by Chase Clow & Z. S. Justus

Recently the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) filed a lawsuit against the New York Police Department (NYPD) over its plan to use 3,000 surveillance cameras to help secure lower Manhattan against terrorist attacks. The NYCLU is chiefly concerned with the data the thousands of closed-circuit cameras captures. They are asking legitimate questions like:

• How will it be used?
• How will it be stored?
• Who will have access to the data?

Citing the public’s right to such information, the NYCLU is demanding its release. While not saying it outright, the NYCLU appears to be concerned with the panoptic glare of the NYPD, the control of non-terrorist, law-abiding citizens, and an unneeded, unwanted, and unnecessary invasion of privacy.

To begin, the 3,000 surveillance cameras, or the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative as it has been deemed, appear to be all seeing. The cameras monitor everyday activities such as walking to work, eating a quick meal, and taking a taxi. This “all-seeing” power provokes comparisons to what philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s envisioned as a perfect prison: the panopticon. In Bentham’s model a single guard can watch over a large number of prisoners by being placed in a tower in the middle of a prison yard behind one-way glass. The guard can see the prisoners, but the prisoners cannot see the guard. This is an important feature, as the inmates never know when they are actually being observed. As a result, the inmates have to self-regulate their behavior.

Likewise, in regards to the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, everyday citizens, not just terrorists or prisoners, appear to be placed in a modern-day panopticon; their actions are constantly monitored and one does not know how, when, or if that information is going to be used. Will non-terrorist citizens be forced to self-regulate and conform as well? How will the NYPD use the information these cameras capture? Will the information be used to convict jay-walkers, commuters with expired license plates, or smokers in a bar? More information would make the public rest easier in terms of their civil liberties, but might also decrease the effectiveness of the system. For instance, a current project, isee, provides New Yorkers with directions to the “paths of least surveillance.”

The balance of civil liberties and security is always a tenuous one. However, the stakes are especially high in this instance. People change their behavior when they think they are being watched. Sometimes the change is for the better, but some change is inevitable. Another implication of this project is that it effectively marks all of lower Manhattan as an area of extreme importance to national security. There are certainly many places like this in the country, nuclear plants, the Pentagon, public works projects like dams just to name a few, but the prospect of securing an entire town through digital surveillance is new to Americans and it is not a decision to be taken lightly.

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Wikipedia is becoming a major source of news and reference information for the American public. A Pew internet poll found that 36% of online adults consult Wikipedia. That number jumps to 50% for college-educated adults. Among educational and reference websites, Wikipedia is by far the most popular, owning a 24.33% share of hits when compared to other similar sites.

Whether we want to accept it or not, a large proportion of the worldwide population uses the open-source Wikipedia to learn more about a variety of issues—including the war on terror.

A Google search for “War on Terrorism” returns almost 8 million hits. The first result? Wikipedia. As a source of information, the emergence of open-source reference pages such as Wikipedia provide an exciting opportunity in an age where the mainstream news sources are often subsumed by conglomerates with self-serving motives. Although the Wikipedia “flame wars” have become almost legendary, theoretically anyone with an internet connection can make a contribution to an article. Clearly, the contents of articles can be of extreme strategic importance.

In the controversial “War on Terror”, controlling public opinion is vital. How long might it be until we see the fingerprints of the military, CIA, or even Al Qaeda on strategic Wikipedia entries?

WikiScanner is a web application created by Virgil Griffith, a graduate student at Cal Tech. By cross-referencing IP addresses and their host with edited articles, you can determine where Wikipedia edits are coming from and how often edits are made. Dozens of instances of corporate tinkering are readily available. State-supported editing is almost as prevalent.

Computers using CIA IP addresses have edited entries on the “2003 invasion of Iraq”, “7 July 2005 London Bombings”, and “Ahmed Chalabi”. It is harder to track individuals since you can only identify them by their ISPs, so state agencies and corporations bear the brunt of explaining their actions.

In a comparison of anonymous Paestinian and Israeli Wikipedia edits, the Digital Methods Institute found that some of the most commonly edited articles included entries on “Hezbollah”, the “West Bank”, and “The History of Palestine”. One addition to the “Hezbollah” article by a user with an Israeli IP addresses included the following statement:

Hezbollah is a terror organization which is responsible for the kidnapping and killing of Israeli soldiers and civilians.

These examples illustrate an important conclusion of our white paper on new communication models: You can’t control the message. As a quasi-objective source, Wikipedia has a growing influence as a source of framing for strategically important issues. That’s why the CIA has apparently taken time to edit some of its entries. But the openness of the source makes it easy for people to challenge interpretations that it contains. The messages on Wikipedia are not under anyone’s control, a fact that complicates traditional models of strategic communication.

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Pardon my rant. I say that in advance but without apology. Today’s New York Times article about the United States Senate vote to approve President Bush’s plan to grant legal protection to telephone companies for cooperating with illegal wiretaps on American citizens as well as to expand existing government spy powers on citizens adds to global suspicions that consistent definitions for the terms “freedom” and “democracy,” as well as our Constitutional rights, are largely the hobgoblins of small minds in domestic policies at home and foreign policies abroad. But the larger issue in that vote may be the role played by secrecy and coverups in the American political arena when real world political action has been superseded by virtual politics. (Self-disclosure: I am a certified child of the 1960′s and, as you can read here, a member of the blogging class.)

While many political observers, pundits, and academics have used every available communication media to comment and critique the cult of secrecy that defines Bush administration’s “global war on terror” and the culture of national (in)security and heightened fear that feeds and nurtures it, there seems to be no way in the real world to stop it. Observers, pundits, and academics have failed. Yesterday’s vote in the Senate adds to the shame of elected officials by demonstrating conclusively the failure of the Democratic party and sensible Republicans to halt these transgressions against American citizens. And if the party of loyal opposition cannot stand up to the task, not even with Presidential approval ratings at an all time low, then who will? I wish I could say it was us. But it is not. Certainly not we the much appealed-to “ordinary citizenry,” those of us who continue to shop rather than protest in any way; watch reality television rather than hold elected officials accountable; and remain at home with our worries about higher gas prices and the decreasing value of our homes rather than do anything personally to stop the Constitution from burning. Face it: Ordinary citizens are even less likely to take to the streets or march on Washington than to give up their cell phones. But at least some of us are willing to take phones away from our ears long enough to blog about it.

Democracy relies on free elections and free speech, and perhaps the hope afforded by these freedoms is what keeps us off the streets and on the blogs. As voters, and as bloggers, we steadfastly await the November elections and keyboard away to January 20, 2009 with the hopeful optimism of lifelong sinners praying suddenly for a miracle and salvation.

Unfortunately, like many who pray, we may find that we are talking only to ourselves. Our daily reports about the talk of leading Presidential candidates and the failures of Congress, or the ongoing war in Iraq, or the possible coming attractions in Iran replace real-world coordinated political action with virtual world self-satisfaction. Online our rhetoric smacks loudly of a national desire to rally behind a hero or heroine who can win back our pride, our good name, our status, and salvage our economy in the world. I may blog, but in this activity I also have learned good reasons to fear for the future of my country. After all, we are most dangerous as women and men when, out of fear, we urgently meet among ourselves to create a powerful new God to rule us and change our fate.But for the time being, at least we have the freedom of speech, free elections, and political blogs. With a Congress so prone to give away our freedoms in the name of national security, this too may pass.

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The Daily Princetonian reports an interview with computer scientist Jennifer Rexford who claims that more wiretapping can actually help the Bad Guys and make us less safe. How? By providing a system for them to hack:

They can tap into an infrastructure the government essentially built for them. It is a general risk when you create a system to spy on yourself, that people can abuse it.

Read the rest of the story here.

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