30th August 2021
Over at the Foreign Affairs journal is this fascinating, well-argued article:
Intermittent terrorist attacks have blinded us to a deeper trend: the steady increase in the coercive power of the technocratic state. Technology has made organized rebellion virtually impossible in rich states, I argue in @ForeignAffairs https://t.co/9zyhPb6kq4
— Thomas Hegghammer (@Hegghammer) August 24, 2021
From a liberal perspective, there are parts of the piece that are both convincing – and disturbing.
For example, the author Thomas Hegghammer avers that not only is the west better resourced:
‘Western governments have also proved to be less scrupulous about preserving civil rights than many expected in the early years of the war on terrorism. When faced with security threats on their own soil, most Western states bent or broke their own rules and neglected to live up to their self-professed liberal ideals.’
The gist of this seems true – and what is disturbing for the liberal is that it may well have been a ‘price worth paying’.
Hegghammer amplifies this point in respect of privacy laws and the surveillance state:
‘The reason information technology empowers the state over time is that rebellion is a battle for information, and states can exploit new technology on a scale that small groups cannot. The computer allowed states to accumulate more information about their citizens, and the Internet enabled faster sharing of that information across institutions and countries. Gadgets such as the credit card terminal and the smartphone allowed authorities to peer deeper and deeper into people’s lives. I sometimes serve as an expert witness in terrorism trials and get to see what the police have collected on suspects. What I have learned is that once the surveillance state targets someone, that person no longer retains even a sliver of genuine privacy.’
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Hegghammer sets out that surveillance and the disregard for civil liberties are just one element of a general anti-terrorist strategy – alongside techniques, resources, intelligence, and the dynamics of the state-terrorist relationship.
And it is not clear whether it is an essential element.
Had Western governments and their citizens been more mindful (or to critics, precious) about their civil liberties, would it have meant that the other elements of anti-terrorism policy would not have worked so well?
And what would it have practically meant for Western governments to have been more ‘scrupulous about preserving civil rights than many expected in the early years of the war on terrorism’ rather than less?
Most liberals will accept that the state can do all sorts of things for the purpose of anti-terrorism, as long as it has a lawful basis and is subject to democratic and judicial supervision and the principle of proportionality, and it lasts no longer than necessary.
Would such requirements really have hindered the security services in their work?
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To a certain extent Hegghammer’s argument has a flavour of ‘just so’ story – there is less terrorism now than before, and so what happened between then and now must explain why there is less terrorism.
But that said: Hegghammer’s observation that the state now has access to online information and communications data that makes it difficult-to-impossible to use electronic devices, media and payments for the purposes of organised terrorism is compelling.
However: terrorism, like other forms of human cruelty, adapts.
It may well be that we have not ascertained or imagined how the next generation of terrorists will work out how to be cruel.
But in the meantime: we will still have the surveillance state – and no state voluntary surrenders its powers.
Perhaps that was – and will continue to be – the ‘price worth paying’.
The price was a high one, all the same.
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