La lucha del marxismo contra el fascismo Los debates en la posguerra.

Just as was the case with privacy, the right to know has been challenged on an unmatched level following rapid developments in technology. These centers include governments,

corporation, and other influential bodies. With the development of technology, however, a much broader and more powerful set of computer-based tools has been created for tracing and sorting individuals and regulating their behavior, including data-mining tools, biometrics, facial

recognition, intelligent highways, cookies, etc.217 Additionally, images of 9/11 put security back on the political agenda with a vengeance and a new acceleration and he government and

intelligence community knew it would trigger immediate political action. This legislative activism was fuelled by the assumption that the intelligence and law enforcement agencies were unable to connect the dots to prevent the terrorist attacks.218 Additionally, it was widely held that the existing legal framework contained serious deficiencies with respect to security. With the notion that sweeping changes needed to be made to combat the perceive threat of terrorism to national security, technology became the key to facilitating such changes.

The main issue with respect to technology that is affecting the people’s right to know concerns the immense privatization of the internet over the past decade. Once hailed as a place where users could escape the hierarchical control of government, the internet is now subject to a movement wherein public “land” is being privatized and citizens’ creative labor is appropriated to profit the corporations that administer these places.219 The privatizing is being done by wealthy corporations, resulting in asymmetries between the corporations and the individual users. Essentially the corporations are granted with significant surveillance powers while their own actions are becoming increasingly opaque. Thus, it becomes difficult to hold these

corporations accountable for their actions, contradicting one of the fundamental principles of the open society. Online corporations can track users’ actions and browsing patterns using cookies,

even monitoring idle surfers who do purchase nothing. This data is then aggregated and compiled into profiles using sophisticated data-basing technologies.220 The issue is that the people being monitored and profiled are unaware of who and what is tracking their activities.

Furthermore, behavior and lives online are becoming increasingly connected to their offline identities, and users are cautioned to censor their behaviors and the information they reveal online. An example of such an instance is the use of Arab-Americans in the CIA, State Department, etc. working as translators, informants or agents. Certainly Arab-Americans have value to U.S. security interests; however, there is not widespread agreement on how to treat such individuals. Those who err on the side of civil rights (ACLU-types for example) would argue to leave them alone. Treat them as you would treat any other individuals working in government- run a background check and that is it. Those more concerned with national security are

diametrically opposed to such arguments. Such individuals would propose more extensive surveillance and screening of Arab-Americans. While this obviously has elements of privacy, the notion that people do not have right to know who is monitoring them contradicts principles of openness. Many of the people being monitored are not terrorists but merely law-abiding U.S. citizens subjected to surveillance practices that would have never been accepted had 9/11 not shaken the political, social, and economic climate of the U.S. An open democratic society should represent a symmetrical relationship between the people and the government- the rulers provide the public with access to their deliberations and the policies they form. However, corporate rule is asymmetrical- decisions and actions remain opaque even as users are rendered increasingly transparent.

Since the early years of the Bush administration due largely due to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, laws that permit mass warrantless spying on Americans electronic communications

without adequate judicial oversight have been passed in an environment fuelled by perceived imminent threats.221 One of the consequences of such perceptions is that the people’s right to know has been challenged by a source that is supposed to act as a safeguard: the media. A few companies control all of cable and network TV (News Corp, GE, Viacom, Time Warner, and Disney) and each has lobbies in Congress and is thus prompted to hide news that strains their relationship with the government. For example, even the New York Times was relegated to quoting government spokespersons in making the case for the Bush Administration to go to war in Iraq.222 While the New York Times has since apologized for such actions, examples like this challenge the right to know at a fundamental level as a vigilant media is needed to keep the people informed. However, failures such as these give the people no reason to assume that the media will act as this safeguard in the future. The degree to which the mass media are

independent of government actually provides a useful index for gauging just how controlled or autonomous a culture really is.223 The less people know, the easier they are to manipulate and control; the more informed the public is, the more capable they are of making rational decisions. In dictatorships (closed societies) where civil liberties are nonexistent, the media are

mouthpieces of government. Thus it can be argued that the U.S. may appear to be free and open; however, this may be more a matter of degree rather than kind.224

Corporate media consolidation has also played a role in the downsizing of independent, investigative-reporting divisions of the giant media corporations. The “single minded drive to reduce costs and increase profits has lead to reliance on government spokespersons as sources of news about government activities in lieu of more costly, independent, investigative reporting”.225 The issue here is that these government spokespersons cannot be relied upon to be objective (politicization). When supposed experts are being interviewed about a specific issue, it is likely

that they will be crusaders of the current administration serving only to manipulate public perception. Statistics show that 40 percent of people receive most of their national and international news from the internet as of December 2008.226 Unfortunately, Americans were able to recognize that they have been caught n a web of deception promulgated by the

government. However, those who did realize this were kept informed largely through news sources on the net, including alternative media and news from foreign websites.227 Thus, the American media has not been doing its job of acting as a safeguard and keeping the public informed about government activities.

It is well-known that authorities tend to err on the side of more secrecy in times in times of insecurity, wars, terrorism, etc. The case of 9/11 and the subsequent war in the Middle-East are no different. The US, along with several other countries, has passed legislation intended to tighten security, to give police and intelligence services greater powers, and to permit faster political responses to terrorist attacks.228 It is no secret that recent legislation providing wide latitude to the FBI, CIA, and other government entities has resulted in the profiling of a along Arab lines and the unlawful detention of several thousand “suspects”.

The anxious American public is willing to put up with many more intrusions, interceptions, delays, and questions than was the case before- mainly because of the media polarizations painting a picture that we can either have security or liberty, but not both. However, this is a false dilemma: liberty and security can be reconciled and the open society need not be in jeopardy. With respect to security concerns, what needs to be done is to provide access to knowledge that can be used efficiently, hiding information from people is not the answer. Searchable databases and international communications interceptions were fully operational on September 10.229 However, they were present to no avail. While internal

surveillance and the use of new technologies will likely increase in the immediate future, it has not been demonstrated that if the intended goal is achieved (to protect national security and catch terrorists prior to striking) that it will not be due to other means.

This chapter was intended to demonstrate the current problems affecting the open society in America in the modern era. Technology has been a key influence along with the shocking events of 9/11 which have drastically changed government policies for the use of powerful technologies capable of challenging privacy and the right to know on levels that have never been seen in the U.S. I have not yet proposed where America stands currently as an open society and what changes are necessary to ensure openness is maintained but security is not sacrificed. I find the notion that security=less privacy to be somewhat of a false dilemma and the two values are not necessarily incompatible. In the following chapter I shall propose what changes need to be made to create a balance between openness and security in the U.S.

Conclusion

Thus far this thesis has described six essential qualities of the open society, the ascent of America to world power status, the development of secrecy within American government, and demonstrated the major challenges that affected openness prior to the Cold War as well as those that have challenged openness following the 9/11 attacks on the World trade Center and the Pentagon. It should be clear that secrecy raises fundamental questions about the nature of America’s status as an open society. To reiterate what I mean when I speak of secrecy, I am referring to not only the hiding of information by the government from the public, but also the use of tactics to secretly conduct actions that challenge the fundamental rights of American citizens. This chapter will address America’s current status as an open society and recommend means by which to enhance openness while not sacrificing the protection of American security interests.