Politics and Intelligence

Empires usually fail because of two reasons: 1) distrust between entities acting as checks and balances on the executive branch, which inspires secrecy and eventually an inability to identify problems; and 2) overextension at any cost, both numerical and qualitative, in order to prevent competitors from achieving progress. The second reason is why mainstream media degenerates or remains staid during a superpower's decline. 

Most of us understand media is intertwined with public opinion and therefore elections. In turn, media influence is connected with established political and private entities, usually law enforcement and multinational corporations (e.g., Dutch East India Company or ExxonMobil), because such entities, unlike individual government employees, have no theoretical shelf life and can use their longevity to incur debt, roll over debt, and use funding to gain long-term, reliable sources and conduits of information. In this way, entities are better able to sustain themselves because they can buy loyalty, whereas non-billionaire individuals cannot buy equal influence even if armed with facts and logic. 

James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson, Volume 1

As media and advertising have become inescapable, an escalating amount of content is necessary to fill in the time occupied by new technologies. (Facebook's and Google's revenues indicate how much direct and indirect advertising targets our eyeballs and consumer preferences.) If established players do not occupy the content channels accessible to their residents and supporters, they leave open spaces for competitors--some benign, some domestic, some foreign, some hostile. (Military strategists are familiar with these tactics in the physical realm, though none seem able to push back credibly when overextension appears on the horizon.) 

By now, we all know the gist of Edward Snowden's allegations, but Snowden--as intelligent as he obviously is--was a low-level NSA worker. His aim to avoid the surveillance state is no longer possible for an ordinary person without extreme measures. Experienced intelligence assets and agents determined decades ago that influence must be assisted and co-opted to prevent a devolution of content--i.e., fake news, or what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 1978 presciently called the "abyss of human decadence." 

Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people... It is considered to be part of freedom and theoretically counter-balanced by the young people's right not to look or not to accept. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1978)

While intellectuals have been keen to recognize the symptoms of a society in decline, they have not understood the causes equally well. Put simply, as entities seek to control an increasing number of content channels, they are forced to hide truths unfavorable to their paymasters. Censorship being disfavored due to its ability to backfire, most leaders choose to ruin their opponent's credibility, their opponent's finances (the LKY method), or, as a last resort, assassinations (e.g., MLK's murder on the one-year anniversary of his Vietnam speech and 1973's Lillehammer affair). To mitigate blowback from the use of such underhanded tactics, the same entities boost persons favorable to their country's image, especially athletes and minorities, so as to avoid situations like USA's 1968 Olympics Black Power salute. Boosting, co-opting, and "soft censorship" require vast amounts of money, thus entrenching entities and billionaires while disfavoring individuals, even if the former lack facts, truth, or logic. 

This financial requirement, if not managed carefully, eventually renders countries and their residents debt facilitators or obligators foremost, bankers and politicians competing for the title of "Most Creative Cash Flow Consultant." (Witness current negative interest rates.) Such propaganda tactics obfuscate decline because the more such entities succeed, the harder it becomes to identify legitimate complaints and issues. Furthermore, most governments able to access debt/funding overshoot in their attempts to maintain social cohesion, whether co-opting too late (e.g., U.K.'s experience against the IRA and Sinn Fein, Russia's relationship with Chechnya) or boosting individuals and outliers in ways inimical to structural solutions (e.g., affirmative action and racial quotas over tearing down institutional factors supporting segregation). 

As financial burdens--as well as concomitant superficiality, budgetary mismanagement, and economic inequality--increase, the first reason mentioned in the opening sentence gathers strength. Regardless of where blame is directed for declining social cohesion, law enforcement tacitly or overtly gains more discretion to maintain law and order, weakening mechanisms designed to stop extremism. As lawyers and academics realize their participation (and therefore influence) has waned, their attempts to counter executive force are noble; however, at this juncture, the executive branch has already created separate modes of operation in a good faith effort to resolve problems in an efficient manner. To the extent such illegal maneuvers can be traced, it is not difficult to destroy evidence and silence witnesses through the same methods discussed earlier. Yet, the moment disrespect for legal norms protecting individual rights becomes fashionable, a country's power structure has already shifted from the long-term to the short-term, from the credible and sustainable to the out-of-touch and unbelievable. In such a realm, criticism is a threat to operations, weakening a country's desired image and investor confidence. After all, the more all parties believe outstanding debts will be repaid, the more existing parties gain power and are welcomed by all--except those who have studied history properly. 

© Matthew Rafat (February 2020) 

Update: I wanted to follow up on the difference between a Snowden acolyte and higher-level intelligence analyst. Let's say you have evidence a particular app or website is involved in human trafficking. You can try to go to court and ask for a take-down order, but the company would justifiably argue its website has legitimate users, and as a mere facilitator, it is not responsible for illegal activity between its end users. If you follow Snowden, you would also argue such tactics amount to government censorship and government picking and choosing winners.

But Snowden would have no answer to what might happen next: the government, a mega-church, or a billionaire's employees could, even without a backdoor, create fake profiles on the website and tilt the ratio between real users and sock-puppets however it liked. The company, at first, would be delighted because it could show advertising companies its growth. Over time, however, as real users left the website, it would become difficult for anyone involved to maintain credibility.

A more complicated situation would involve a leak of classified information. In such a case, though censorship could occur, the government could also direct all public (aka mainstream) website searches to websites it had created itself or through its subsidiaries' uploads. Many subsidiaries, such as nonprofits, would not have the technological expertise to determine whether they were reviewing altered or real material, or even whether they were being funded by the very government under investigation.

I often say the 21st century's hallmark is the "bad guys" have become the "good guys," and vice-versa. One reason is that unaltered, legitimate data--the underlying basis for truth--is sometimes only available in the dark web or through secret channels. 

Thoughts on Britain's General Election 2019: Greed is Good

I'm disappointed but unsurprised by the U.K.'s general election. Though neither Boris Johnson nor Jeremy Corbyn (Leader of "Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition") are inspirational, it would be a mistake to credit or blame either man for tonight's results. Personally, I don't understand why Labour fielded a candidate who, in 2016, suffered a no confidence vote in which 172 of his 229 fellow Labour MPs opposed him, but that's another topic. Gaffes aside, we must finally admit the public's loss of faith in government's ability to advance public goods. How did we reach this miserable spot, with an out-of-touch millionaire union organizer battling an inept pro-American twat for the mantle of British leadership? I shall offer some clues. 

Voter turnout was between 50 to 75% with an average of 67%, meaning
over 1 out of every 4 British adults has lost faith in their political system,
despite having the numerical power to swing elections.

1. Surveillance Capitalism Tilts the Playing Field against Individual Autonomy and thus Shared Liberal Values

The most surveilled cities in the world are in China, U.S.A., and the U.K. In the 17th century, Cardinal Richelieu reportedly said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." (As a European Catholic, he ought to know.) In 2006, Bruce Schneier echoed his sentiments: "Watch someone long enough, and you'll find something to arrest -- or just blackmail -- with." What, you may ask, does general surveillance have to do with general elections? 

By the time a country has achieved the capability--and insufficient political resistance--to spy on most of its citizens, a security state (aka a police state) is already in place, rendering politics more spectacle than crucible. The most effective propaganda comes from such police states, because the security apparatus controls information, an advantage promoting aligned media operations through which authorities can arrest, frame, sue, and blackmail opponents with impunity. In contrast, non-police states allow lawyers and journalists to gain information on equal footing as private and public security forces, building loyal audiences subject to independent scrutiny. Only the latter dynamic allows voters a reasonable chance at seeing honest, non-biased information. (The truth may be out there, but sometimes it hides well enough to never be found.) What happens to accountability without unbiased information? Politicians and academics, responsible for crafting legislation that protects their fellow residents, receive distorted information, guaranteeing failure. 

Government failures have consequences, of course. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden once asked, "What do you do when the most powerful institutions in society have become the least accountable to society?" To reach a point where his question holds weight, first there has to be "a system that makes the population vulnerable for the benefit of the privileged." One path leading to certain dystopia involves a system of widespread surveillance rendering the general population dependent on biased information, allowing security and intelligence entities to manipulate voters. The British series Black Mirror, in "Waldo Moment," aptly illustrated our current path: a world where selective editing, enough spending on advertisements, and carnival barkers can make anyone honest to appear dishonest--and vice-versa. In such topsy-turvy environments, even the most earnest citizens eventually give up trying to ascertain the truth. After all, the truth is rarely profitable, whereas propaganda is inherently profitable because it is a form of marketing and therefore financed from birth. 

It was not always this way. In the pre-digital-surveillance age, if a government, billionaire, or corporation wanted to tar your reputation, invade your privacy, or remove you from influence, they'd have to physically reveal themselves (e.g., arrest, spying) or leave evidence behind (e.g., a paper trail, a frivolous lawsuit, a body). The existence of a physical trail limited abuses of power as long as lawyers and journalists had the public's credibility and thus attention. Absent such credibility, voters logically favor short-term over long-term results, an environment in which any government spending decision can appear suspicious. Worse yet, distortions tend to multiply because biased information favors groups over individuals in the same way propaganda overwhelms truth; in times of suspicion, humanity's herd instinct seeks safety in numbers, nuance be damned. Meanwhile, the intangibility of the decay caused by dishonesty accelerates entropy as people with resources try to create estuaries apart from the mainstream to better control their flow of information, a tactic that entrenches existing corruption while allowing the Establishment to slander separatists with charges of insufficient patriotism. 

In this manner, modern times have brought invisible and intertwined plagues: the diminution of the individual; the loss of faith in collective action; and greater difficulty achieving mutually-beneficial political changes. Powerful entities can seemingly be stopped only by other large powerful entities--not the ballot box or determined individuals. Within this paradigm, entities able to afford surveillance--or protection from it--can better protect their preferred people, including political players, who are often egotistical fronts distracting from or justifying previous economic and banking decisions. As such, we know about Jamal Khashoggi's murder not because of independent journalism or lawyers but because a state with surveillance and military power comparable to Saudi Arabia disclosed its investigation--presumably after it received approval from an even more powerful state. 

In a world where groups are advantaged a priori over individuals, constant surveillance means supposedly "free," democratic Britain eventually becomes fundamentally similar to so-called repressive, totalitarian China--with almost everyone lacking time, legal knowledge, and translation skills to escape a fishbowl existence where most information is controlled or provided out of context. 

[Bruce Schneier: "If we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness... Too many wrongly characterize the debate as 'security vs. privacy.' The real choice is liberty versus control."]

2. Misinformation Means Democratic Representatives are Less Effective and Less Responsive

If elites and politicians do not receive accurate information, they cannot fix or even identify existing problems, much less future ones, and the public tends to shift allegiance to the executive branch (aka the police and military), who are closer to the ground and who have the necessary technology to gather the best information. 

Meanwhile, in Singapore, a former British colony, the PM is sharing math formulas on Twitter.

There's a reason misinformation affects so-called totalitarian states less: as long as they value technology, which allows efficient tracking of tangible items, they operate from an advantageous starting point by not placing abstract ideals above concrete economic gains. The more government becomes corrupt or inefficient, the more soul-selling becomes logical under a cost-benefit analysis. 

[Meanwhile, in Scotland, where politicians are still respected and respectable: 

"I don’t pretend that every single person who voted SNP yesterday will necessarily support [Scottish] independence, but there has been a strong endorsement in this election of Scotland having a choice over our future; of not having to put up with a Conservative government we didn’t vote for and not having to accept life as a nation outside the EU." -- SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon] 

3.  Personal Gain Trumps Collective Concern as Politicians Become Increasingly Out-of-Touch

The world's economic engine isn't as complicated as it seems. Countries that successfully provided viable alternatives to entrenched interests using immigrants, private sector competitors, and/or uncompromising political leaders (e.g., M. Thatcher) minimized self-serving corruption--as long as they improved consumer access to greater choices. Unfortunately, as technology became essential and the cost of competing in larger markets increased, traditional methods of exacting honesty from corrupt groups dissolved. As I wrote earlier, no matter how true one's outrage, power is now necessary to combat power, and too often, power tends to bargain with itself, making compromises further violating the individual. 

An additional factor explains our amoral political arena. In the post-Thatcher and post-Reagan world, elections are "winner take-all" contests, with losing districts certain to receive less or same government funding at the same time as winning districts receive more. Within countries where government is directly involved in medical care, education, and transportation, elections matter greatly in terms of employment growth and therefore economic success. Not swimming with the tide may mean economic stagnation, and as consumer debt soaks the world, the promise of a dollar means more than the promise of hope, justice, or equality. 

4. Conclusion

To summarize, as power and information consolidate and promote biased information, most people lose faith in public institutions. Consequently, voters are unable to depend on abstract ideals, and whichever candidate convinces a majority they will have more money will usually prevail--even if voters don't tend to understand inflation. 

Do you have enough clues to solve the mystery yet? 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (2019)

Bonus I: "The worst illiterate is the political illiterate. He hears nothing, sees nothing, takes no part in political life. He doesn't seem to know that the cost of living, the price of beans, of flour, of rent, of medicines all depend on political decisions. He even prides himself on his political ignorance, sticks out his chest and says he hates politics. He doesn't know that from his political non-participation comes the prostitute, the abandoned child, the robber, and, worst of all, corrupt officials." (From 1988, paraphrased, "Terra Nossa: Newsletter of Project Abraço, North Americans in Solidarity with the People of Brazil, Τόμοι 1-7") 

Bonus II: as you can see from the charts below, the British pound increased 3% relative to the US dollar once it was clear the Conservative Party would gain substantial seats. This currency increase helps the British government, which settles debt in USD, as well as British multinational corporations, which have debt denominated in US dollars. Seen one way, though British exports may become more expensive, voting Conservative or creating propaganda in favor of Conservative votes has generated a paper return of billions of pounds. 

Bonus III: Dave Chappelle, playing host of fictional show, "I Know Black People" on Comedy Central.

Chappelle: "How can black people rise and overcome?"

White Contestant: "Get out and vote." [buzz]

Chappelle: "That is incorrect, I'm afraid."

Bonus IV: re: my comment above on gender influencing the election, please see the following graph. 

Frank Church on the NSA and Surveillance in 1975

Frank Church, on the NSA in 1975: https://youtu.be/YAG1N4a84Dk 

Without proper oversight of the NSA, "no American will have any privacy left... there would be no way to fight back ... the capacity is there to make tyranny total." 

Fast forward to 2017: https://youtu.be/dkoi7sZvWiU 

The technology in the video is at least one year old. Without the independent ability to determine whether information is true, independent media cannot exist. In an age of "deepfakes," reporters and editors must be part-journalists, part-tech-forensics, but only a few will have the resources to do forensics well. 

Furthermore, if journalists need security-level clearance to ascertain the difference between real and fake, what happens to well-intentioned whistleblower and citizen-produced tips? Numerous problems exist with the aforementioned scenario, not least of all the ability to disrupt honest, diligent journalism as well as any investigation. 

From Robert Scheer's They Know Everything about You (2015)

Journalists wouldn't be the only ones dependent on the government to vet information--so would local police departments lacking military-grade technology. In such a world, the only reliable sources would be high-level government-affiliated with no independent checks and balances. In short, independent journalism could be easily disrupted while lesser funded local governments couldn't realistically decouple themselves from federal corruption or mismanagement. 

The capacity to make tyranny total existed in 1975. Have checks and balances increased or decreased since then? 

Robert Scheer's They Know Everything about You (Book Review)

Edward Snowden started the transparency but Robert Scheer provides it in context. The inefficacy and profligacy of America's national security apparatus are worse than you imagine. Obama's presidency expanded the security state far more than anyone knew until whistleblowers emerged. A few quick points: 

1. American taxpayers have spent 500 billion USD for intelligence since 9/11. Scheer explains how almost all the programs didn't work or had to be scrapped. The main problem wasn't data gathering but connecting the dots to gain useful information. (Update: Such profligate spending is deemed acceptable because much, if not most, of the revenue is funding native-born American citizens, including military veterans, or allied military R&D. The calculus of government spending means if it costs the CIA 100,000 analyst jobs for native-born citizens to equal the same insights as one politically-disconnected immigrant Iranian, politicians are willing to look the other way.)

2. America's expenditures were useless because the government attacked the wrong problem (and the wrong country, but that's another book). When you realize most law enforcement employees are men, it's not surprising communication is the issue. 

Imagine analyzing a relationship between a husband and wife. Whom would you trust more to predict substantive behavior if the couple knew they were being watched? A person with all online data on both persons or a close friend who communicates well with one of them? 

3. Much of the government's post-9/11 approach to combating terrorism is being used for psychological ops, i.e., how to engineer consent, potentially even against America's own citizens. Also, if legal "rebellions" or dissent can be predicted through software and algorithms, why wouldn't such algorithms be used one day to block the spread of "dangerous" or dissenting ideas? Why not use it to predict and catch whistleblowers, preventing another Snowden? (By the way, do you see the connection between Facebook and facial recognition technology; Alexa/Siri and voice recognition technology; and genealogical profiles and criminal investigations?) 

4. One example: let's say you're critical of a defense contractor or the president online. Software exists that will scoop up your comment and save it in a database--forever. The question is whether the software can differentiate between peaceful libertarians and potentially dangerous anti-government persons (McVeigh, Kaczynski, etc.). What is the assurance, with black-box government funding and military contracting/outsourcing, of avoiding actions that will chill speech? What is the assurance an algorithm won't be fooled by deepfakes or digital spoofing?

5. We jail journalists in America. See Barrett Brown. 

6. The worst part about all the money we've spent is that these trillion-dollar systems can be gamed with millions of dollars. For instance, overwhelming spying software with useless or false info/code is a common intelligence tactic. Note, however, such tactics can be used by ordinary citizens against these same programs. If all of us began discussing bombs--as part of our goal to write interesting screenplays, of course--we could render useless much of the surveillance software in existence. (Foreign governments and hacker outfits have already discovered this flaw, leading us into a new era of diplomacy where no one knows the rules for a proportionate response to ever-escalating online attacks.) There's even a simpler approach: if everyone just shut off their phones for one week, so-called anti-terrorism surveillance programs (but not advertising programs) would be ineffective. 

Snowden tells an anecdote about this issue: one terrorist stool pigeon receives a phone call directing him to a location. On the way there, he's killed by a drone. Another terrorist receives a text with instructions on how to make a bomb. Upon ordering fertilizer, he's killed by a drone. A third terrorist delivers a handwritten note by bicycle with instructions on where to find explosives. He succeeds. 

 7. Every mid-sized American city in 2001 could have looked like Tokyo today if taxpayer dollars had been spent on infrastructure. Instead, we decided to spend our money on propaganda and surveillance software that can be made useless through simple cooperation, an analog approach, or foreign hackers. If that sounds fine, try a different thought experiment: imagine a country with police officers on every street corner who can peer into your home if a judge the police union helped elect gives them permission. Incorporate factors such as anonymous or well-meaning but incorrect crime tips. What are the substantive differences between such a scenario and current reality? 

© Matthew Rafat (2018)

The "Warrant Canary"

After September 11, 2001, Congress passed the Patriot Act with only a single dissenting vote in the Senate and only 66 Representatives out of 432 voting nay.  (The House is a strange creation--there can be up to 435 voting Representatives, but some entities have a seat but no voting power, such as Puerto Rico, so technically there are 441 Representatives.)  Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin was the only Senator voting against the Patriot Act on October 24, 2001.  When the Act was up for renewal in 2006, at a time when more level heads should have prevailed, 86 out of 100 Senators voted in favor.

Because of such sweeping consent by America's politicians, America in 2017 lacks privacy and is under more surveillance than East Germany at its peak.  The surveillance is so broad and so invasive, the law itself prevents companies from even disclosing cooperation with it. If an electronic communications company--and what technology company isn't involved in electronic communications these days?--receives a National Security Letter ("NSL") demanding records, the company cannot even disclose the governmental request under 18 U.S.C. 2709(c).

That whole "checks and balances" idea allowing America to claim it had more freedom and stability than repressive regimes?  It has not existed from 2001 to 2017, because law enforcement agencies like the FBI are able to send a form letter and demand reams of consumer and citizen data without needing to get judicial approval.

 In 2017, a few companies are trying to fight back through end-to-end encryption and now a "warrant canary."  Basically, companies that haven't yet received a National Security Letter publish something in their annual report indicating they've never received one, and if the statement is missing from future annual reports, the consumer can make an educated guess about what has changed.

While this type of protest is encouraging, it is still facile and futile in actually stopping governmental and law enforcement overreach. As such, someone caring about privacy is now better off moving to another country where taxes are spent more meticulously, preventing governments from expanding law enforcement resources at will.  A country that can issue whatever money it needs on the backs of future generations may not go bankrupt due to currently low interest rates, but the kind of society it can create is not necessarily a healthy or sustainable one.  Indeed, a government relying on debt to maintain the status quo has an interest in normalizing its use amongst its own citizens as it diverts taxpayer funds into increasingly questionable endeavors.  In today's topsy-turvy world, countries with less financial flexibility are more nimble psychologically and perhaps more financially sturdy because choices must be made.  When choices must be made with finite funds, at least a few people tend to think of the long term.  Not so in America, but at least it looks like a few are rebelling--11 and 16 years too late.

Trivia Fun: as of 2017, the six non-voting members are Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.