{"id":23096,"date":"2012-11-19T12:00:19","date_gmt":"2012-11-19T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=23096"},"modified":"2012-11-18T23:48:07","modified_gmt":"2012-11-18T23:48:07","slug":"fighting-terrorism-or-repressing-democracy-britains-system-of-mass-surveillance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/11\/fighting-terrorism-or-repressing-democracy-britains-system-of-mass-surveillance\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting \u2018Terrorism\u2019 or Repressing Democracy? Britain\u2019s System of Mass Surveillance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The British Government\u2019s Plans to Monitor the Entire Population\u2019s Electronic Communication<\/em><\/p>\n

The focus of critiques of authoritarianism today lies increasingly in the use by liberal governments of \u2018exceptional\u2019 powers.\u00a0 These are powers in which an imminent threat to national security is judged to be of such importance as to warrant the restriction of liberties and other socially repressive measures in order to protect national security.\u00a0 \u2018Terrorism\u2019 has offered a particularly salient source of justification for a level of social repression that would be intolerable in normal times.\u00a0\u00a0 A dominant line of criticism is that the use of exceptional powers to this end has gone too far.\u00a0 Critics emphasise the need to curtail such power by bringing it into line with basic human rights standards.[1]<\/em><\/p>\n

As pertinent as this critique may be, focus on the proper extent of the social repression tends to assume, Scheuerman, Herman and Peterson point out, that there is a real threat (e.g., terrorism) and that repression by an expansion of executive authority is itself an appropriate response to that threat.[2]\u00a0 A less noticed yet critical feature of governments\u2019 use of anti-terror power is the prior erosion of democratic oversight and control which has enabled repression to appear a plausible response to what is, in many respects, an as yet unspecified threat.[3]<\/em><\/p>\n

The erosion is essentially three-pronged.\u00a0 The first aspect of democratic control to have been eroded is the power to define what constitutes a threat.\u00a0 In the absence of meaningful control, governments are able, Clive Walker explains, to ascribe to whatever political violence is being encountered, attributes of novelty and extraordinary seriousness so as to justify correspondingly alarming incursions into individuals rights and democratic accountability.[4]<\/em><\/p>\n

Governments are able to do so in no small part because of the semantic fog that surrounds the core concepts of national security, threat and terrorism by which exceptional powers are usually evoked.\u00a0 Terrorism, for instance, is a concept that resists consistent definition.[5]\u00a0 Commonly understood by governments as the use or threat of use of serious violence to advance a cause, the term elides legitimate resistance to occupation and oppression with \u2018senseless destruction\u2019.\u00a0 Furthermore, by relegating all terrorists to the criminal sphere, the term delegitimises any political content that acts regarded by authorities as terrorist may have.\u00a0 This helps to obscure from the public the reasons why people resort to such acts.[6]\u00a0 It also enables the police character of the proper response to be presumed.<\/em><\/p>\n

This brings us to the second aspect of democratic control to have been eroded, namely, the power to determine proper responses to threats.\u00a0 Responses are deemed automatically to require a dramatic expansion in the scope of executive authority, a requirement that is heightened the more an atmosphere of fear can be created such as by declaring a \u2018war on terror\u2019.[7] \u00a0This response is alarming, Walker suggests, because governments may assume repressive powers unimaginable outwith dictatorial states.\u00a0 In Britain, for example, these now include powers to curtail<\/a> critical liberties (e.g., speech, movement, assembly, protest, work, privacy), suspend habeas corpus and use armed forces to deal with domestic disturbances \u2013 all on the basis of \u2018threats\u2019 which the government assumes the power to define.[8]<\/em><\/p>\n

The third aspect of the erosion concerns the capacity to review the use of both powers.\u00a0 Incursions into democratic accountability include, Walker continues, growing immunity from parliamentary and judicial control in the exercise of these powers.[9]\u00a0 It goes without saying, Girvan LJ points out, that the \u201cdangers to the integrity of society and of citizens\u2019 lives\u201d of undermining accountability in the use of exceptional powers were \u201camply demonstrated in the Fascist and totalitarian regimes of Europe\u201d.[10]<\/em><\/p>\n

In short, the reported terrorism crisis is also part of an ongoing actual crisis of democracy.<\/em><\/p>\n

A case in point is the British government\u2019s plans to monitor the entire population\u2019s electronic communication<\/strong> on grounds that this is \u2018necessary to fight serious crime and terrorism\u2019.[11]\u00a0 Criticism of the plans is various and detailed, and has centred on the invasion of privacy.[12]\u00a0 Many regard plans for intensified surveillance as a \u2018snooper\u2019s charter<\/a>\u2019. \u00a0This is because they mandate a shift from monitoring communications on the basis of individual suspicion to the indiscriminate stockpiling of individual data \u2013 essentially blanket surveillance of the population \u2013 for a future unspecified purpose.<\/p>\n

As pertinent as the objection may be, limiting criticism to the extent of the government\u2019s response leaves unquestioned the plausibility of the alleged threat and the merits of expanding executive power as a proper response to that threat.\u00a0 It would be useful to broaden criticism to take account of how the threat has been defined, and the proper response to it determined.\u00a0 To do so, it must look deeper into the extent to which democratic control has been eroded, as this is an obstacle to any viable opposition to mass surveillance and related socially repressive measures. \u00a0Doing so would enable criticism to cast into sharp relief some of the most pressing questions concerning democracy and liberty in our times.<\/p>\n

As part of a more precise characterisation of the erosion of democratic control, it would also be useful to see outlined some legally relevant aspects of this process, particularly given that legal challenge is likely if the government\u2019s surveillance plans become law.\u00a0 Three aspects stand out.\u00a0 They follow from the fact that because mass surveillance would breach of peoples\u2019 right to privacy guaranteed inter alia under the European Convention on Human Rights, the onus will be on the government to demonstrate that this breach is nonetheless justifiable<\/a>.\u00a0 To do so, the government must show that mass surveillance is (a) necessary in a democratic society for (b) the achievement of a legitimate end and (c) is proportionate to that end.\u00a0 The more any legal challenge takes account of the wider decline of democratic control, the less likely it is that the government should be able to show, in each of these three respects, that mass surveillance is justified.<\/p>\n

Legitimate end?<\/strong><\/p>\n

An example of a significant end that could justify breaching the right to privacy may be reasons of national security.\u00a0 Since fighting terrorism is such a reason, mass surveillance could, according to official views in Britain and the EU, be justified as a way of preventing acts or threats intended to influence the government or intimidate the public which, for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause, are violent, damaging or disrupting and which include those that seriously destabilise the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country.[13]<\/p>\n

Two difficulties undermine the idea that \u2018fighting terrorism\u2019 might serve as a legitimate end by which to justify mass surveillance.<\/p>\n

Repressing democracy<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first difficulty is a growing tendency to expand the use of anti-terror powers from suspects to the public, especially certain non-violent social movements.[14]\u00a0 This problem is made possible by the breadth of official definitions of terrorism: the very purpose of many social movements is to \u2018influence governments\u2019 by means such as protest which is by definition \u2018disruptive\u2019.\u00a0 Particularly targeted<\/a> are movements from environmental to social movements such as Occupy which are unified by resistance to the kind of \u2018destabilisation of basic political, constitutional, economic and social structures\u2019 that, it is claimed, follows from re-organisation of society around the market, in particular, financial markets.[15]\u00a0 The problem for government lies in showing how repressing popular democratic expression in this way \u2013 a litmus test for the democratic constitutional state, according to J\u00fcrgen Habermas[16] \u2013 could possibly be a legitimate end in a democratic society.\u00a0 This problem turns not only on a definition of terrorism that is sufficiently broad to permit authorities to generalise suspicion, criminalise certain behaviour and sanction surveillance and preventative detention.\u00a0 The problem also turns, more fundamentally, as is explained below, on a basic incoherence in the government\u2019s view of democracy itself.<\/p>\n

Involvement in terrorism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even if it can be somehow shown that repressing democratic expression is legitimate in a democracy, a second difficulty lies in the government\u2019s involvement in terrorism, as defined.\u00a0 The definition preferred by government is sufficiently broad to capture two forms of terrorism with which it has involvement.\u00a0 For the sake of simplicity, these may be regarded, following Edward Herman, as \u2018retail\u2019 and \u2018wholesale\u2019 forms.[17]<\/p>\n

\u2018Retail terrorism\u2019 refers to individuals and small groups which are typically responsible for several hundred to several thousand casualties per year worldwide.[18]\u00a0 Recent analysis reveals involvement by successive British governments in financing, the training of, and logistical support and component supply for many groups.[19] \u00a0Analysis suggests that involvement is motivated chiefly by ideological causes (a) of maintaining influence in world affairs, which helps explain why involvement centres on resource-rich and strategically useful countries, and (b) of protecting that influence from threats, which helps explain why support is given to groups in those countries unified by a common hostility to popular democracy, socialism and national secularism.[20]<\/p>\n

\u2018Wholesale terrorism\u2019 refers to the activities of major institutions capable of far greater harm such as states which, Mark Curtis explains, are \u201cresponsible for far more deaths in many more countries than [retail] terrorism\u201d.[21]\u00a0 Government involvement in wholesale terrorism is widespread.[22]\u00a0 Two areas stand out.\u00a0 The first is repressive geo-strategic foreign policy.\u00a0 Motivated by similar ideological aims of maintaining influence and of enabling concentrations of private power to shape foreign economic affairs, repressive foreign policy from Malaya, Kenya and Iran to more recent examples such as Chechnya and Iraq has ranged from illegal sanctions and covert operations to active support for other government\u2019s violence.[23]\u00a0 Since World War II, it is possible to attribute, Curtis continues, several million deaths to such policies.[24]\u00a0 It is also possible to attribute to them an appreciable if unsurprising escalation in the risk of (retail) terrorism \u2013 a risk heightened where local resistance is criminalised and denied restitution.[25]<\/p>\n

The second area in which the government has involvement lies in domestic policies which permit, rather than (say) criminalise, wholesale harms from private power itself.\u00a0 Permitted for similar ideological reasons, harms include (a) the \u2018destabilisation of the basic structures\u2019 of entire countries by financial institutions such as by means of induced crises forcing \u2018austerity\u2019 onto sovereign nations; (b) the \u2018intimidation\u2019 of governments by multinational corporations in order to drive political change to provide suitable investment climates by means of capital flight, investment strike and attacks on currencies; and (c) various kinds of direct \u2018violence and damage\u2019 to people, property and planet.[26]<\/p>\n

Taken together, the problem the government would face is to justify mass surveillance as means of fighting terrorism in light of mounting evidence that certain forms are permitted, supported, created and perpetrated.<\/p>\n

Proportionate?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even if a legitimate end can be established, doubts arise about whether surveillance is proportionate to that end.<\/p>\n

A selective response?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is unclear why, when appeasement characterises government policy to (much) wholesale terrorism in ways indicated above, the comparatively limited effects of retail terrorism \u2013 in the range of up to several thousand casualties per annum worldwide \u2013 should warrant such pervasive and repressive domestic measures as mass surveillance.<\/p>\n

A crude comparison with resources devoted to public survival elsewhere may be instructive.\u00a0 The current expenditure on counter-terrorism measures of some \u00a33 billion per annum[27] and an annualised average death rate in Britain attributed to terrorism of five \u2013 a number that compares with those killed by wasp and bee stings and is one-sixth of the number of people who drown in the bath each year, \u2013 amounts roughly to \u00a360 million per fatality.[28]\u00a0 In contrast, at \u00a318.2 billion government spending on cardiovascular disease healthcare and research, which kills some 250,000 people annually, works out roughly at \u00a37-10,000 per fatality.[29]\u00a0 Similar figures are found for annual deaths from cancer (150,000), air pollution (39,000; much of it from traffic) and traffic accidents (3,000).[30]\u00a0 Although the comparison is crude, it follows at least that even a small increase in efforts to combat these and other serious non-terrorist threats would, Thomas Pogge explains, do much more to protect public survival, at lower cost, than would escalating a fight against an unspecified, perhaps unspecifiable, threat.[31]<\/p>\n

Advancing the goals of terrorism?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A further problem lies in ways in which mass surveillance advances the apparent aims of certain retail terrorists.\u00a0 These aims, as former Home Office secretary, Charles Clarke declared<\/a> to the European Parliament, are to destroy \u201cmany hard-fought rights [such] as the right to privacy [and] the right to free speech\u201d.\u00a0 Mass surveillance undermines these rights \u2013 and thus appears disproportionate \u2013 because it obliterates any distinction between law-abiding and law-breaking citizens: every citizen is to be treated like a potential criminal to be monitored without warrant or reason.<\/p>\n

The suspicion of disproportionality deepens in light of two wider, disturbing incursions into individual rights and democratic accountability with which surveillance plans are linked.\u00a0 The first concerns wider surveillance measures developed by the EU to create a database on all European citizens.[32]\u00a0 The aim, as an EU Council Presidency paper makes plain, is to create a detailed digital record\u2026[of] every object the individual uses, every transaction they make and almost everywhere they go.[33]<\/p>\n

The second incursion follows from the ever-increasing scope of executive power.\u00a0 Incursions, to expand upon some already indicated, follow from the executive\u2019s<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 power to curtail critical liberties, suspend habeas corpus and use armed forces to deal with domestic disturbances;<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 growing immunity from parliamentary and judicial control in the exercise of these powers; and<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 power, reminiscent of the German Enabling Act 1933<\/a>, to amend and repeal<\/a> almost any legislation, subject to vague and entirely subjective restraints, by decree and without recourse to Parliament \u2013 such as might render legal the government\u2019s involvement with the US in abduction, torture and assassination.[34]<\/p>\n

Such is the extent of these incursions into \u2018hard-fought\u2019 individual rights and democratic accountability that former MI5 chief, Stella Rimington, concedes that, unbeknown to much of the public, Britain appears to have been turned into a police state.[35]\u00a0 If one adds to these incursions the proposed surveillance, then it is difficult to escape the conclusion, Curtis continues<\/a>, that the greater threat to the public, to its liberty and to what remains of democracy lies in \u201cthe policies of our own government\u201d. \u00a0This outcome appears a qualified victory for certain terrorists.\u00a0 For they have, Jean Baudrillard notes, induced in the West a climate of fear and obsession with security, which is itself a veiled form of permanent terror.[36]<\/p>\n

A proportionate response<\/strong><\/p>\n

This idea of \u2018fighting terrorism\u2019 by means which actually advance its alleged aims should be contrasted with more mature responses such as that of Norway.\u00a0 Barely five days after Anders Breivik murdered 77 people, the Norwegian prime minister responded not by cracking down on civil liberties but by a pledge not to allow a fanatic to succeed in eroding Norway\u2019s democracy:<\/p>\n

the Norwegian response to violence is more democracy, more openness and greater political participation.[37]<\/p>\n

Necessary in a democratic society?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even if mass surveillance might be proportionate to a legitimate end, it must also be shown to be necessary in a democratic society.\u00a0 Problems here are both specific and general in nature.<\/p>\n

Specific difficulties<\/strong><\/p>\n

While mass surveillance may well help fight serious crime and terrorism, this does not mean that it is necessary to that end.\u00a0 It merely means that it is expedient to that end. \u00a0To claim that mass surveillance is necessary implies that these problems could not be resolved unless it were imposed.\u00a0 This assumes that the police would be ineffective without it.\u00a0 The assumption is difficult to sustain for two reasons.\u00a0 First, mass surveillance is proposed at time when killings and related serious crime are fewer than at any time in almost thirty years[38] and when, according to the Home Office, \u201ccounter-terrorism work has made significant progress over the last ten years\u201d to such an extent that \u201cal Qa\u2019ida\u201d, for instance \u201cis weaker than at any time since 9\/11\u201d.[39]\u00a0 Second, it is already quite possible with proper permission and oversight to monitor people suspected of terrorism and serious crimes.\u00a0 Consequently, the claim to be unable to deal with serious crime and terrorism except by removing what remains of personal privacy seems at best an admission of incompetence.<\/p>\n

In any case, the government\u2019s involvement in terrorism undermines the argument for necessity.\u00a0 It is actively preventing the achievement of the declared legitimate end (fighting terrorism) for which surveillance is supposedly necessary means. \u00a0If the government were at all serious about fighting terrorism then it should, as Chomsky remarks<\/a>, first stop participating in it.<\/p>\n

General difficulties<\/strong><\/p>\n

Proving the necessity of mass surveillance requires, Keith Ewing explains, a \u201ctheory of democracy by which to determine whether a restriction on a [European] Convention [on Human Rights] right can be justified\u201d.[40]\u00a0 A problem lies in the fact that, as Girvan LJ suggests, mass surveillance, while acceptable with totalitarian regimes, is antithetical to a democratic society.\u00a0 It is antithetical because, as the House of Lords Constitution Committee explains, since<\/p>\n

privacy is an essential pre-requisite to the exercise of individual freedom, its erosion weakens the\u00a0constitutional foundations\u00a0on which democracy\u2026 ha[s] traditionally been based.[41]<\/p>\n

The difficulty of formulating a theory of democracy by which the breach of privacy may be justified deepens in light of incoherence in the government\u2019s view of democracy. \u00a0The incoherence may be observed in the argument for exceptional powers in general and for mass surveillance in particular.\u00a0 It is an argument, Tony Bunyan notes, that assumes that \u201ceveryone accepts that the \u2018threats\u2019\u201d which the government proclaims are real and that addressing them requires incursions into civil liberty and democratic accountability.[42]\u00a0 It follows that if national security requires, Bunyan continues, that the state<\/p>\n

sets the limits, boundaries and sanctions of all peoples\u2019 actions [including peoples\u2019 telecommunication, then] there can be no individual freedom, except that sanctioned by the state.[43]<\/p>\n

This is to say that when the state assumes exclusive power to define the nature of a threat, and the appropriate means to deal with that threat, it may also define the extent of individual liberty.\u00a0 Individual freedom becomes at most little more than a discretionary grant subject to executive will; at worst, national \u2018security\u2019 becomes code for social repression.<\/p>\n

In a framework in which the state determines which liberties to grant to which individuals, political liberty is effectively possessed by the state.\u00a0 The source of sovereignty resides in the state, much as it did for Hobbes, rather than in the individual.\u00a0 As Karma Nabulsi explains, this kind of \u2018social contract\u2019 affirms a theory of state, but it is far from a democratic one.[44]\u00a0 Elementary to a nominally democratic social contract (or similar democratic model) such as those expressed by the likes of J.S. Mill, Kant and Rousseau is the view that protection of citizens\u2019 liberty, particularly political liberty, is a supreme good.\u00a0 In this contract, the sovereign citizen does not surrender sovereignty, but instead delegates specific powers and functions to the state.\u00a0 Because political sovereignty is not transferred to the state, both civil rights and political liberties are inalienable.\u00a0 These include the right to define the public good and threats to it, the right to deliberate and determine laws including those which address threats, and the right to adequately review both.<\/p>\n

Genuine democratic governance would by definition structure political power toward the public good.\u00a0 It would do so in part by encouraging, rather than excluding, considered public participation in the definition and determination of the public good.\u00a0 An essential preliminary to this would be to prevent those who benefit from social repression from exerting undue influence on the exercise of that power.\u00a0 A particular priority would therefore be to dismantle the growing union<\/a> of state and private power \u2013 some harmful consequences of which have been observed (see \u2018legitimate end\u2019).\u00a0 In their place would appear viable and legitimate ways and means of addressing violence, of which Norway\u2019s response<\/a> appears one example.[45]\u00a0 In short, such governance would mean that the reported crisis of terrorism would no longer automatically mean an actual crisis of democracy.<\/p>\n

References:<\/strong><\/p>\n

[1] HRW. 2011. \u2018UK \u2013 proposed counterterrorism reforms fall short: authorities should rely on criminal prosecution to combat terrorism<\/a>\u2019, Human Rights Watch, 11 February; see also Protection of Freedoms Bill 2011-12<\/a>, Liberty.<\/p>\n

[2] Scheuerman, W. 2002. \u2018Rethinking crisis government<\/a>\u2019, Constellations, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 492-505; Herman, E. and D. Peterson. 2008. \u2018There is no \u2018war on terror\u2019<\/a>\u2019, ZNet, 17 January.<\/p>\n

[3] For general comment, see, for example, Kolin, A. 2011.\u00a0State Power and Democracy. London: Palgrave Macmillan; European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights, 2005. \u2018Suspect Communities: The Real \u201cWar on Terror\u201d in Europe\u2019<\/a> (Proceedings of the Conference), International Conference held at London Metropolitan University, 21 May; Gearty, C. 1997. The Future of Terrorism. London: Phoenix; Lobel, J. 1989. \u2018Emergency power and the decline of liberalism\u2019. Yale Law Journal, vol. 98, no. 7, pp. 1385-1433.<\/p>\n

[4] Walker, C. 2009. \u2018Book review: Executive measures, terrorism and national security: have the rules of the game changed? by David Bonner\u2019, European Public Law, vol. 15, pp. 662-665.<\/p>\n

[5] Meisels, T. 2009. \u2018Defining terrorism \u2013 a typology\u2019. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 331-51; see also Schechter, D. 2012. \u2018When is a terrorist no longer a terrorist?<\/a>\u2019 Global Research, 24 September.<\/p>\n

[6] Milne, S. 2001. \u2018Terror and tyranny: What powerful states call terrorism may be an inevitable response to injustice<\/a>\u2019, The Guardian, 25 October.<\/p>\n

[7] See, for example, Curtis, A. 2004. The Power of Nightmares: the Rise of the Politics of Fear<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[8] See, for example, Walker, C. 2011. Terrorism and the Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Head, M. 2010. \u2018Calling out the troops and the Civil Contingencies Act: some questions of concern<\/a>\u2019. Public Law, April, pp. 340-61; Rayner, J. 2012. \u2018Secret courts \u2018will conceal UK complicity in torture\u2019<\/a>\u2019, The Law Society Gazette, 12 September.\u00a0 See also generally, the Convention of Modern Liberty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[9] Walker, Terrorism and the Law, and \u2018Book Review\u2019 (above).<\/p>\n

[10] Girvan LJ, R A\u2019s Application<\/a> [2010] NIQB 99 at \u00a71.<\/p>\n

[11] On the draft Communications Data Bill, see, for example, Editorial, 2012. \u2018After the Queen\u2019s speech: who will speak for liberty now? A blanket licence for electronic monitoring could slowly strangle private life<\/a>\u2019, The Guardian, 11 May.\u00a0 On grounds for the Bill, see, for example, \u2018Theresa May sets out plans to monitor internet use in the UK\u2019<\/a>, BBC News online, 14 June 2012.<\/p>\n

[12] See, for example, Liberty, 2012. \u2018Liberty\u2019s Submission to the Joint Committee on the Draft Communications Data Bill<\/a>\u2019, August; Bernal, P. 2012. \u2018The draft Communications Bill and the ECHR\u2019 UK Const. L. Blog, 11 July (available at http:\/\/ukconstitutionallaw.org<\/a>) and generally, the Surveillance Studies Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[13] See, for example, the European Union Council Framework Decision of 13 June 2002 on combating terrorism<\/a> (2002\/475\/JHA) and the UK Terrorism Act 2000<\/a> (as amended).<\/p>\n

[14] Evans, R. and P. Lewis. 2009. \u2018Civil servants attacked for using anti-terror laws to spy on public<\/a>\u2019,\u00a0 The Guardian, 28 February; Anon. 2002. \u2018Anarchists to be targeted as \u2018terrorists\u2019 alongside Al Qaeda<\/a>\u2019, Statewatch, 25 February.<\/p>\n

[15] On the use of emergency power against social movements, see, for example, Cunningham, D. 2007. \u2018Surveillance and social movements: Lenses on the repression-mobilization nexus\u2019. Contemporary Sociology,<\/em> vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 120-125; Welsh, I. 2007. \u2018In defence of civilisation: terrorism and environmental politics in the 21st<\/sup> Century\u2019. Environmental Politics, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 356-75; Hyland, J. 2007. \u2018Britain: Police use anti-terror powers against environmental protest<\/a>\u2019. World Socialist Web Site, 16 August; Chomsky, N. 2007. \u2018Democracy promotion at home\u2019 in Failed States. London: Penguin; Bunyan, T. 2002. The war on freedom and democracy: an analysis of the effects on civil liberties and democratic culture in the EU<\/a>, Statewatch.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0For a classic statement on the re-organisation of society around markets, see Polanyi, K. 2001 [1944]. The Great Transformation: Political and Economic Origins of Our Time<\/a>. Boston: Beacon Press; see also, for example, Wolin, S. 2008. Democracy Inc.: Managed Democracy and the Spectre of Inverted Totalitarianism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n

[16] Habermas, J. 1985. \u2018Civil disobedience: Litmus test for a democratic constitutional state<\/a>\u2019. Berkeley Journal of Sociology, vol. 30, pp. 95-116.<\/p>\n

[17] Herman, E. 1996. \u2018Terrorism: the struggle against closure<\/a>\u2019. Martin, B (ed.) Confronting the Experts. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, pp. 77-97.<\/p>\n

[18] Smyth, M. et al. 2008. \u2018Critical terrorism studies \u2013 an introduction<\/a>\u2019. Critical Studies on Terrorism, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1-4; see also Mueller, J. and M. Stewart. 2012. \u2018The terrorism delusion: America\u2019s overwrought response to September 11<\/a>\u2019. International Security, vol., 37, no. 1, pp. 81-110.<\/p>\n

[19] Curtis, M. 2012. Secret Affairs: Britain\u2019s Collusion with Radical Islam<\/a> (2nd<\/sup> ed.). London: Profile Books.\u00a0 Support includes indirect supply, such as coalition forces in Iraq allowing systematic looting<\/a> of Iraq\u2019s nuclear facilities previously monitored by the IAEA (Penketh, A. 2004. \u2018Nuclear material has \u2018gone missing\u2019 since war<\/a>\u2019. The Independent, 13 October).\u00a0 See also Anderson, P. 2004. \u2018Governance by universal justice or serial warfare?<\/a>\u2019 The International Journal of Human Rights, vol. 7,\u00a0no. 4,\u00a0 pp. 143-154.<\/p>\n

[20] Curtis, M. 2010. \u2018Interview: Colluding with extremists<\/a>\u2019. New Left Project, 8 March.<\/p>\n

[21] Curtis, M. 2004. Unpeople: Britain\u2019s Secret Human Rights Abuses. London: Vintage; Curtis, M.\u00a0 2003. Web of Deceit: Britain\u2019s Real Role in the World, London: Vintage; Chomsky, N. 2002. \u2018Who are the global terrorists?<\/a>\u2019 in Booth, K. and T. Dunne (eds.) Worlds in Collision: Terror and the Future of Global Order. London: Palgrave Macmillan; Chomsky, N.\u00a0 2000. Rogue States: the Rule of Force in World Affairs. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.<\/p>\n

[22] Curtis, Secret Affairs<\/a>; Stohl, M. and G. Lopez (eds.) 1984.\u00a0The State as Terrorist: The Dynamics of Governmental Violence and Repression.\u00a0Westport, CT: Greenwood; Herman, E. 1982. The Real Terror Network: Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.<\/p>\n

[23] MediaLens, 2007. \u2018The media ignore credible poll revealing 1.2 million violent deaths in Iraq<\/a>\u2019. MediaLens, 18 September; Curtis, M., 2003. \u2018British state terror<\/a>\u2019. Red Pepper, July; Chomksy, N. 2003. \u2018Wars of terror<\/a>\u2019. New Political Science, March; Mueller, J. and K. Mueller, 1999. \u2018Sanctions of mass destruction<\/a>\u2019. Foreign Affairs, May\/June.<\/p>\n

[24] Curtis, Unpeople<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[25] On policies escalating the risk of (retail) terrorism, see, for example, Anon., 2010. \u2018Iraq inquiry: ex-MI5 boss says war raised terror threat<\/a>\u2019. BBC News Online, 28 July.\u00a0 See also Silke, A. 2005. \u2018Fire of Iolaus. The role of state countermeasures in causing terrorism and what needs to be done\u2019 in T. Bj\u00f8rgo (ed.) Root causes of terrorism. Myths, reality and ways forward. London: Routledge.\u00a0 Among examples of the continued denial of restitution, see, for example, Dowell, K. 2012. \u2018Matrix and Doughty Street win latest victory for Mau Mau Kenyans<\/a>\u2019. The Lawyer, 5 October.<\/p>\n

[26] For accounts of various forms of intimidation, destabilisation and harm from private power, see, for example, Chernomas, R. and I. Hudson, 2008. Social Murder: and other Shortcomings of Conservative Economics. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Arbeiter Ring; Klein, N., 2007. The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism<\/a>. London: Penguin; Perkins, J. 2005. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. London: Ebury Press. Palast, G. 2001. \u2018The globalizer who came in from the cold<\/a>\u2019, 10 October; McMurtry, J. 2002. Value Wars: the Global Market versus the Life Economy. London: Verso;\u00a0 Punch, M., 2000. \u2018Suite violence: when managers murder and corporations kill\u2019. Crime, Law & Social Change, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 243-80; Gill, S., 1995. \u2018Globalisation, market civilisation and disciplinary neoliberalism<\/a>\u2019. Millennium \u2013 Journal of International Studies, vol. 24, pp. 339-423.\u00a0 See also \u2018Discover the dark side of investment<\/a>\u2019, Transnational Institute (2012).<\/p>\n

[27] Anon. 2009. \u2018Anti-terror spending to rise \u00a31bn<\/a>\u2019. BBC News Online, 9 October.<\/p>\n

[28] Beckford, M. 2012. \u2018Bee stings killed as many in UK as terrorists, says watchdog<\/a>\u2019. Daily Telegraph, 28 June; see also see also Mueller and Stewart, 2012. \u2018The Terrorism Delusion<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

[29] On\u00a0 government healthcare spending, see, for example, Luengo-Fern\u00e1ndez, R. et al., 2006. \u2018Cost of cardiovascular diseases in the United Kingdom<\/a>\u2019. Heart, vol. 92, no. 10, pp. 1384\u20131389.\u00a0 On government research spending, see, for example, Luengo-Fern\u00e1ndez, R. et al., 2012. \u2018UK research expenditure on dementia, heart disease, stroke and cancer: are levels of spending related to disease burden?<\/a>\u2019 European Journal of Neurology, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 149-54.<\/p>\n

[30] See, for example, Pogge, T. 2008. \u2018Making war on terrorists \u2013 reflections on harming the innocent\u2019. Journal of Political Philosophy, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 1-25; Monbiot, G. 2005. \u2018Will they never stand up to carmakers and save our lungs?<\/a>\u2019. The Guardian, 1 November.<\/p>\n

[31] Pogge, \u2018Making war on terrorists\u2019.\u00a0 See also Frank, E. 2005. \u2018Funding the public health response to terrorism<\/a>\u2019. British Medical Journal, vol. 331 (7516), pp. 526-7.<\/p>\n

[32] Bunyan, T. 2009. \u2018The surveillance society is an EU-wide issue: The EU\u2019s new five-year plan for justice and home affairs will export the UK\u2019s database state to the rest of the EU\u2019<\/a>. The Guardian, 28 May.<\/p>\n

[33] Cited in Bunyan, T. 2008. \u2018The Shape of Things to Come<\/a>\u2019. Statewatch (September), pp. 1, 55. See also generally Statewatch Observatory on Surveillance in Europe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[34] Rayner, \u2018Secret courts \u2018will conceal UK complicity in torture\u2019<\/a>\u2019, Law Society Gazette.\u00a0 See also generally, Hosenball, M. 2011. \u2018Secret panel can put Americans on \u2018kill list\u2019<\/a>\u2019. Reuters, 5 October; Greenwald, G. 2012. \u2018Obama moves to make war on terror permanent<\/a>\u2019. The Guardian, 24 October; and the Convention of Modern Liberty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[35] Booth, J. 2009. \u2018Ex-spy chief Dame Stella Rimington says ministers have turned UK into police state\u2019.\u00a0The Times, 17 February.<\/p>\n

[36] Baudrillard, J. 2002. The Spirit of Terrorism and Requiem for the Twin Towers. London: Verso; see also the notion of \u2018security theatre<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

[37] Pidd, H. and J. Meikle. 2011. \u2018Norway will not be intimidated by terror attacks, vows prime minister: Jens Stoltenberg condemned Anders Behring Breivik\u2019s brutal assault and said country \u2018would stand firm in defending values\u2019<\/a>\u2019. The Guardian, 27 July.<\/p>\n

[38] Office for National Statistics. 2012. Crime in England and Wales, Quarterly First Release to March 2012<\/a>. UK Government, 19 July.<\/p>\n

[39] Home Office. \u2018CONTEST: Counter-terrorism Strategy<\/a>\u2019. UK Government (accessed 12 November 2012).<\/p>\n

[40] Ewing, K. 2000. \u2018The politics of the British constitution\u2019 Public Law (Autumn), p. 433.<\/p>\n

[41] House of Lords Constitution Committee. 2009. Surveillance: Citizens and the State<\/a>, UK Parliament, \u00a714.<\/p>\n

[42] Bunyan, \u2018The Shape of Things to Come<\/a>, p. 36-7.<\/p>\n

[43] Bunyan, \u2018The Shape of Things to Come<\/a>, p. 7.\u00a0 See also De Graaf, B. and B. de Graaf. 2010.\u00a0 \u2018Bringing politics back in: the introduction of the \u2018performative power\u2019 of counterterrorism<\/a>\u2019.\u00a0 Critical Terrorism Studies, vol. 3, no. 2, p. 264.<\/p>\n

[44] Nabulsi, K., 2006. . \u2018Don\u2019t sign up to this upside down Hobbesian contract: The government insists it can only protect us if we surrender freedoms, but such a grim pact has no place in a democracy<\/a>\u2019. The Guardian, 22 March.<\/p>\n

[45] Martin, B. 2006. \u2018Instead of Repression<\/a>\u2019. Social Alternatives, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 62-66.\u00a0 See also, for example, Building Bridges for Peace<\/a>.<\/p>\n

_________________________<\/p>\n

\u00a0Dr Paul Anderson<\/em> is a philosopher, lawyer and ecologist with interests in contemporary public and environmental concerns.\u00a0 His book, <\/em>Critical Thought for Turbulent Times: Reforming Law and Economy for a Sustainable Earth (Routledge), is forthcoming. \u00a0Details about his research, advocacy and consultancy are available at www.chapter5.org.uk.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 globalresearch.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The focus of critiques of authoritarianism today lies increasingly in the use by liberal governments of \u2018exceptional\u2019 powers. These are powers in which an imminent threat to national security is judged to be of such importance as to warrant the restriction of liberties and other socially repressive measures in order to protect national security. \u2018Terrorism\u2019 has offered a particularly salient source of justification for a level of social repression that would be intolerable in normal times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}