Category Archives: Lands

A model town of what the Syrian revolution could be

The Telegraph reports: When the men of al-Qaeda came to the mountain town of Yabroud they wasted no time in making their ambitions clear.

Two foreign jihadists, their explosive belts clearly visible over their black uniforms, entered the mosque where Muslim residents were observing Friday prayers. The congregation watched, horrified, as the men stormed to the palpate and ordered the imam to leave.

They would be giving the sermons now, the al-Qaeda operatives explained; as has happened in many other towns and villages in Syria, the worshippers were to live under their “black flag”. Yabroud, they said, should be part of a wider Islamic caliphate.

As the words sunk in, the frightened hush that had fallen on the crowd in the mosque gave way to anger. Dissenting voices shouted at the suicide bombers. They were quickly joined by others, until, in a crescendo of furious yells, the worshippers faced down their occupiers. The al-Qaeda men, wild eyed and angry, were forced to retreat, the implied threat of the suicide vests never acted upon.

Though the incident happened in September, it remained the main the talk of the town when last week The Telegraph visited Yabroud, north of Damascus.

“Al-Qaeda came here to control us,” said Dia’a, 32, a male resident who had been in mosque that day. “We told them that we have our own people to preach to us. We told them we didn’t need them; we know what Islam is.”

In the two years since it fell out of the grip of President Bashar al-Assad, Yabroud has avoided the fate that has crippled so many other parts of rebel held Syria. Its residents have kept out foreign jihadists and avoided succumbing to warlords and mafia gangs. They have refused to allow the community to be torn apart by sectarianism or by a primordial scramble for money and power.

This moderate Sunni and Christian town, with its neat rows of houses and tidy tree-lined streets, has remained exemplary of the ideals of the peace activists who began the civil uprising against a dictatorship in 2011. It is a place where civilians, not armed fighters, have taken control of the town’s future, and brought a working alternative to Assad’s government. Yabroud is the model town of what the Syrian revolution could be. [Continue reading…]

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Tunisia shows the way in the Arab world

Rami G Khouri writes: I have been going back and forth between the United States and Arab countries for my entire life, and every time I visit the United States I am shocked by the mainstream public sphere’s distorted and incomplete view of what is taking place in our region. This is happening again now, as the American media and public sphere in general write off most of the Arab world as a lost cause, having shed their initial interest and even some awe and respect for millions of ordinary Arab men and women (most of them Muslims) who fought for freedom, dignity and perhaps even democracy. In the past week that I have been in New York, Philadelphia and Boston, the only mentions of the Arab uprisings (the “Arab Spring,” as it is commonly called here) that I have heard have almost always been negative, and in the past tense, with special concerns voiced about the rise of Al-Qaeda-linked Islamists in Syria. Iraq, with its daily killings of 50 or 100 people, is hardly mentioned. The point of such comments is that Arabs tried earnestly to remove dictators and establish democratic systems, but they failed, leaving the region in a state of deep turmoil, uncertainty and danger.

This superficial, incomplete and largely unfair assessment of what is actually happening in different Arab countries is contrasted by those pockets of sobriety and a more nuanced understanding that some hope actually exists in an Arab landscape of political turbulence and violence.

This is especially true for the two countries – Tunisia and Egypt – where the Arab uprisings began, and where citizens continue doggedly to grapple with the complexities of transforming autocracies into democracies in a relatively short period of time. Syria, Bahrain, Libya and Yemen, on the other hand, remain mired in some degree of violence, turbulence or stalemate that will need years to be resolved.

It seems to me unfair and inaccurate to write off the possibility that some Arab countries can successfully achieve a democratic transition, especially given the short period of time since the uprisings began. I suspect the real problem is in the inability of most Americans to acknowledge those ongoing dynamics and real achievements that have been recorded, especially in Tunisia, rather than the actual inability of Arabs to democratize. [Continue reading…]

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Police openly beat Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers in Cairo

McClatchy reports: Egyptian security forces on Sunday openly beat demonstrators sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, without any provocation, in a sign of how the once powerful group has become the target of official suppression.

The police reaction to the Brotherhood march stood in stark contrast to the scene blocks away, where pro-military crowds, summoned to celebrate Egypt’s war with Israel 40 years ago, hoisted soldiers and police on their shoulders and offered cheers.

The difference was apparent to two McClatchy reporters who left the pro-military demonstration to cover the Brotherhood gathering. As they witnessed police beatings, the two reporters were pounced on by security officers, who stole their cell phones and cameras and threatened to haul one away. The abuse ended only after the reporters proved they’d been at the other rally by pulling out posters of Defense Minister Abdel-Fattah El Sissi, the head of the military who engineered the toppling of President Mohammed Morsi in July.

At previous demonstrations, Egyptian security forces have said the Brotherhood, the secretive organization through which Morsi ascended to office, instigated the clashes, some of which left hundreds dead.

But on Sunday, there was no sign of Brotherhood provocation. The beatings took place well away from the huge crowds that were celebrating the military. Residents nearby also played a role, refusing to give Brotherhood sympathizers shelter as they sought to flee the security forces’ onslaught. [Continue reading…]

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Canadians freed in Egypt still face travel ban

The Guardian reports: Two Canadians held without charge inside one of Egypt’s most notorious prisons were released unexpectedly from custody early on Sunday morning.

The renowned film-maker John Greyson and emergency medic Tarek Loubani had been detained for over seven weeks after being arrested while observing protests in Cairo on 16 August. Like many of the protesters arrested that day, they were held on suspicion of murder and intention to kill. In a letter their lawyers later smuggled from prison, the pair said they had been beaten in custody, and were being held in an overcrowded, cockroach-infested cell.

Their release this weekend came as a surprise, coming shortly after Egyptian authorities ordered their detention for another 45 days. Officials had also recently implied the pair had been acting as foreign spies, a symptom of widespread nationalism and xenophobia that has spread across Egypt since the overthrow of ex-president Mohamed Morsi in July.

The news sparked jubilation in Canada, where the pair’s detainment had become a cause célèbre, with Alec Baldwin and Charlize Theron among 150,000 people who had signed a petition calling for their release.

Reuters adds: Two Canadians freed at the weekend after being held in Egypt for more than six weeks without charge are still barred from flying home, their lawyer said on Monday.

“When the men went to the airport they found there was a travel ban with their names on it and so they couldn’t travel and came back to Cairo,” Marwa Farouk, the lawyer representing John Greyson and Tarek Loubani, told Reuters.

“I am appealing to the prosecutor general to lift the travel ban,” said Farouk, who had said the previous day that the Canadians were flying to Toronto after their release.

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New law to permit Turkish police to detain ‘possible’ protesters

Hürriyet Daily News reports: A new regulation will allow Turkish police to detain those who possess the “risk of conducting a protest” from 12 to 24 hours without the demand of a prosecutor or a judge, prompting acute worries from opposition deputies.

The new regulations that will be conducted jointly by the justice and interior ministries will allow the police to detain a suspect who “may hold a protest” for up to 24 hours without any court decision while also increasing the penalties for resistance to police and damaging public property.

The move to strengthen police powers was precipitated by the countrywide Gezi Park protests, which began at the end of May.

Organizations which “tend to hold protests” will be monitored and their members could be detained by police if intelligence reports suggest they are planning to conduct a demonstration or action.

A judge will also be able to extend the 24-hour detention period if desired. Under the current law, a judge’s or prosecutor’s order is necessary to detain people in such cases.

The regulations will also increase the penalties for resistance to police and damage to public property. Those who possess Molotov cocktails might be sentenced to up to five years in prison under the new regulations. The draft also includes a board to regulate security forces, which will monitor malpractice within the institutions.

Criticizing the moves, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) deputy leader Semih Yalçın said the regulations were “signs of police state.” [Continue reading…]

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Al-Shabaab target may explain U.S. secrecy over failed Somali raid

Simon Tsidall writes: Official US reluctance to identify the target of the failed Somali raid by Seal Team Six special forces commandos may stem from a wish not to further bolster the reputation of al-Shabaab’s shadowy leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane, also known as Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr.

The Islamist militia’s hardline emir emerged as Africa’s most wanted man after the 21 September Westgate mall attack in Nairobi that killed least 67 people, for which he claimed responsibility. His capture would have been portrayed as a triumph. By extension, his eluding of US-style justice will be seen as a serious setback. Pentagon officials will say only that the target of the dawn raid on the seaside town of Barawe, south of Mogadishu, was a “high-value” al-Shabaab terrorist linked to Westgate. Local sources said the Seals attacked a building housing foreign fighters, and that an unidentified Chechen fighter may have been their quarry.

But this is unlikely to be the whole story, given the elaborate preparations for the raid, which began soon after Westgate. The US navy Seals are the same crack unit that killed the al-Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden, two years ago in Pakistan. This time, too, Barack Obama was reportedly kept closely informed of the progress of the Somali plan, and of the almost simultaneous operation in Libya.

Given the political sensitivity, at home and in the Muslim world, that surrounds such US on-the-ground incursions, Obama will have personally given the go-ahead for both raids. His orders were reportedly to capture, if possible, rather than kill. [Continue reading…]

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Clashes across Egypt kill 51, more protests called

The New York Times reports: At least 51 people were killed as street clashes erupted in several Egyptian cities on Sunday, in a surge of violence that raised new questions about the ability of the interim government to secure the fractured country.

The death toll was the highest in a single day since mid-August, when the authorities began their punishing crackdown on Islamist supporters of former President Mohamed Morsi, who was ousted by the army on July 3. The military-backed government that replaced him has tried to project an aura of stability in order to lure back the tourists and investors scared off by several years of turmoil in the country.

But on Sunday, only grim, familiar scenes of violence returned, along with the sounds of gunfire.

The deadly bloodshed came as thousands of Egyptians celebrated the 40th anniversary of the 1973 war with Israel, setting up a day of bizarre contrasts that served as reminders of Egypt’s deepening polarization since the ouster of Mr. Morsi.

As the military’s supporters celebrated the anniversary in Tahrir Square in Cairo with music and fireworks, officers and armed civilian loyalists set upon Islamist protesters who were also trying to reach the square, driving back their marches with tear gas and gunfire.

More than 250 people were injured, officials said.

Over the last three months, with little resistance from the public, the military has set out to vanquish the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that propelled Mr. Morsi to power. Since July, hundreds of Brotherhood members have been killed and most of the movement’s leaders have been sent to jail or fled the country.

And Mr. Morsi’s Islamist supporters, who have re-branded themselves under the banner of the “anti-coup” movement, have continued to protest even with the repression of their marches and sit-ins, and despite dwindling attendance at their demonstrations.

They had billed the protests on Sunday as their own tribute to the armed services, while promising a new level of confrontation: for the first time since Mr. Morsi’s ouster, the Islamists called for marches on Tahrir Square, a stronghold of the anti-Morsi movement. [Continue reading…]

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Netanyahu’s ignorance about Iran

From the 2012 Fall collection of Tehran fashion designer Farnaz Abdoli.

From the 2012 Fall collection of Tehran fashion designer Farnaz Abdoli.

The New York Times reports: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel tried to take his campaign against the Iranian leadership to Iran’s young population last week, saying that if they were truly free, they would be able to wear jeans, listen to Western music and participate in free elections.

The problem is that Iranians do wear jeans and manage to listen to whatever music they want to listen to, just like people almost anywhere, except maybe in North Korea.

That is to say, Mr. Netanyahu’s effort at outreach backfired, as Twitter lit up Sunday with retorts.

“Netanyahu, here are my #Jeans and #Western music,” wrote a user named Sallar, posting a picture of his jeans and his iPad showing a pop album cover, and adding an insult to the prime minister’s intelligence.

A user with the handle mohhzg wrote, “Netanyahu, I’m wearing jeans like many old & young people in #Iran.”

Mr. Netanyahu made his faux pas — at least when it comes to Iranian fashion — in an interview Thursday with the BBC Persian channel, despised by the Iranian leadership because it allows the government’s adversaries direct access to the public.

“If the people of Iran were free, they could wear jeans, listen to Western music and have free elections,” he said, in an apparent effort to get the Iranian public to oppose the nation’s nuclear program. [Continue reading…]

In the interview, Netanyahu claimed, “I saw Neda,” images of whose death became an icon of the 2009 protests, yet he failed to notice that she, like hundreds of thousands of other Iranian protesters, were wearing blue jeans.

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International monitors begin to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons equipment

The Washington Post reports: Personnel overseen by a team of international monitors took blowtorches and high-speed saws to Syria’s chemical weapons equipment Sunday, the first step on the road to dismantling what is believed to be one of the world’s largest arsenals of the weapons of mass destruction.

The destruction of mixing equipment, missile warheads and aerial bombs was carried out by a team of Syrians under supervision from experts from the Netherlands-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the United Nations said in a statement.

The mission, which received the backing of a U.N. Security Council resolution last week, faces a daunting task, dealing with a tight timetable with the added logistical and security challenges of working in the midst of a raging civil war. The 20-member advance team has been quick to get to work since arriving in Damascus on Tuesday.

The pressing schedule sees the elimination of Syria’s ability to produce chemical weapons by the beginning of November, before the complete destruction of its stockpiles within nine months.

Work to dismantle delivery and production equipment is relatively straightforward, according to experts, using simple tools, or even vehicles to run over and crush items. It is the later phases — disposing of highly corrosive precursor chemicals and filled warheads — that will pose the biggest challenge. Some precursors are expected to be transported out of the country to be destroyed. [Continue reading…]

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Libya demands explanation for ‘kidnapping’ of citizen by U.S. forces

The Guardian reports: Libya has demanded an explanation for the “kidnapping” of one of its citizens by American special forces, hours after a separate US military raid on a terrorist target in Somalia ended in apparent failure and retreat.

In Tripoli the US army’s delta force seized alleged al-Qaida leader Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, known by his alias Abu Anas al-Liby and wanted for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 220 people.

But US navy Seals suffered a major setback when they launched an amphibious assault to capture an Islamist militant leader said to be Ahmed Godane, described as Africa’s most wanted man and the architect of last month’s attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya. The elite Seals were beaten back by heavy fire and apparently abandoned equipment that the Somali militants photographed and posted on the internet.

As dramatic details of Saturday’s twin operations emerged, US secretary of state John Kerry insisted that terrorists “can run but they can’t hide”, but faced growing questions about America’s military reach in Africa and the consequences of unilateral aggression.

Al-Liby was captured outside his family home at 6.15am in Noufle’een, a quiet suburb in eastern Tripoli, according to witnesses, but there were conflicting reports over who took him. His brother, Nabih, told the Associated Press that al-Liby was parking when a convoy of three vehicles encircled his car. Armed gunmen smashed the car’s window and seized al-Liby’s gun before grabbing him and taking him away, the report said. The brother said al-Liby’s wife saw the kidnapping from her window and described the abductors as foreign-looking armed “commandos”.

But al-Liby’s son Abdullah insisted that Libyan forces were involved. Appearing on Tripoli’s Nabir TV station, he said: “The people who took my father were Libyan, not Americans – they spoke with Tripoli accents. [Continue reading…]

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How Obama’s effort to get re-elected may have prolonged the war in Syria

Michael Hirsh reports: Despite Secretary of State John Kerry’s frenetic efforts, preparations for the “Geneva II” peace conference on Syria’s civil war are already foundering. The rebel movement has become increasingly radicalized against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and more fractured. A newly confident Assad, meanwhile, has somewhat relegitimized himself as a signatory to a new chemical-weapons ban negotiated by the United States and Russia under U.N. auspices, which his government is tasked with implementing over the next year. Defying global opprobrium over his use of sarin gas, Assad has also positioned himself in a series of high-profile TV interviews as a preferable alternative to Islamist rebels who want to create a fundamentalist state.

All of which should prompt a reexamination of the first Geneva conference in the summer of 2012, on which Kerry’s new push for peace is based. According to some officials involved, perhaps the greatest tragedy of Syria is that, some 80,000 lives ago, President Obama might have had within his grasp a workable plan to end the violence, one that is far less possible now. But amid the politics of the 2012 presidential election—when GOP nominee Mitt Romney regularly accused Obama of being “soft”—the administration did little to make it work and simply took a hard line against Assad, angering the special U.N. Syria envoy, Kofi Annan, and prompting the former U.N. secretary-general to quit, according to several officials involved.

Former members of Annan’s negotiating team say that after then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on June 30, 2012, jointly signed a communique drafted by Annan, which called for a political “transition” in Syria, there was as much momentum for a deal then as Kerry achieved a year later on chemical weapons. Afterward, Annan flew from Geneva to Moscow and gained what he believed to be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s consent to begin to quietly push Assad out. But suddenly both the U.S. and Britain issued public calls for Assad’s ouster, and Annan felt blindsided. Immediately afterward, against his advice, then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice offered up a “Chapter 7” resolution opening the door to force against Assad, which Annan felt was premature.

Annan resigned a month later. At the time, the soft-spoken Ghanaian diplomat was cagey about his reasons, appearing to blame all sides. “I did not receive all the support that the cause deserved,” Annan told reporters in Geneva. He also criticized what he called “finger-pointing and name-calling in the Security Council.” But former senior aides and U.N. officials say in private that Annan blamed the Obama administration in large part. “The U.S. couldn’t even stand by an agreement that the secretary of State had signed in Geneva,” said one former close Annan aide who would discuss the talks only on condition of anonymity. “He quit in frustration. I think it was clear that the White House was very worried about seeming to do a deal with the Russians and being soft on Putin during the campaign.” One of the biggest Republican criticisms of Obama at the time was that he had, in an embarrassing “open mike” moment, promised Moscow more “flexibility” on missile defense after the election. [Continue reading…]

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By accident or design, ISIS is helping Assad

James Traub writes: I’ve spent much of the last week in Antakya, an ancient city, known to Byzantine Christians as Antioch, which now serves as a bivouac for Syrian rebel fighters and a jumping-off point for journalists and humanitarian actors working in Syria, which lies 20 miles to the west. One subject preoccupies everyone in the Turkish town: not the brutality of the regime in Damascus, but the nihilistic violence of the foreign jihadi group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).

Firas Tammim, a native of the Syrian city of Latakia who now brings medical supplies and other goods to the region, said to me, “I don’t want to say Assad is better, but at least he didn’t arrest or kill people because they were smoking.” Tammim showed me a picture on his phone of a crowd of villagers, including children, witnessing an ISIS beheading of an alleged infidel. “Think what this does to these children,” he said. Over time, Tammim said, Syrians are becoming inured to what they once would have found unspeakable.

ISIS appears to have up to 8,000 soldiers in Syria, a tiny number compared with the 100,000 or so rebel fighters. But the group’s medieval ideology, as well as its pathological obsession with enforcing Islamist rectitude in the towns and cities its soldiers have infiltrated, has made it a source of terror. One evening I was sitting at an outdoor cafe where a grizzled man was steadily smoking a hookah and shooting jets of tobacco smoke through his nostrils. He called himself Abu Abdul, and he was a fighter with a brigade affiliated with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the “moderate” forces backed by the West. We talked about the jihadists. Then he said something else. “He asks that you not mention the name of his brigade,” my interpreter said. “Everyone is scared of ISIS.”

President Bashar al-Assad has received two enormous gifts in recent months. The first is the Russian-brokered deal to remove Syria’s chemical weapons, which distracted attention from his relentless campaign to kill and terrorize his enemies and also compelled Western governments to work with him as the country’s legitimate ruler. The second is ISIS, which has also deflected attention away from the war between the regime and the rebels and has vindicated as nothing else could Assad’s persistent claim that he is confronting, not political opponents, but “terrorists,” as his foreign minister, Walid al-Muallem, recently claimed at the United Nations.

For this reason, it has become a fixed conviction in Antakya that ISIS functions as a secret arm of the regime. This sounds like an all-too-understandable conspiracy theory, yet even Western diplomats I’ve spoken to consider it plausible, if scarcely proved. In the summer of 2012, Assad released from prison a number of jihadists who had fought with al Qaeda in Iraq and who are thought to have helped formed ISIS. Reporters, activists, and fighters also note that while regime artillery has flattened the FSA’s headquarters in Aleppo, the ISIS camp next door was left untouched until the jihadi group left; the same is true in the fiercely contested eastern city of Raqqa. ISIS, for its part, has done very little to liberate regime-held areas, but has seized control of both Raqqa and the border town of Azaz from FSA forces. [Continue reading…]

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Most Israelis would support unilateral strike on Iran

USA Today reports: Two-thirds of Israelis would support a unilateral Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear targets if they believed their country was in real danger of attack, according to a new opinion poll.

The poll was conducted less than a week after Iranian President Hasan Rouhani told the United Nations that his country’s nuclear power is intended solely for peaceful purposes, and that Iran is open to negotiations and clarifications related to its nuclear capabilities.

In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the U.N. that “Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons.”

“If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone,” he said.

The Oct. 2 poll, conducted for Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, a conservative newspaper that has the largest daily circulation in Israel, reveals deep Israeli public skepticism over Iran’s true intentions. It also indicates that Israelis question the value of the diplomacy being pursued by President Obama. [Continue reading…]

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In leaked video, Egyptian army officers debate how to sway news media

The New York Times reports: A leaked video of senior Egyptian Army officers debating how to influence the news media during the months preceding the military takeover offers a rare glimpse of the anxiety within the institution at the prospect of civilian oversight.

In the leaked six-minute clip of a private meeting led by Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi in the period before his July 3 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, the officers express their dismay at public scrutiny of the army, unknown in Egypt until after the 2011 uprising. Calling even mildly disrespectful news coverage “dangerous” and abnormal, the officers call for a restoration of “red lines” that had protected the military for decades. And they urge General Sisi to pressure the roughly two dozen big media owners into “self-censorship.”

Mixing humor and cool confidence, General Sisi tells the officers that they must adjust to the new reality of public and parliamentary oversight, but he also counsels patience while he recruits allies in the news media.

“Building a statewide alliance takes a long time and effort,” he continues. “It takes a very long time until you possess an appropriate share of influence over the media.”

“The revolution has dismantled all the shackles that were present — not just for us, not just for the military, but for the entire state,” he says at another point. “The rules and the shackles were dismantled, and they are being rearranged.”

The officers’ winter uniforms and references to last December’s constitutional referendum suggest the meeting took place around that time. But the conversation foreshadowed the broad media crackdown that has played out since the military takeover. The new government has shut down Islamist television networks and the main newspaper supporting Mr. Morsi, and the police have arrested several journalists perceived as critical of the government or the military. And for whatever reason, privately owned newspapers and satellite networks now resound with cheers for the army and demonization of its Islamist opponents, just as the officers hoped.

The leak of the video, though, may raise different alarms. The clip was one of several snippets of the same meeting released Wednesday night and Thursday by RNN, an Islamist Web site, and in an interview, its acting director, Amr Farrag, said the material was obtained from “sources inside the military.” Military officials said Thursday that the army was starting an investigation.

Analysts said the video offered insights into motivations that might have helped propel the military’s takeover. “It betrays a real fear of what democratic discourse might look like and what that would mean for the military, in terms of what might be talked about and what might be exposed,” said Michael Wahid Hanna, a researcher on Egypt at the Century Foundation in New York.

The officers’ thin skin about the loss of the military’s “red lines,” he argued, is symptomatic of a much deeper worry. “If the military can be talked about in these unprecedented ways, the concern is that it erodes the stature of the military in the public imagination, and then the role of the military as an institution is potentially under threat.” [Continue reading…]

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How Britain became the most spied on, monitored and surveilled democratic society there has ever been

John Lanchester writes: In August, the editor of the Guardian rang me up and asked if I would spend a week in New York, reading the GCHQ files whose UK copy the Guardian was forced to destroy. His suggestion was that it might be worthwhile to look at the material not from a perspective of making news but from that of a novelist with an interest in the way we live now.

I took Alan Rusbridger up on his invitation, after an initial reluctance that was based on two main reasons. The first of them was that I don’t share the instinctive sense felt by many on the left that it is always wrong for states to have secrets. I’d put it more strongly than that: democratic states need spies.

The philosopher Karl Popper, observing the second world war from his academic post in New Zealand, came up with a great title for his major work of political thought: The Open Society and Its Enemies. It is, in its way, a shocking phrase – why would the open society have enemies? (But then, the title of Charles Repington’s The First World War, published in 1920, was shocking too, because it implied that there would be another one.)

We do have enemies, though, enemies who are in deadly earnest; enemies who wish you reading this dead, whoever you are, for no other reason than that you belong to a society like this one. We have enemies who are seeking to break into our governments’ computers, with the potential to destroy our infrastructure and, literally, make the lights go out; we have enemies who want to kill as many of us, the more innocent the better, as possible, by any means possible, as a deliberate strategy; we have enemies who want to develop nuclear weapons, and thereby vastly raise the stakes for international diplomacy and the threat of terrorism; and we have common-or-garden serious criminals, who also need watching and catching.

I get all that. It doesn’t thrill me to bits that the state has to use the tools of electronic surveillance to keep us safe, but it seems clear to me that it does, and that our right to privacy needs to be qualified, just as our other rights are qualified, in the interest of general security and the common good.

My week spent reading things that were never meant to be read by outsiders was, from this point of view, largely reassuring. Most of what GCHQ does is exactly the kind of thing we all want it to do. It takes an interest in places such as the Horn of Africa, Iran, and North Korea; it takes an interest in energy security, nuclear proliferation, and in state-sponsored computer hacking.

There doesn’t seem to be much in the documents about serious crime, for which GCHQ has a surveillance mandate, but it seems that much of this activity is covered by warrants that belong to other branches of the security apparatus. Most of this surveillance is individually targeted: it concerns specific individuals and specific acts (or intentions to act), and as such, it is not the threat.

Even Julian Assange thinks that, and said as much in his alarming and perceptive book Cypherpunks: “Individual targeting is not the threat.” When the state has specific enemies and knows who they are and the kind of harm they intend, it is welcome to target them to make the rest of our polity safe. I say again, on the evidence I’ve seen, this is mainly what GCHQ does. I would add that the Guardian and its partners have gone to a lot of trouble to prevent any unnecessarily damaging detail about this work being published.

The problems with GCHQ are to be found in the margins of the material – though they are at the centre of the revelations that have been extracted from the Snowden disclosures, and with good reason. The problem and the risk comes in the area of mass capture of data, or strategic surveillance. This is the kind of intelligence gathering that sucks in data from everyone, everywhere: from phones, internet use from email to website visits, social networking, instant messaging and video calls, and even areas such as video gaming; in short, everything digital.

In the US, the Prism programme may have given the NSA access to the servers of companies such as Google and Facebook; in the UK, GCHQ has gained a similar degree of access via its Tempora programme, and the two of them together have a cable- and network-tapping capabilities collectively called Upstream, which have the ability to intercept anything that travels over the internet. This data is fed into a database called XKeyscore, which allows analysts to extract information “in real time”, ie immediately, from a gigantic amount of hoovered-up data.

In addition, the NSA has encouraged technology companies to install secret weaknesses or “backdoors” into their commercially available, supposedly secure products. They have spent a very great deal of money ($250m a year alone on weakening encryption), on breaking commercially available security products. Other revelations have been published in Der Spiegel, and concern the NSA exploitation of technology such as the iPhone.

What this adds up to is a new thing in human history: with a couple of clicks of a mouse, an agent of the state can target your home phone, or your mobile, or your email, or your passport number, or any of your credit card numbers, or your address, or any of your log-ins to a web service.

Using that “selector”, the state can get access to all the content of your communications, via any of those channels; can gather information about anyone you communicate with, can get a full picture of all your internet use, can track your location online and offline. It can, in essence, know everything about you, including – thanks to the ability to look at your internet searches – what’s on your mind.

To get a rough version of this knowledge, a state once had to bug phones manually, break into houses and intercept letters, and deploy teams of trained watchers to follow your whereabouts. Even then it was a rough and approximate process, vulnerable to all sorts of human error and countermeasures. It can now have something much better than that, a historically unprecedented panoply of surveillance, which it can deploy in a matter of seconds.

This process is not without supervision, of course. In order to target you via one of these “selectors” – that’s the technical term – the agent of the state will have to type into a box on his or her computer screen a Miranda number, to show that the process is taking place in response to a specific request for information, and will also need to select a justification under the Human Rights Act. That last isn’t too arduous, because the agent can choose the justification from a drop-down menu. This is the way we live now.

And yet nobody, at least in Britain, seems to care. In the UK there has been an extraordinary disconnect between the scale and seriousness of what Snowden has revealed, and the scale and seriousness of the response. One of the main reasons for that, I think, is that while some countries are interested in rights, in Britain we are more focused on wrongs. [Continue reading…]

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