The securitisation of cyber space
Securitization is the process through which political actors frame an issue as a threat to national security. This helps them mobilize massive resources available to the state and sometimes to circumvent normal restraints such as the rule of law (like when they want to justify torturing terrorists, for example). Piracy was an early example. Now we have the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, the refugee threat, and cyber crime, to name just a few.
The outcome is questionable. In many cases, securitization seems to make problems worse. Global trade in narcotics has grown to a USD320bn global industry that threatens to overwhelm governments and civil society in Latin America and Asia. The costs to developed countries are have become an unsustainable burden on developed countries. Over 210,000 people are imprisoned in the USA for drug related crimes. Similarly, George W Bush’s ‘war on terrorism’ has expended massive resources and alienated tolerant people around the world, undermining social and political stability and eroding US power. Ironically, the war has produced a massive refugee crisis that has triggered a new round of securitisation issues as Western countries attempt to insulate themselves from the instability caused by the war.
Now we have the cyber security threat. Global governments have reacted to the massive and largely unregulated growth of the internet by exerting state sovereignty over the internet’s information and communications technology infrastructure. Pundits are beginning to predict the ‘balkanisation of the internet’ - with the creation of distinct regulatory and competitive regimes in China, Europe and the US. And yet there is another critical trend - and that is the securitisation of our use of the internet. Computer enabled fraud, identity theft, theft of trade secrets and intellectual property, are now increasingly cast as threats to national security. Governments are setting up Computer Emergency Response Teams to protect Critical National Information Infrastructure. But is this a helpful response to the problem?
Despite the rise of cyber espionage and patriotic hacking, most cyber atacks are economic crimes. They are crimes of exploitation, fraud, corruption and money laundering. These are issues that are best left to civil society - to the legal and regulatory system, education and to the marketplace. Few people want the government intruding on their social and business activities, and most attempts by governments to do so are treated with legitimate mistrust.
Governments need to recognise the importance of cyber security in the civil domain - security for businesses, households and individuals to conduct their activities online, free from the threat of espionage and crime. They need to figure out what that legal and regulatory framework would look like - and then get out of the way.