Reader Response Draft 4

According to Morozov (2015) in “Who’s the true enemy of internet freedom-China, Russia, or the US?”,  the US should be given the same amount of criticism, if not more, than Russia and China have received over the issue of internet privacy. He reasons that by claiming Russia and China are only accessing data from their own people while the US is trying to access data by anybody anywhere as long as these data pass through US companies. His conclusion is that Russia and China are executing strict censorship not only to curb public disorder, but more importantly, to protect themselves against US assertive technological policies. While Morozov’s article has painted Russia and China in an undeserving positive light, the US is rightly being criticised for their inability to uphold their image as the spokesperson for “internet freedom”.

It is true that the US is stepping over the line with its surveillance programs. It has always been the advocate for freedom and privacy, but instead, in the context of information sovereignty, is doing the opposite. The US law has the Fourth Amendment with the goal to prevent government intrusion into its citizens’ privacy. However, it is apparently fine for it to break this constitutional amendment as long as the crime is not discovered by the public. If the government is truly law-abiding like it claims to be, it will need no reason to hide these programs. The National Security Agency has been keeping track of every form of communication data from US citizens with the excuse of preventing terrorist attacks. As Zetter (2014) aptly summarized the negative effects of US's information technology policies, "in the name of security [against terrorist attacks], we’re trading away not only privacy, but also the U.S. tech economy, internet openness, America’s foreign policy interests and cyber-security.” After Edward Snowden’s disclosure of the US’s global and domestic surveillance programs, it is embarrassing for the US to criticize other countries now for their so-called “internet freedom”. 

However, it is naïve for Morozov to suggest that Russia and China are only trying to gather information within their territories. It is not astonishing to find out that almost all countries do secret surveillance of other countries, if they have the technology for it. China has been bombarded with complaints due to cyber-attacks done by Chinese hackers and the suspicion that these hackers are state-sponsored. Just recently, Chinese hackers are pinpointed as the culprit behind the theft of personal information of at least 80 million customers of US health-care company Anthem (Stout, 2015). Even though the Chinese government has denied involvement with these Chinese hackers, this may be because no leakers have exposed them yet. This is a similar scenario to that of the US. The US government has tried to repudiate accusations of infringing on the rights of nations and individuals until they were proven to be guilty.

Morozov gave me the impression that he believes the quest for digital sovereignty by China and Russia is mostly to “de-Americanize” rather than to clamp down on internal unrests and unhappiness. Actually, the latter is a more important goal than the former. China, as an example again, has already started to “de-Americanize” by creating its own alternatives to most of the communication technologies created by US companies. If China only wanted to stop the US from using their citizens’ data without permission, it would have stopped there. Having a whole domestic sphere of communication platforms has made it easier for it to carry out censorship too. However, the Chinese government still chooses to focus more on censorship within the Chinese media rather than pushing the US communication companies out of their territory. This shows that for China, controlling domestic affairs is a more critical factor behind its digital sovereignty compared to protecting itself against US’s aggressive surveillance.

In general, Morozov did an excellent job in bringing the US's aggressive policies to light. It is a pity that he did not put China, Russia and the US on the same comparative scale with regard to internet privacy throughout his arguments. Nevertheless, this article was a great read to help me get in perspective the various powers’ situation in the struggle for digital sovereignty.

(700 words)

References:

Morozov, E. (2015, January 4). Who’s the true enemy of Internet freedom- China, Russia or the US. The Guardian. Retrieved from: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/04/internet-freedom-china-russia-us-google-microsoft-digital-sovereignty

Riley, M., & Robertson, J. (2015, February 6) Chinese state-sponsored hackers suspected in Anthem attack. Bloomberg. Retrieved from: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-05/signs-of-china-sponsored-hackers-seen-in-anthem-attack

Stout, D. (2015, February 5). China hackers may be responsible for the anthem attack, reports say. Time. Retrieved from: http://time.com/3698417/china-anthem-hack-healthcare/

Zetter, K. (2014, July 29). Personal privacy is only one of the costs of NSA Surveillance. [web log post] Retrieved from: http://www.wired.com/2014/07/the-big-costs-of-nsa-surveillance-that-no-ones-talking-about/