Somewhere in
England. 14 October. Sir David Omand is one of the most reasoned
and reasonable of former senior British security officials I have ever met. He called the impact of information theft by
Edward Snowden, “…the most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever”. It is not without irony that as Omand spoke Edward
Snowden was receiving the Sam Adams Award for standing up for ‘integrity’ in
spookery…in Moscow! As he accepted the
award Snowden looked for all the world like a mild-mannered choir boy.
Snowden like Wikileaks
founder Julian Assange is part of a new generation of anarchists forged in the
information wild west that is the dark web – the World Wild Web. For the information anarchists the aim is not
the establishment of some esoteric new balance between security and liberty but
rather the replacement of state borders with information universalism.
Now, I am no apologist for
power and the many (not all) group-thinking Establishment greasy-polers who
support them. Indeed, the over-mighty
state is never far away as evidenced by current efforts in Britain to introduce
state regulation of a free Press and the European elite’s desire to create an
EU super-state. The state will always exploit
all and any opportunity to control information and extend its writ – it is the
nature of the beast. However, to imply
British and American security services are a threat to liberty to justify
law-breaking is dangerously misguided.
Freedom imposes
responsibilities and it is the complete absence of responsibility that defines
Snowden and the information anarchists. Sadly, by publishing the information Snowden
stole Britain’s Guardian newspaper has
crossed the line between holding power to legitimate account and rendering it dangerously
impotent. Indeed, by publishing security
critical information the Guardian is
making the case for press regulation easier and an over-mighty state more not
less likely.
Snowden and his fellow
anarchists appear to see themselves not so much above the law of the land but
rather as an alternative to it. At the
very least the arrogance of the information anarchists is breath-taking. When David Miranda was stopped on 18 August
at London’s Heathrow Airport under anti-terrorism laws en route from Germany to
Brazil he was allegedly carrying up to 60 gigabytes of stolen British files
classified to the highest level. If true
not only was Miranda in flagrant breach of British law but why on earth fly
through London?
A British court will
this month hear a case between the British state and Miranda at which as I
understand it Miranda will offer a public interest and human rights defence. It is something of an under-statement to
suggest this will be a test case because the way the court interprets public
interest and human rights could well define a new balance between security and
liberty. Absolute liberty is of course the
absolute right of the individual to absolute freedom. That is a definition of anarchy.
The information
anarchists are strategically important.
They are part of a growing band of anti-state actors in a twenty-first
century world which will be defined by a cacophony of struggles; the state versus
anti-state, democracy versus rich autocracy and in Europe between the state and
federalists.
Sir David Omand is
unequivocal. “The assumption the experts are working on is that all the
information [that Snowden allegedly stole] or almost all of it will now be in
the hands of Moscow and Beijing” and that the information furnished by Snowden is
invaluable to terrorists and criminal networks.
Global security is not Grand Theft Auto. It is a deadly serious business with Western
security services locked in an oft deadly struggle to prevent the deadly
ambitions of Islamists or countering the voracious appetite for stolen state
secrets of Chinese, Russian and other intelligence services. From my experience security officials are not hell bent on subverting liberty but good people daily laying their
lives on the line and sometimes losing them so you and I can go about our
business in the reasonable assumption that we will come home safe.
And that’s the point – for
the information anarchists the World Wild Web is a kind of information super-highway
with absolutely no road-signs. Rather,
Snowden, Assange and their like see themselves as the High Priests of the Web
sitting in high judgement over an unwritten Hobbesian law of natural
information. Judge, jury and executioner
in the struggle between security and liberty.
Edward
Snowden is no hero and as long as some fete him for his actions other anarchists will emerge to do immeasurable damage to legitimate Western security interests. Indeed, if Snowden really had the courage of his
stated convictions he would not be hiding in plain sight in Russia but return
to the US to face the justice of democracy.
Edward Snowden – choir
boy he ain’t!
Julian Lindley-French
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