Political Control and the Internet

Abstract

This chapter explores some key issues surrounding efforts by both state agencies and private companies to use the Internet as an intelligence gathering mechanism for political and commercial gain. Changes in global information harvesting technologies and techniques provide a means both to covertly gather economic information on commercial competitors, as well as developing intelligence on human rights and other groups and their associated contact and friendship networks, via telecommunications interception. To be effective, such telecommunications interception needs to have a comprehensive, ubiquitous reach and yet remain seamless, unobtrusive, and secret: in a word undetectable. Our focus is therefore on the technology of political control which has been adapted for monitoring the telecommunications highways; the satellite relays; the servers; and the individual electronic fingerprints that enable the Internet to work across international boundaries. The use of the Internet in this way is an important human rights issue as people’s privacy is invaded, and the activities of groups advocating for their rights, or the rights of others, can be monitored and terminated if a state agency so desires.