Snowden Revelations Research Articles

Why don’t UK citizens protest against privacy-invading dragnet surveillance?

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to identify to identify reasons for the lack of protest against dragnet surveillance in the UK. As part of this investigation, a study was carried out to gauge the understanding of “privacy” and “confidentiality” by the well-informed.Design/methodology/approachTo perform a best-case study, the authors identified a group of well-informed participants in terms of security. To gain insights into their privacy-related mental models, they were asked first to define the three core terms and then to identify the scenarios. Then, the participants were provided with privacy-related scenarios and were asked to demonstrate their understanding by classifying the scenarios and identifying violations.FindingsAlthough the participants were mostly able to identify privacy and confidentiality scenarios, they experienced difficulties in articulating the actual meaning of the terms privacy, confidentiality and security.Research limitations/implicationsThere were a limited number of participants, yet the findings are interesting and justify further investigation. The implications, even of this initial study, are significant in that if citizens’ privacy rights are being violated and they did not seem to know how to protest this and if indeed they had the desire to do so.Practical implicationsHad the citizens understood the meaning of privacy, and their ancient right thereto, which is enshrined in law, their response to the Snowden revelations about ongoing wide-scale surveillance might well have been more strident and insistent.Originality/valuePeople in the UK, where this study was carried out, do not seem to protest the privacy invasion effected by dragnet surveillance with any verve. The authors identify a number of possible reasons for this from the literature. One possible explanation is that people do not understand privacy. Thus, this study posits that privacy is unusual in that understanding does not seem to align with the ability to articulate the rights to privacy and their disapproval of such widespread surveillance. This seems to make protests unlikely.

Mass surveillance and technological policy options: Improving security of private communications

The 2013 Snowden revelations ignited a vehement debate on the legitimacy and breadth of intelligence operations that monitor the Internet and telecommunications worldwide. The ongoing invasion of the private sphere of individuals around the world by governments and companies is an issue that is handled inadequately using current technological and organizational measures.This article11This article is based on research carried out at the request of the Science and Technology Option Assessment Panel (STOA) and the Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) of the European Parliament [11,9]. Its scope is therefore primarily European, however its implications are assumed to be generally applicable. argues that in order to retain a vital and vibrant Internet, its basic infrastructure needs to be strengthened considerably. We propose a number of technical and political options, which would contribute to improving the security of the Internet. It focuses on the debates around end-to-end encryption and anonymization, as well as on policies addressing software and hardware vulnerabilities and weaknesses of the Internet architecture.

Is It Legal? Is It Right? The Can and Should of Use

The Snowden disclosures illuminated a gap between what information is legally permissible to collect and what the populace feels is appropriate collection. But this distinction applies in other realms as well, raising important questions about private-sector collection and use of individuals' data.

Breaking the Cycle of Unrestrained Presidential National Security Power

As a number of scholars have argued, constitutional and statutory limits have failed to constrain presidential national security power after 9/11 (Fisher 2012b; Pious 2011; Glennon 2015; Edelson 2016). Both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations have found ways around legal limitations on presidential power, while a generally acquiescent Congress has often failed to act and Supreme Court decisions aimed at setting limits have failed to have an effect.If this diagnosis is right – that presidential power has broken free of the rule of law and must be reined in – then what is the prescription? How is this problem to be resolved, and how can a balance be struck between the need for sufficient presidential power to defend national security and the need for meaningful legal restraints on power? This paper will consider specific proposals aimed at achieving these goals. I will consider the role various actors can play: (a) members of Congress, (b) the press, (c) the public, (d) scholars, (e) executive branch lawyers and (f) the courts. My methodological approach is qualitative, based on an analysis of specific actions taken by past presidents, other executive branch actors, legislators, and judges. I use primary sources, including executive orders, Department of Justice memoranda, and court decisions. I also draw on relevant scholarship in the area, including the sources mentioned above. For those interested in finding ways to limit presidential power, recent history provides hopeful examples, including (1) actions members of Congress took in August 2013 to prevent President Obama from acting unilaterally against the Assad regime; (2) actions by some executive branch lawyers in both the George W. Bush (Jack Goldsmith on warrantless surveillance) and Obama administrations (Caroline Krass on military action in Libya after the War Powers Resolution window closed) and (3) legislative changes to bulk metadata collection following the Snowden revelations regarding surveillance. Recent history also provides cautionary tales, or examples to be avoided — for example, Congress’s failure to act regarding ISIS, Harold Koh’s definition of hostilities under the War Powers Resolution, and John Yoo’s memos advancing the idea of an unconstrained unitary executive.With a new president taking office next year, this is a useful moment to consider what actions can be taken to break the cycle of unrestrained presidential power. This paper proposes a number of specific ideas designed to achieve this goal.

Explicit terror prevention versus vague civil liberty: how the UK broadcasting news (de)legitimatise online mass surveillance since Edward Snowden’s revelations

ABSTRACTSnowden’s initial revelations aimed at establishing a public debate on online surveillance informed through the media. Media should serve the public’s need for information and offer various viewpoints and sources to enhance public debates. This study assesses how online surveillance is justified or countered in British broadcast news since the 2013 Snowden revelations for five selected major events in news coverage ending with the Charlie Hebdo aftermath in Paris in early 2015. The critical discourse analysis shows that UK broadcasts cover justification and delegitimation arguments of online surveillance. Online surveillance legitimation combines rationalisation (terror prevention) and moral evaluation (public security) arguments, which are often expressed by governmental actors. The broadcast discourse tends to give governmental, pro-surveillance actors a voice by default. The detailedness of terror threat descriptions increases over time. In 2013, ‘terrorist attacks’ are rather factually mentioned. In 2015, several ways leading to a loss of lives through terror are explicitly stated, which strengthens the instrumental rationality legitimation arguments. Delegitimising arguments predominantly use moralising and mythopoetic arguments (civil liberties) that are expressed by Snowden himself or politicians, yet rarely by non-governmental organisations, and very rarely by citizens. It is harder for non-governmental actors to continuously interpret the broadcast discourse. Therefore, what exactly is at stake when online mass surveillance increases remains obscure in the news discourse. The surveillance discourse should be richer in order to give the audience a chance to understand the vague and less tangible contra-surveillance arguments better.

Data-PSST Seminar Series Report

This is a report into a series of multi-disciplinary seminars funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) over an 18 month period. Following the Snowden revelations in June 2013, assessing transparency, security, privacy, surveillance and trust have become integral themes, something the seminar series has sought to achieve by creating a series of key policy recommendations and further research questions.

Keeping Internet Users in the Know or in the Dark: An Analysis of the Data Privacy Transparency of Canadian Internet Carriers

Abstract In the wake of Snowden's revelations about National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance, demands that Internet carriers be more forthcoming about their handling of personal information have intensified. Responding to this concern, this report evaluates the data privacy transparency of forty-three Internet carriers serving the Canadian public. Carriers are awarded up to ten stars based on the public availability of information satisfying ten transparency criteria. Carriers earn few stars overall, just 92.5 out of 430, an average of two of ten possible stars. A variety of policy recommendations are provided to encourage and guide further data privacy transparency efforts in Canada as well as around the world.

Keeping Internet Users in the Know or in the Dark: An Analysis of the Data Privacy Transparency of Canadian Internet Carriers

Abstract In the wake of Snowden's revelations about National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance, demands that Internet carriers be more forthcoming about their handling of personal information have intensified. Responding to this concern, this report evaluates the data privacy transparency of forty-three Internet carriers serving the Canadian public. Carriers are awarded up to ten stars based on the public availability of information satisfying ten transparency criteria. Carriers earn few stars overall, just 92.5 out of 430, an average of two of ten possible stars. A variety of policy recommendations are provided to encourage and guide further data privacy transparency efforts in Canada as well as around the world.

No More Sources?

From June 2013, documents leaked by the National Security Agency (NSA) dissident Edward Snowden revealed that Western intelligence agencies are capable of bulk collection of electronic communications flowing through global telecommunication systems. Surveillance data shared by the “Five Eyes” eavesdropping agencies of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand include journalist’s communications. In the wake of the Snowden leak, Zygmunt Bauman and colleagues called for a systematic assessment of the scale, reach and character of contemporary surveillance practices. This paper explores a specific part of Bauman’s task by assessing the impact of the Snowden revelations on confidential source-based journalism. Interviews were conducted with a range of investigative journalists who have experience of covering national security in Five Eyes countries. All expressed serious concern over the intelligence agencies’ greatly enhanced capability to track journalists and to identify and neutralise their sources. The paper concludes that there is clear evidence of a paradigmatic shift in journalist–source relations as those interviewed regard Five Eyes mass surveillance as a most serious threat to the fourth estate model of journalism as practised in Western democratic countries.

Ethical Implications of the Snowden Revelations

This article addresses a number of ethical dilemmas and practical consequences of the revelations of Edward Snowden about massive electronic surveillance of telephone calls, emails, social media posts, and other “signals intelligence” (or SIGINT) across the entire world but especially including domestic American communications formerly thought immune to such surveillance unless authorized by judicial warrant. Practical consequences matter for all “utilitarian” ethical judgments. The author concludes that by far the largest issue is whether U.S. intelligence professionals regard the U.S. Constitution as supreme law in America or non-disclosure contracts with individual agencies or the U.S. government. Reactions to Snowden follow this pattern, with security-cleared insiders generally considering him a traitor and ordinary people generally considering him a hero for telling the public about illegal activity within the National Security Agency directed against fundamental, and constitutionally protected civil liberties like freedom of speech.

Persona Non Data: How Courts in the EU, UK and Canada are Addressing the Issue of Communications Data Surveillance vs. Privacy Rights

When we make a phone call, send an email, connect to the internet or use an app on a connected device, our service provider gathers the “communications data” that we generate that identifies us and reveals details of our activities. This data is increasingly used by law enforcement and intelligence services in the detection and prosecution of crime and the prevention of terrorism. There is, however, anxiety in some quarters, fueled by the Snowden revelations that some western governments have been engaged in mass surveillance of the communications of their citizens, that the existing rules governing retention of our communications data and access to it do not afford adequate protection against state incursion into our private lives. This paper examines how the United Kingdom, the European Union and Canada -- three jurisdictions that share with the United States a strong commitment to personal rights and freedoms -- are approaching the task of safeguarding personal security while protecting personal privacy. We do so through an examination of recent court decisions ruling on the conformity of communications data retention and access laws with privacy rights. These cases present a picture of active judicial engagement in the data retention/access issue that is focused on three main topics: justification (In what circumstances can data retention and access laws justifiably intrude upon privacy rights?); accountability (Is some form of judicial or other independent overview of requests for communications data retention/access necessary to protect privacy rights?); and transparency (How much is the public entitled to know about the state’s practices relating to surveillance of communications data in light of the need to conduct some investigations of serious crimes and terrorist offences in secrecy?) The courts have either declared legislation invalid or imposed safeguards designed to protect privacy rights where communications data retention/access laws do not provide satisfactory answers to these questions.

Bloggers’ Responses to the Snowden Affair: Combining Automated and Manual Methods in the Analysis of News Blogging

The Snowden affair gave rise to a huge public debate about not only the legitimacy of the secret surveillance programs he revealed but also about Snowden himself and about the accuracy of the information he leaked. In this paper we present an analysis of how the affair was discussed in the English language blogosphere, based on a corpus of 15,000 blog posts written about Snowden and published from June 2013 to June 2014, as a sub-corpus of a larger corpus of 100,000 blog posts on the topic of surveillance, written during the period 2006---2014. Automated tools are used to identify the topics that characterize the blogging about surveillance and the posts about the Snowden affair. Through an in-depth analysis of the blog posts that commented on Snowden's revelations of the PRISM program for surveillance of social media users, we chart how bloggers responded to Snowden and his role in this disclosure, whether they found the information credible, and the extent to which they expressed criticism of the surveillance practices. The analysis is used as a basis for discussing the role of blogs in the civic engagement during the first phase of the Snowden affair.

In privacy law, it's the U.S. vs. the world

Snowden revelations force changes, but Facebook (and others) resist.

The unlikely encounter between von Foerster and Snowden: When second-order cybernetics sheds light on societal impacts of Big Data

Although information and communication technologies (ICT) have created hope for a shared pluralistic world, democratic principles are far from being respected in the public digital environment, and require a detailed knowledge of the laws by which they are governed. Von Foerster's conjecture is one of the early theoretical results that could help to understand these laws. Although neglected for a long time, the advent of the overlying layer of recommendation and ranking systems which is progressively occupying the web has given empirical evidences of this conjecture, which predicts the consequences of increasing inter-individual influences on social dynamics and the susceptibility of these latter to manipulation. With both von Foerster's conjecture and the Snowden revelations in the background, we analyse the impact of ICT on human societies and their governance, in view of the fact that they have a massive impact on the way in which people influence each other in their tastes and actions.

Snowden's revelations led to more informed and shocked German citizens

This study investigates the attitudes towards and social impacts of Edward Snowden's revelations in Germany through a questionnaire survey with German youngsters as part of the worldwide cross-cultural analyses. However due to Snowden's revelations a continuing discussion about privacy, safety, security and data protection was unleashed in Germany. The results show interesting values and settings of young people in Germany. For example: The majority 69.41% of the surveyed persons feel that the usage of the Internet threatens their privacy.

Snowden seems to have more social impact in the people's republic of China than in the republic of China, but

This study investigates how Snowden's revelations are viewed by young people in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (Taiwan) through questionnaire surveys of and follow-up interviews with university students in those countries. Considering the history of state surveillance in both countries and the current complicated and delicate cross-strait relationships, it is interesting to examine PRC and Taiwanese youngsters' attitude and reactions to Snowden's revelations separately and in comparison.

So what if the state is monitoring us?

This study investigates the attitudes towards and social impacts of Edward Snowden's revelations in Japan through a questionnaire survey and follow-up interviews with Japanese youngsters as part of an international cross-cultural analyses. The survey results showed striking contrasts with ones in other countries reflecting the Japanese socio-cultural and political environment.

Surveillance of information and personal data by Mexican government

This study analyses the perceptions about Edward Snowden's revelations in Mexico. A questionnaire survey was developed and applied to students in a Mexican University (Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí). This Study is part of a global research about privacy perceptions by young people in different countries.

Information surveillance by governments

This study investigates the attitudes towards and social impacts of Edward Snowden's revelations in Spain through a questionnaire survey answered by students in two Spanish universities (Universitat Rovira i Virgili and Burgos University). It is part of the worldwide cross-cultural analyses about privacy perceptions in young people. The survey results take into socio-cultural and political environment.

Young people do care

This study investigates the attitudes towards and social impacts of Edward Snowden's revelations in New Zealand through a questionnaire survey and follow-up interviews with New Zealand youngsters as part of the worldwide cross-cultural analyses. The survey results showed striking contrasts with those in other countries reflecting New Zealand's socio-cultural and political environment.