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| | Anonymity, Encryption, and Propaganda |
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| | -- By EthanThomas - 03 Mar 2017 |
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< | Introduction |
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Note: This is an incomplete draft
Introduction
This paper briefly discusses efforts to frame anonymity and encryption -- vital tools to free expression, uninhibited communication, and autonomous life in a world of snooping and surveillance -- as dangerous and unnecessary instruments of criminality. It examines the legitimate need for modern tools that preserve anonymous communication and protected data, the attempts to undermine the usefulness of these tools, and the harm of this campaign against privacy-promoting technology. |
| | I. The Growing Need for Anonymity and Privacy |
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> | Communications can be protected in two important ways: namely, the author or the contents (or both) can be hidden from onlookers. Technology, private corporate interests, and government surveillance make the need for both forms of protection higher now than it ever has been. |
| | A. The Demand for Protected Communication Is Legitimate
Discuss here the importance of privacy, its relationship to autonomy, and the legal and historical protections thereof |
| | A. Association with Criminality and Delegitimization
One tactic that has recently gained favor is to associate secure or anonymous communication with terrorism. To be sure, the association of tools the government dislikes with criminal behavior is not a new phenomenon. The current narrative, however, creates a strong tie between criminality and the use of certain technologies that aims to stigmatize their use. |
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< | In one report (by a private firm), Tor, VPN services, and several messaging applications are identified as "Tech for Jihad." Tor in particular has gained a reputation as "the web broswer for criminals," merely because it helps to anonymize users. Telegraph, an app which can send encrypted and self-deleting messages, has been identified as "the app of choice for jihadists."
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> | In one report (by a private firm), Tor, VPN services, and several messaging applications are identified as "Tech for Jihad." Tor in particular has gained a reputation as "the web browser for criminals," merely because it helps to anonymize users. Telegraph, an app which can send encrypted and self-deleting messages, has been identified as "the app of choice for jihadists." |
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< | The government has itself played a role in associating privacy-protecting or anonymizing tools with criminality. For instance, |
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> | The government has itself played a role in associating privacy-protecting or anonymizing tools with criminality. The standoff between Apple and the FBI over the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone, in which the FBI demanded software from Apple to essentially crack the encryption of any iPhone, brought to the forefront the government's discomfort with encryption. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office argues that "[t]here is an urgent need for federal legislation that would compel software and hardware companies that design or build mobile devices or operating systems to make such devices amenable to appropriate searches.".
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| | B. Flaws, Motives, and Dangers of This Campaign |
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< | Importantly, this message is not only pushed by the govenrnment, but media perpetuates it as well. The treatment of encryption and anonymity is thus largely akin to propaganda. This treatment makes sense: encryption is easy to implement and access (for example, RSA encryption utilizes basic number theory, and a simple program can ccreate extremely difficult-to-break encryption), so the best way to keep people from it is to treat it as if it were dangerous or presumptively criminal. In other words, the goal is to change behavior through misinformation and fear, rather than through direct enforcement. This is at its core self-censorship and self-regulation, gradually imposed on the citizenry.
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> | Importantly, this message is not only pushed by the government, but media perpetuates it as well. The treatment of encryption and anonymity is thus largely akin to propaganda. This treatment makes sense: encryption is easy to implement and access (for example, RSA encryption utilizes basic number theory, and a simple program can create extremely difficult-to-break encryption), so the best way to keep people from it is to treat it as if it were dangerous or presumptively criminal. In other words, the goal is to change behavior through misinformation and fear, rather than through direct enforcement. This is at its core self-censorship and self-regulation, gradually imposed on the citizenry.
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< | Not only does anonymity have Constitutional underpinnings in the publishing context, but the ability to speak and communicate anonymously in a world where everything is monitored and recorded is paramount to privacy. Indeed, anonymity is one of three key components of privacy, the other two being secrecy (which encryption and secure communication tools help protect) and autonomy.
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> | Not only does anonymity have Constitutional underpinnings in the publishing context, but the ability to speak and communicate anonymously in a world where everything is monitored and recorded is paramount to privacy. Indeed, anonymity is one of three key components of privacy, the other two being secrecy (which encryption and secure communication tools help protect) and autonomy.
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< | While anonymity and secrecy are directly offended by a war on encryption, autonomy is also a victim. As discussed above, the persistent threat of monitoring and censorship severely limits the ability to express, act, and ultimately think on one's own. The notion that people who seek to act autonomously by guaranteeing freedom from these intrusions are dangerous (or even criminal) demonstrates a troubling lack of respect for these principles of autonomy from those in power, but also threatens to suppress expression and uninhibited behavior by making individuals and communities police themselves. If people are told that they have nothing to hide if they have done nothing wrong, and companies adopt this narrative by prohibiting customers from using anonymizing tools,
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> | While anonymity and secrecy are directly offended by a war on encryption, autonomy is also a victim. As discussed above, the persistent threat of monitoring and censorship severely limits the ability to express, act, and ultimately think on one's own. The notion that people who seek to act autonomously by guaranteeing freedom from these intrusions are dangerous (or even criminal) demonstrates a troubling lack of respect for these principles of autonomy from those in power, but also threatens to suppress expression and uninhibited behavior by making individuals and communities police themselves. If people are told that they have nothing to hide if they have done nothing wrong, and companies adopt this narrative (for their own purposes or by prohibiting customers from using anonymizing tools), then suppression of ideas and identity could become the norm. Simply put, the best way to ensure that behavior can be comprehensively monitored is to normalize snooping (by both the government and private parties) and to stigmatize evasion of such intrusions. |
| | III. Moving Forward and Embracing Technology as a Defender of Autonomy |
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> | The views of the government -- and increasingly, the view of corporations and society -- toward encryption, anonymity, and secrecy are contrary to principles of a free society. They stigmatize true expression and a desire to behave unscrutinized. Even if privacy is purely a negative right (that is, the right not to be monitored by the government absent reasonable and legally-compelling justification), the campaign described here violates this right. |
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> | [Conclusion] |
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