -- that this incident was simply the result of "fools" in the
French intelligence apparatus who "don't understand how the Web
works."
Or to put it another way, it isn't always clear if we're dealing with
a bumbling Inspector Clouseau or an incredibly dangerous Maximilien de
Robespierre.
The clowns represented by the former need not greatly concern us. But
the latter are underestimated at our extreme peril, especially since
they may believe in a twisted way that they're actually on the side of
the angels.
Around the world, governments are attempting to remake the Web and the
greater Internet in their own traditional images.
They have significant resources that can be brought to bear,
especially when they succeed in redefining Internet-based freedom of
speech as national security risks. Shackles, cells, even firing
squads and other lethal methodologies are at their disposal.
Increasingly, we see vague and often highly suspect claims of
"cyberwar" being bandied about as a predicate at least for vast
diversions of power and money to the "cyberscare-industrial
complex" -- and even as potential justifications for cyber or physical
retaliations against the designated enemies of the moment.
We see this same class of fear tactics being deployed to justify
government scanning of private computing and communications
facilities, demands for purpose-built surveillance of encrypted
communications systems that actually make these systems more
vulnerable to black-hat hacking, and a range of other demands from
authorities. Since the big cyber-security bucks are now in play, it's
understandable why authorities would prefer to concentrate on
theoretical computer-based infrastructure risks, rather than the very
real risk of explosives in some empty desert area being used to bring
down critical high voltage transmission towers.
With cybersecurity as with so much else, "money is honey."
In context, it's obvious that whether we're talking about overbearing
government security services apparently using China and North Korea as
their new operating paradigms, or the 21st century version of
traditional power and money grabs via fear tactics deluxe, we can't
help but return to the fact that governments are trying on various
fronts to maintain their old authoritarian models of security and
censorship in the new world of ubiquitous Internet communications.
And while today's story involved France and Wikipedia, these are only
really placeholders of the moment that can be easily substituted with
other countries and other organizations -- or individuals -- going
forward.
The best of times, the worst of times. We dare not permit the
distraction of seeming clowns in the foreground to blind us from the
sharp and shiny falling blades of censorship and surveillance lurking
just behind, aimed directly at our figurative (and in some horrific
cases perhaps quite literal) naked necks.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
- Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
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