In which Richard Falkenrath — proud perambulator of the Beltway revolving door and purveyor of advice for state-security police throughout the U.S.[] — explains why he, and law enforcement investigators and intelligence officers
in the U.S. — admire, and even envy the political environment in the United Arab Emirates, whose oligarchy of petty tyrants and absolute monarchs recently banned BlackBerry mobile phones, because Research in Motion won’t alter their specs to suit the Emirs’ desire to break into BlackBerry customers’ phones and secretly snoop on what they are saying.
Monitoring electronic communications in real time and retrieving stored
electronic data are the most important counterterrorism techniques available to
governments today. Electronic surveillance is particularly vital in combating
global terrorism, where the stakes are highest, but it is a part of virtually all
investigations of serious transnational threats….
The United Arab Emirates is in no way unique in wanting a back door into the
telecommunications services used inside its borders to allow officials to
eavesdrop on users. In the United States, telecommunications providers are
generally required to provide a mechanism for such access by the
Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and related
regulations issued by the Federal Communications Commission. … The F.C.C. is
not, however, a national security agency: it is an independent, bipartisan
commission whose members serve fixed terms. The commission interprets a
variety of statutes and balances many different interests, including the business
success of telecommunications providers and the convenience of consumers, and
its rulings are subject to legal challenge in the courts.
As a result, there remain a number of telecommunication methods that federal
agencies cannot readily penetrate. Given the way the F.C.C. operates, the
prospect of it taking a swift, decisive action to make these services accessible to
the government is almost inconceivable. Hence the envy some American
intelligence officials felt about the Emirates’ decision.
Research in Motion is learning a lesson that other companies have learned before
. . . no provider of information services is exempt from the power of the state.
No doubt.
Anyway, as Jacob Sullum comments on this paean to political will and unconstrained executive power:
Yes, dictators sure are good at avoiding legal barriers to surveillance. They are
also never stymied because governmental intrusion into ostensibly private
communications offends liberal sensibilities,
as Falkenrath dismissively
describes civil libertarian concerns about snooping in the name of national
security. Here are some other obstacles the UAE avoids, according to the State
Department’s most recent report on the country’s human rights record: elections,
representative government, an independent judiciary, governmental transparency,
freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of
association, and freedom of religion. The State Department adds that there
were unverified reports of torture during the year,
that security forces
sometimes employed flogging as judicially sanctioned punishment,
that
arbitrary and incommunicado detention remained a problem,
and that
legal and societal discrimination against women and noncitizens [who
represent 80 percent of the population] was pervasive.
Neverthless, says Falkenrath, the Emirates acted understandably and
appropriately
in banning BlackBerries. The lesson of this episode, according
to Falkenrath: Governments should not be timid about using their full powers
to ensure that their law enforcement and intelligence agencies are able to keep
their citizens safe.
Some governments, of course, have fuller powers than
others, which makes their citizens (and noncitizen residents) extra safe.
It takes a certain kind of mindset to crow about the will and ability to bulldoze right over many different interests,
among them the business success of telecommunications providers,
the convenience of consumers,
and the possibility of legal challenge in the courts,
if any of them threaten to get in the way of secret government, executive power, and the overriding interests of State security — to portray unaccountable tyrannies as if they are acting carefully and responsibly in the interests of their
citizens, precisely to the extent they exercise their political tyranny unaccountably to obliterate barriers to surveilling and arresting those very citizens. The mindset is no less tawdry and mean for being so common among the most powerful, influential, and well-connected people on earth. And given that this attitude is as common as it is among law enforcement investigators and intelligence officers,
the very last thing that us citizens ought to be feeling is safe.
See also GT 2008-02-15: Tyranny means never having to say you’re sorry on another bit of power=envy directed at the arbitrary and unaccountable ruling class of the U.A.E.