NTICs: DEMOCRATIC TRANSPARENCY OR NEW TOTALITARIANISM?

Introduction

NTICs: New Information and Communication Technologies since its first appearance on January 1983 has for over decades subvert the relationship between the state and citizens. In fact, these new technologies arouse mixed feelings and reactions. The internet for example has given access to an infinite repository of knowledge to every citizen who has access to it. Knowledge, sophisticated gadgets and information is no longer reserved to a little number of elites. Today, it is even possible for someone to sit in his 12 meters square living room in Taipei and hack a government found thousands of kilometres away. Also, this new technologies have not only given greater liberty and access to the normal lambda, it has also accelerated the dichotomy which persist of if NTICs are a new means to transparency and decentralization of information or a new man-oeuvre by governments to accentuate their totalitarian nature on citizens.?When Wiki-leaks exposed some diplomatic telegrams in 2010 with what was known as the United States diplomatic cables leak also known as cablegate, of classified information that had been sent to the US department of state by 247 consulates, embassies and diplomatic missions, this was viewed by many as a triumph of citizens over diplomatic secrets. However, some saw this as threat to national security. Best still, the leaks on the Panama papers and most recently the Pandora papers have come to expose top notch personalities such as: the Queen of the United Kingdom, Salman of Saudi Arabia, Petro Poroshenko former president of Ukraine, Ali Bongo of Gabon and Uhuru Kenyetta of Kenya over their tax evasion and money laundering practices, a victory for the normal citizens who become more mindful of their leaders. Nevertheless, on the other hand, NTICs have helped governments to significantly limit the liberty of some citizens. China for example has used social media to reinforce its surveillance on its citizens. She is indisputably the leader of installed surveillance cameras in the world, with as much as four times that found in the USA. This has led to her appellation of a security state. In 2016, Russia was accused of interference in the US presidential election via the bias of social media and the use of fake accounts. These two facets of NTICs undoubtedly lead us to a continuous questioning: are NTICs a means to democratic transparency or just a new form of totalitarianism??

We should all have for once felt unsafe due to technology. It wouldn’t be a surprise if one feels listened, watched or tracked in today’s world. The rapid expansion of technology has significantly accelerated globalization, making the world an even smaller village. Mobile phones and the internet have become factors of liberty and mobility. They have given access to faster communication means and easy traceability of goods and persons. With a mobile phone, one can spontaneously determine the exact position of a friend, enemy or relative. As beautiful as this may sound, it has its flaws however. An important debate sparked in the last two decades stipulating that, total transparency had a totalitarian component. If nothing is kept secret, is an individual not put at greater risk? (Pascal, B 2020). NTICs offer a new totalitarian power, the ability to tract more efficiently a population, an individual or corporation. Supporters of NTICs have in recent years advanced arguments such as: health, transportation and security. The introduction of smart watches, fitness trackers, and medical microchips would only allow faster and efficient responses to illnesses such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes while providing sophisticated responses for future generations. With regards to transportation and security, the collection of bio-metric authentication would only facilitate security checks while promoting the easy flux of people and services. Nonetheless, these elements further expose an individual in an era where NTICs is dominant. This collected data on persons could mean that, anyone who is capable of breaching security can do whatever he likes with such precious information. This isn’t only true of data on people, but also on top state secrets and classified protocols of nations. The threat isn’t only from the outside nevertheless. Ill intention personnel having access to such data can sell them to other nations or simply use them to settle personal grievances.

Despite the dangers which NTICs present, people have not been reluctant to float the internet with information which could be used against them or their governments. Some countries have gone further to limit the availability and accessibility of NTICs. North Korea has proven to be the best example. She has been nicked name the hermit kingdom, in fact, a hermetically sealed dictatorship where it is extremely hard for both information and people to move in or out. To expand its totalitarianism, the North Korean central government has put in place certain measures which they say are due to security reasons and the necessity to protect citizens and the state from the outside world. Currently, the government under Kim Jong-un, descendant of the Kim family which has governed North Korea for over 60 years as a dynasty, first with its founder Kim II-sung, then Kim Jong-Il and now Kim Jong-un has found new means to move further his family legacy despite the challenges which come with them. To mitigate this, North Korea tightly controls the internet. “The entire infrastructure is state-run and the security services are heavily integrated in the running of the telecommunications network” (Martyn Williams- report from the committee for Human rights in North Korea, 2019). Everything is monitored by a state agency called bureau 27 or the transmission surveillance bureau. North Korea also imports cheap smart phones from china and modifies the software to spy on people. Same is done with Personal Computers, whereby North Korea produces a Linux-based operating system called “Red Star” that can snoop on user activity (Martyn Williams, 2019). These new technologies which were rather supposed to bring about “greater liberty and freedom” have only assisted governments in their totalitarian nature.

As if that is not enough, in 2013, a former computer scientist, Edward Snowden revealed that the United States secret service spied on millions of people around the world through their electronic correspondence. He also declared in his revelations that the US was equally spying on the private phones of some world leaders like Angela Merkel (Pascal, 2020). This isn’t surprising in a world dominated by power politics and in a context of universal globalization. Political, economic and technological espionage have become very current, and millions of people seem not to have any private life, as they are constantly under the surveillance of either individuals or their states. Moreover, a direct state to state attack is also possible, and a concrete example was orchestrated in 2007 when Russia launched a cyber-attack on Estonia (Damien McGuinness, 2017). Till yet, no direct link has been established between the Kremlin and these attacks. The story line goes thus however: The bronze soldier statue unveiled by Soviet authorities in 1947 was originally known as “Monument to the Liberators of Tallinn” which for Russian Estonians represented USSR’s victory over Nazism (Damien McGuinness, 2017). However, for the ethnic Estonians, the Red Army soldiers were occupiers, and this statue indeed represented a painful symbol of half a century of Soviet oppression. “In 2007 the Estonian government decided to move the Bronze Soldier from the center of Tallinn to a military cemetery on the outskirts of the city. This decision provoked an outrage in Russian-Language media and Russian speakers took to the streets. Protests were exacerbated by false Russian news reports claiming that the statue, and nearby Soviet war graves, were being destroyed. From 27 April, Estonia was also hit by major cyber-attacks which in some cases lasted for weeks. Online services of Estonian banks, media outlets and government bodies were taken down by unprecedented levels of internet traffic. Massive waves of spam were sent by botnets and huge amounts of automated online requests swamped servers. The result for Estonians citizens was that cash machines and online banking services were sporadically out of action; government employees were unable to communicate with each other on email; and newspapers and broadcasters suddenly found they couldn't deliver the news”(Damien. 2017)

The menace doesn’t limit itself to states or individuals. In fact, the biggest threat lies in the hands of a numerous few, barricade under the umbrella of their multinational status. The GAFA or now GAMA (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple) or (Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple) control the data of billions of people, which could be used at any time and by any means they deem necessary.?The most recent example is that of the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook saga of 2016, which used data of 50 million people from Facebook open graph platform to provide analytical assistance to the presidential campaigns of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Cambridge Analytica has orchestrated similar scenarios in other countries, with the most surprising examples being the presidential campaigns of Nelson Mandela in 1994 and Uhuru Kenyatta in 2017 in South Africa and Kenya respectively (Voanews, 2017). These examples are just but proof that; NTICs are more so, sophisticated and fast track means, through which individuals, multinationals and states consolidate their totalitarian nature with their vis a vis.

Moving further, despite the success stories of nations like China and North Korea, some states which have tried to follow in this line have suffered greatly. NTICs are underpinned with the decentralized decision of individuals, and most at times, are incompatible with political systems which aims at reducing the most possible way the autonomy of citizens and their liberty to act (Pascal, 2020). USSR for example had only 100.000 personal computers on its soil by 1987 compared to 5 million annual productions in the United States (Pascal, 2020). This is in no way proof of financial hardship on the soviet side, but only a means to curb the spread of technology within its territories which was seen as a threat to its unity and cohesion. The internet has worked favorably in certain countries, thus promoting democratic transparency vis-à-vis a given regime. Countries like Tunisia which were oppressed by their government were able to break free thanks to the internet. The Jasmine revolution of 2011 in Tunisia illustrates the vitality of NTICs in promoting democratic transparency. Before 2011, Tunisia was under serious press scrutiny and was also a country where political contestation was almost impossible or unusual. Nevertheless, Internet gave access to the people, to a large repertoire of knowledge, from which they could stay current, exchange information and mobilize themselves. The success of the Arab spring is in majority due to the internet. The 28 day campaign of civil resistance included a series of street demonstrations which led to the ousting of long-time president Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali. Tunisia has since then moved towards a more democratic nation in the classical sense of the term. However this democracy has recently been challenged by the current government of Kais Saied. Internet was also successful in promoting democratic transparency in Algeria under the Hirak movement which began in 2019, also known as revolution of smiles which was launched six days after Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced his candidacy for a fifth presidential term in a signed statement. Youth were able to quickly mobilize themselves via the internet to storm the streets of Algiers for almost two years. Similar scenarios were also observed in Sudan, Chile, Lebanon and Myanmar.

Conclusion

NTICs appears undoubtedly as a double edged knife which since its appearance has animated debates on human rights violation and the absence of privacy for numerous. But on the other hand, it has helped advanced research on health related issues, facilitated the destitution of dictators and promoted access to a large repository of knowledge and information. This has also made information more available and accessible, while propagating an era of infinite awareness. In summary, NTICs, have participated in expanding the wealth gap around the world. The richest individuals today are intertwined to data related companies. This has also helped in consolidating their economic and political power on the international arena, as they today fuel conflicts around the world for personal gains. NTICs will play an increasing role in the future and are already changing the relationship between citizens and power. A structural movement towards more transparency and citizen power seems inevitable.

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References

1)?????Boniface, Pascal. 2020. LA GEOPOLITIQUE: 5O fiches pour comprendre l’actualité.7th edition Eyrolles. Paris Cedex. References

2)???????Damien McGuinness.?2017. How a cyber-attack transformed Estonia, BBC News, Tallinn, Estonia. Published 27 April 2017, London.

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Webography

3)?????https://www.voanews.com/a/kenya-election-data-mining/4119122.html

4)?????https://www.voanews.com/a/cambridge-analytica-played-roles-in-multiple-african-elections/4309792.html

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