Terrorism, Mass Surveillance and Security

These two events (the attacks and the lockdown of Brussels) illustrate two different kinds of security failures. In the first case, the security measures failed to prevent the attacks, in the other case, the preventive security measures did not lead to any suspect being arrested. These failures raise the question of the justification of the massive surveillance. In most cases, massive surveillance is justified by the need for security. As in the example of the Belgians tweeting cats, this seems to be the main reason for which people accept it.

Even though there are counterexamples where the authorities succeeded to stop the attacks before they occur, it is worth noting that in some of the recent attacks, the perpetrators were already listed as potentially dangerous and were known by the authorities (it was the case for the Paris and Brussels attacks, but also for the attacks in Orlando, where the terrorist had already been interviewed several times by the FBI). In other words, the surveillance of these persons did not prevent them from perpetrating their attacks.

Even more recently, the attacks were perpetrated by so called "lone wolfs", namely individuals that more or less suddenly decide on their own to commit terrorist attacks, without having previous links with a terrorist cell. This was for example the case of the attacks in Nice. According to witnesses, the terrorist got radicalized very quickly. These new kinds of terrorists raise new questions for enforcement authorities: they are difficult/impossible to detect and to prevent.

Finally, masive surveillance does not prevent terrorists from using encryption making it harder for massive surveillance to be really effective(which does not mean encryption should be regulated).

Conclusion

Some argue that the above flaws in the security offered by massive surveillance are the proof that more surveillance should be carried out. Surveillance through data mining of online behaviors could show a correlation between certain behaviors and terrorists' behaviors, and therefore give a more or less reliable indication that a person is about to commit an attack.

In my opinion, this would imply that the entire population gives up most of its rights to privacy and of free speech, in exchange for a tool that I believe would be much less efficient than prevention campaigns, education and social policies aiming at inclusion and diversity.