National Security in the New World Order

Government and the Technology of Information

Andrea Monti, Raymond Wacks

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000442571
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Öffentliche Ordnung

This important new book explores contemporary concerns about the protection of national security. It examines the role, influence, and impact of Big Tech on politics, power, and individual rights. The volume considers the manner in which digital technology and its business models have shaped public policy and charts its future course.

In this vital text for legislators and policymakers, Andrea Monti and Raymond Wacks draw on several case studies to analyse the changing nature of national security and revisit the traditional idea of the sovereignty of the State. They highlight some of the limitations of the conventional understanding of public policy, national security, and the rule of law to reveal the role of digital technology as an enabler as well as discriminator in governance and social disorder. Further, the chapters in the book explore the tenuous balance between individual freedom and national security; the key role of data protection in safeguarding digital data; Big Tech's appropriation of national security policy; the debate relating to datagathering technologies and encryption; and offers an unsettling answer to the question 'what is a leak?'

A stimulating read, this key text will be of immense interest to scholars of politics, cyberculture, and national security, as well as to policy analysts, lawyers, and journalists.

1 The evolution of national security

DOI: 10.4324/9780367809775-1

The dangers of disloyalty and betrayal generate suspicion and distrust. Those who govern societies large and small naturally seek protection against the threats of social turmoil, treason, and public disorder. The means by which these forces may be contained are today encapsulated within the general notion of national security. This chapter traces this development over many centuries, attempting to elucidate the fundamental characteristics of this inevitable feature of social organisation and administration.

The Greek genesis

Being born in Sparta around the beginning of the 9th century bc was a guarantee of an arduous life. From the age of seven, assuming an individual was considered by the council of elders (the γερουσία) to be worthy of being kept alive, a male would be removed from his family to be enrolled in the ἀγωγή, the ruthless education system. Females were prescribed less harsh but severe training that included the physical and mental rigours of gymnastics, poetry, and military exercise.

That was, however, still inadequate. According to the Xenelasian Law passed by King Lycurgus, a true Spartan was forbidden to have contacts with other peoples, but only with the edge of his sword, the ξίφος. The logic behind the Xenelasian Law is well elucidated in Plutarch’s account of the Spartan king’s life:

And this was the reason why he forbade them to travel abroad, and go about acquainting themselves with foreign rules of morality, the habits of ill-educated people, and different views of government. Withal he banished from Lacedaemon all strangers who would not give a very good reason for their coming thither; not because he was afraid lest they should inform themselves of and imitate his manner of government (as Thucydides says), or learn anything to their good; but rather lest they should introduce something contrary to good manners. With foreign people, foreign words must be admitted; these novelties produce novelties in thought; and on these views and feelings whose discordant character destroys the harmony of the state. He was as careful to save his city from the infection of foreign bad habits, as men usually are to prevent the introduction of a pestilence.¹

1 Dryden 1910: 70.

The Xenelasian Law, ultimately one of the causes of the quasi-extinction of the Spartan ‘breed,’ contributed to the preservation of the system of values that kept Sparta united and strong: untouched and untouchable by the ‘infection of foreign bad habits’ and the ‘novelties in thought.’

Ethical considerations apart, the Lycurgus rule was an early acknowledgement of how important a strong allegiance to an idea was to guarantee an effective and seamless protection of the State from foreign threats and, less intuitively, from internal coups.

Athenians were not alone in choosing a different path from the Austinian ‘rules backed by sanctions’ approach to law² that corresponds to the Spartan theory of power:

2 Austin 1832. See Wacks 2021a: 79–82.

Athens also exhibited a high level of social order. Most Athenians appear to have fulfilled their public duties with remarkable regularity … Athens’ economic success would not have been possible unless Athenians could normally rely on compliance with the requirements of fair dealing and other business norms in ordinary commercial transactions. And here is the paradox: order was maintained despite relatively weak mechanisms of formal coercion.³

3 Lanni 2016: 2.

A police force, in the sense of a structured, State-controlled law-and-order enforcing organisation, did not exist, and the actual enforcement was delegated to slaves operating under the authority of a magistrate to ‘calm’ riots and arrest criminals. Statutes had limited deterrent effects because ‘Athenians juries did not enforce clearly defined statutory norms in a consistent and predictable manner.’⁴ Compliance with the law, while still a matter of self-restraint in pursuit of self-managed vengeance delegated to the ‘State,’⁵ relied heavily on socially imposed sanctions⁶ rather than being a task solely attributed to law enforcement.

4 Ibid: 3.

5 Herman 2006: 190–191.

6 Hunter 1994.

In short, both Sparta and Athens grounded their public (order) policing strategies on a set of core values which were fundamentally different and enforced in peculiar ways to achieve different certain goals: controlling power by denying openness and independence (Sparta), and delegating the peace of inhabitants to themselves rather than to an omnipotent and omniscient über entity (Athens).

Roman roots

The development of Roman rule demonstrates a somewhat peculiar perspective in the management of (what we may call) public order and national security. In contrast to the Spartan approach, Roman culture was never either exclusivist or refractory to foreign ideas—as Horatius’ iconic verse, graecia capta ferum victorem coepit,⁷ brilliantly encapsulates.

7 Horatius, Epistole, II, 1, 156.

This does not mean, of course, that there was no need to ‘protect’ Rome’s values from the infection of ‘foreign bad habits’ as the life and works of Cato the Elder revealed to historians. In fact the struggle between tradition and external influences occurred in an evolutionary manner. And, pragmatically, it led to a notion of (what now we call) public order and public security/safety that was more functional than structural considering, too, the growing expansion of Roman borders that required a more organised and effective administrative structure.

Since in the Roman era a police force did not exist as such, and policing was undertaken by different kinds of subjects, it is not correct to talk about a specific police force whose duty was to monitor, prevent and repress socially dangerous activities.⁸

8 Purpura 1985: 101.

In antiquity punishment was administered by the political ruler ‘on behalf’ of the divinity’s will, and the suppression of ‘criminal’ activity was inspired by religious creeds rather than by the law. With the coming of monarchy, the situation began to change.

In the Rome of Kings, the viatores and the lictores were those who assisted the king in his duty to preserve order in the town and to punish all conduct regarded as reproachable.⁹

9 Ibid: 102.

During the Republic, the military was forbidden to cross the Pomerium (the Urbs’ boundaries); therefore it could not secure law and order. It was the duty of various magistrates, mainly by way of the enforcement of a set of powers collectively named by scholars ‘Coercitio,’ to resolve internal disputes. But the main focus of the administration was on behaviour that might pose a danger to the establishment: from the settlement of citizen groups not subjected to public control to (real or supposed) conspiracies and heinous crimes such as arson, rape, and homicide. Other offences not considered sufficiently important to be handled by the rulers were left to the ‘private’ management of individuals.

The ubiquitous, transnational, and eternal ‘public morality’ was the object of the Iudicium Censorium issued by a special magistrate, the Censor. In this regard it is interesting to analyse the dynamics of this approach as it represents the connection between the protection of sacred principles—central to the notion of public order—and the quotidian political struggle. Originally, Censors were supposed to handle, among other things, the census, i.e. to record names of citizens and their possessions, and place them into ‘tribes’ which entitled them to vote in an election. The Censors’ obligations were not strictly regulated by the law; therefore, for instance, they might decide on their own how many people had to be included in tribe A, and how many in tribe B. Thus, de facto, they controlled the expression of political choices of the citizenry.

As a result, the Censors possessed the power to deprive individuals (but mainly those who belonged to the ruling class) of their rank and character through a special trial called animadversio censoria.¹⁰ If convicted of violating the boni mores (Roman traditions) or the rules of the town, he would be marked by the ignominia, a punishment that essentially meant the forfeiture of the franchise or being relegated to a less powerful tribe.

10 Adams: 118.

What rendered the Censors so powerful was the fact that the possession of civil rights was, in the Republican era, the main characteristic of Libertas (freedom). But freedom was not possible without Pax (peace): ‘ego omnia ad libertatem, qua sine pax nulla est.’¹¹ And Securitas (security) was the result of the simultaneous interaction between the former two virtues: ‘Pax together with Libertas means Securitas.’¹²

11 Cicero, Epistulae ad Brutum, 2, 5, 1.

12 Lana 1990: 57.

The Imperial age entirely altered the approach to the management of public order. In contrast to Republican times, the military were authorised to enter into Rome and become an instrument of law enforcement. At the same time, the emperor established his own personal guard that never left his side, even when he appeared in the Senate. In parallel, public order was enhanced by the integration of the social groups that gained some sort of prominence, thus reducing the possibility—and the violence—of protests and public disturbances. But under the Empire, the ties that once united Pax, Securitas, and Libertas began to unravel. Lucius Annaeus Seneca advocated that

Securitas publica is also described as the benefit of peace, a fruitful rest, the free enjoyment of one’s time, and a calm that is not disturbed by public preoccupations, which exempts citizens from all their obligations, such as brandishing weapons in defence of the State. It is from such a securitas perspective that the philosopher finds pax and libertas considered as indivisible goods. The libertas here is no longer the one, conceived by Cicero, which essentially consisted in the exercise of citizens’ rights. Peace is no longer the imposition of Rome’s will on all peoples. Peace, that is to say securitas, is a good in that it allows us to live in safety from dangers.¹³

13 Hasic 2016.

In reality, however, Pax Romana or Pax Augustea¹⁴ was built upon a power that permitted all (conquered) States to live in peace and harmony under Roman rule.

14 So named after the emperor, Gaius Iulius Caesar Octavianus Augustus, whose political achievements lasted for about 200 years, from 27 bc to 180 ad.

The Republican ideal of life as a combination of peace, freedom, and security simply failed, and Imperial peace, as Tacitus brilliantly puts it, granted tranquillitas, non libertas (peace, not freedom.)

The core of the newfound tranquillitas of the ‘restored’ Republic, as the emperor used to call his absolute rule, was Augustus’ legion-based military system whose deployment was not confined to the waging of ‘conventional’ warfare:

Augustus and his successors during the first century of the Empire did not rely on any one agency in particular to detect and to expose subversion. They used informers – delatores – to reveal a wide range of crimes, real...