Uncategorized
Jan 26, 2010
Barak
3 Comments

Operationalizing Internet Freedom

The State Department seems to be taking internet freedom quite seriously. The Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor is asking for proposals for the following programs:

Mobile technology: DRL seeks proposals that support innovative technologies designed to operationally defeat or circumvent censorship and/or surveillance of all forms of content related to independent news, democracy, and human rights that is created, shared or stored on mobile devices in repressive environments…

Mobile technology/education and outreach: DRL seeks proposals that support training and networking of potential users of mobile circumvention technology that would support the promotion of democracy and human rights in repressive environments.

Protecting privacy in the documentation of human rights crises: DRL seeks proposals that support the development of technology and best practices to protect users from surveillance in documenting human rights and other abuses as they occur or in the promotion of independent news and information through the use of mobile technology or other new media tools.

Promoting organizational information security: DRL seeks proposals that promote the implementation of effective information security policies and practices amongst individual activists and civil society organizations promoting democracy and human rights.

I wonder if I could apply for funding to develop software to get around this surveillance? I am guessing the good folks at the State Department would not find this amusing. In fact, I bet if I did this, the FBI would probably want me to come on down for an informational interview. Oh well, foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, isn’t it?

3 Comments

  • Jack January 27, 2010 at 11:47 am

    Telecommunications technology by definition can’t “get around” surveillance. There are various means of making surveillance more difficult (e.g. encryption, jamming), but that doesn’t get around the problem. If it’s in the tubes, it can be monitored. If it’s on the airwaves, it can be monitored. And so forth.

    So the issue is fundamentally about institutions, as with many other problems in development and democratization. Your Obama example incidentally underscores that. The problem is not getting around surveillance; it’s holding the agents of surveillance accountable.

  • Barak January 27, 2010 at 8:53 pm

    Great point. So you are saying the DRL problems are useless. It reminds me of Evgeny Morzov’s reponse to the speech: technology can’t solve problems of development and democracy if the people who run the government are the problem.

  • Jack January 28, 2010 at 9:28 am

    Maybe I’m being nitpicky. Teaching activists how to use technology to beat on a regime and/or protect themselves seems like a fundamentally good idea. What’s really nice to see here is State taking an aggressive stance on democratization. We have talked a lot about how the ‘conventional instruments’ of democracy promotion aren’t good for forcing open a closed regime – and how State’s policy levers are more appropriate for that task. So even if the understanding of surveillance is lacking, State’s heart and head are basically in the right place on this one.

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