̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - spying

Opinion: How much is riding on having ‘nothing to hide’?

sc604 — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 09:31:42 +0000

It's often said that “If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear.” This argument, which is often used to justify the total surveillance of society, is based on the curious idea that things done in secret must necessarily be immoral, unethical or illegal.

It is also based on a reduction of any subtle notions of persona – we portray ourselves differently to others, depending on our relationship, or lack of relationship, with that person. None of us, not even the highest-profile celebrities, truly ‘lives in public.’

There is a long list of reasons why the ‘nothing to hide’ argument is false, but much of it stems from the power imbalance which occurs when private discussions are revealed to normally unconcerned listeners, whether those listeners are known or unknown.

What might happen after such an unwitting revelation creates genuine fear, uncertainty and doubt in the person whose information is being revealed. Much of that is due to the unseen power wielded by the great leverage provided by the internet, the NSA, GCHQ or any other member of the surveillance industrial complex.

Surveillance is toxic: it reduces everyone’s choice of behaviour to that which is acceptable to everyone else, for all time. There are many examples of this, ranging from the mildly embarrassing to the deadly. At the relatively benign end of the spectrum, there are numerous instances of private conversations by public figures being secretly recorded and shared, so that we’re now seemingly at the point where the most innocuous of comments can be used as a weapon if they are overheard by the wrong person. Think also of the numerous instances of public shaming, where people’s lives and careers have been shattered after one poorly-judged tweet. There are also far more serious implications for individuals involved in witness protection programmes, for instance: how can you hide people in a population where everyone is traceable?

We present ourselves differently to different people: our family, our close friends, our colleagues, our acquaintances, and people that we encounter – all are given different levels of trust, because there are different levels of shared experience. Context matters.

And because context changes over time, we need to control aspects of information about ourselves as it is seen by others. Indeed, we need to have obsolete data removed from their view – we need the right to change our mind.

Calling this is censorship is false. It is about a generalisation of the public’s ‘right to know,’ (or not know, in this case), or for an outdated, and likely wrong impression to persist, perhaps more powerfully than a recent one.

In general, the ‘public’ is a set of people who we can send information to. Most of these, most the time, do not have a ‘right’ to know. I have a right to share information or not. I can, and should, be the judge of what is a suitable context in a given situation.

Perhaps we need a new, nuanced model of how freedom of speech and the public’s right to know should work without trumping privacy. Solutions could be based on copyright, custom/convention, or control, but should rest in the hands of the speaker, not the listener, in order to restore the power balance. A suitable combination of technology can tell us if people send our data further than we wish, and data protection laws with real teeth need to be passed, because of the heavily asymmetric power held by security agencies compared with the individual.

We can also age and remove from sight data that is no longer relevant, such as spent criminal records for old crimes, health records of no public interest, or financial information that is out of date.

Ideally, enforcement of these solutions should be partly social, but should include suitable independent organisations. GCHQ and other surveillance organisations are in no special privileged relation to most people. We need to incentivise them to do their job right. With great surveillance power comes even greater responsibility. We see reports of daily incidents of abuse of power in many of these organisations. If their culture doesn't change, we need to use more powerful means in order to restore sane behaviour. Google, Facebook and other internet companies aren't exempt either. Money doesn't confer rights, any more than counter-terrorism trumps all other rights.

Data, just because it can be copied without error, is not necessarily true in the first place, and it can become false, through a change in the law for example. Recall by humans, is revisionist, because context changes. Data without context is inherently false.

If you do care about what’s happening to your data, you want to know where it’s going and what’s being done with it. We want to see systems where people have agency over their data, giving them the ability to allow or prevent certain types of access.

While it may sometimes seem as if we live in an age where people accept their lack of privacy online, in reality, privacy is something which the vast majority of people value highly. We need to start thinking about how to build win-win scenarios where useful information can be easily shared, but where all of us can hold on to our privacy.

We live in an age of near-total surveillance. In a talk given earlier this week, Professor Jon Crowcroft argued that total surveillance of society is toxic, and that those who claim that ‘if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear’ are helping perpetuate a massive power imbalance which is doing harm to society.

Surveillance is toxic: it reduces everyone’s choice of behaviour to that which is acceptable to everyone else, for all time

Jon Crowcroft

Andreas Levers

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Mitrokhin’s KGB archive opens to public

sjr81 — Sun, 06 Jul 2014 23:01:00 +0000

From 1972 to 1984, Major Vasiliy Mitrokhin was a senior archivist in the KGB’s foreign intelligence archive – with unlimited access to hundreds of thousands of files from a global network of spies and intelligence gathering operations.

At the same time, having grown disillusioned with the brutal oppression of the Soviet regime, he was taking secret handwritten notes of the material and smuggling them out of the building each evening. In 1992, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, he, his family and his archive were exfiltrated by the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service.

Now, more than twenty years after his defection to the UK, Mitrokhin’s files are being opened by the Churchill Archives Centre, where they sit alongside the personal papers of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

Professor Christopher Andrew, the only historian to date allowed access to the archive, and author of two global bestsellers with Mitrokhin, said: “There are only two places in the world where you’ll find material like this. One is the KGB archive – which is not open and very difficult to get into – and the other is here at Churchill College where Mitrokhin’s own typescript notes are today being opened for all the world to see.

“Mitrokhin dreamed of making this material public from 1972 until his death; it’s now happening in 2014. ̽��ֱ��inner workings of the KGB, its foreign intelligence operations and the foreign policy of Soviet-era Russia all lie within this extraordinary collection; the scale and nature of which gives unprecedented insight into the KGB’s activities throughout much of the Cold War.”

Among the 19 boxes and thousands of papers being opened are KGB notes on Pope John Paul II, whose activities in Poland were closely monitored before his election to the Papacy; maps and details of secret Russian arms caches in Western Europe and the USA; and files on Melita Norwood, ‘the spy who came in from the Co-op’.

Norwood, codename Hola, was the KGB’s longest-serving UK agent, who for four decades passed on classified information from her office at the British Non Ferrous Metals Research Association in Euston, North London, where nuclear and other scientific research took place.

“ ̽��ֱ��Mitrokhin files range in time from the immediate aftermath of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to the eve of the Gorbachev era,” said Andrew. “Initially he smuggled his daily notes out on small scraps of paper hidden in his shoes. After a few months, he began to take them out in his jacket pockets then buried them every weekend at the family dacha in the countryside near Moscow.

“ ̽��ֱ��enormous risks in compiling his secret archive might well have ended with a secret trial and a bullet in the back of the head in an execution cellar. He was a dissident willing to make the most extraordinary sacrifice.”

Vasiliy Mitrokhin was born in 1922. From 1948, he worked in foreign intelligence before being assigned to the foreign intelligence archives in the KGB First Chief Directorate. From 1972 until 1982 he was in charge of the transfer of these archives from the Lubyanka in central Moscow to a new foreign intelligence HQ at Yasenevo.

Following his retirement in 1984, Mitrokhin organised much of this material geographically and, in ten volumes, typed out systematic studies of KGB operations in different parts of the world.

After his exfiltration to London, Mitrokhin continued to work on transcribing and typing his manuscript notes, producing a further 26 typed volumes, which, together with his notes, provided the basis for his publications with Professor Christopher Andrew. Vasiliy Mitrokhin died in January 2004.

Allen Packwood, Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, said: “This collection is a wonderful illustration of the value of archives and the power of archivists. It was Mitrokhin's position as archivist that allowed him his unprecedented access and overview of the KGB files. It was his commitment to preserving and providing access to the truth that led him to make his copies, at huge personal risk. We are therefore proud to house his papers and to honour his wish that they should be made freely available for research."

In accordance with the deposit agreement, the Churchill Archives Centre is opening Mitrokhin’s edited Russian-language versions of his original notes. ̽��ֱ��original manuscript notes and notebooks will remain closed under the terms of the deposit agreement, subject to review.

KGB files from the famous Mitrokhin Archive – described by the FBI as ‘the most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source’ – will today open to the public for the first time.

There are only two places in the world where you’ll find material like this. One is the KGB archive – which is not open and very difficult to get into – and the other is here at Churchill College.

Chrisopher Andrew

Churchill Archives Centre

Mitrokhin's handwritten copy of the KGB First Chief Directorate Lexicon

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