In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the FBI has stepped up its campaign to police the internet. According to media reports, major internet service providers that had previously resisted the FBI activities have now agreed to assist them in spying on their customers.
For complete control of the internet the FBI would require several legislative changes. These include: elimination of all USELESS WORD?: effective privacy systems for email, including encryption (coding the message so it can't be read except by the recipient); registration of all Internet users; elimination of anonymity when surfing the internet; use of internet cafes only upon proof of identity; and global enforcement of these principles.
The FBI would apparently like to identify all users and monitor all communication all the time, but under international agreements that the US is party to this would be illegal. The 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights sets the context for this. Article 12 states: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence." This point is reiterated in article 11 of the Western Hemisphere convention on human rights, an enforceable treaty to which the US is a signatory. The FBI's email spying Carnivore program drew strong hostility when it was revealed a few months ago.
While the Bush administration is now trying to change public attitudes so that it can overturn fundamental human rights incorporated in law, its progress to date is uneven. Coming weeks and months will show whether the US ruling class is in a position to achieve this.
Part of the difficulty that the US government faces is a deep-seated scepticism regarding current adherence to these rights, both within the US and internationally. On September 5, a week before the attacks, the European Parliament by a vote of 367 to 159 adopted a report on the Echelon program. This is the "secret" program of the US, supported by Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, to spy on international communications, particularly satellite based voice and data. The US apparently uses this information for commercial advantage, such as its 1994 campaign against European aircraft maker Airbus Industrie in a bid for Saudi aircraft contracts. While the US denies its existence, the Australian government admitted its involvement through the Defence Signals Directorate late last year.
With the current state of global technology, the issue of privacy of communications is now a case of all or nothing. While in the past governments were able to break any communication code used by private individuals (and many used by foreign governments), today simple security programs appear to be resistant to this. So the question of privacy becomes a value judgement: should all humans have the right to privacy of communications (including the possibility of the use of this for planning criminal and terrorist activities), or should this capacity for privacy only be held by governments (including when governments are planning criminal and terrorist activities).
BY GREG HARRIS (gregharris_greenleft@hotmail.com)