Digital Citizenship and Surveillance Society: UK State-Media-Citizen

Relations after the Snowden Leaks

Arne Hintz

Karin Wahl-Jorgensen

Lina Dencik

Project Workstreams

• News Media

• Civil Society

• Policy

• Technology

Digital citizenship

Research Team

• Arne Hintz, Cardiff Uni (PI)

• Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Cardiff Uni (Co-I Media)

• Lina Dencik, Cardiff Uni (Co-I Civil Society)

• Ian Brown, Oxford Uni (Co-I Policy)

• Michael Rogers, Tech Uni Delft (Co-I Tech)

• Jonathan Cable, Lucy Bennett, Grace Eden, Josh Cowls

Advisory Board

• Gabriella Coleman (McGill University, Canada)

• Seda Gürses (New York University, USA)

• Chris Marsden (Sussex University, UK)

• Geert Lovink (Institute of Network Cultures, Hogeschool van Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

• Oliver Leistert (University of Paderborn, Germany)

• Gus Hosein (Privacy International)

• Jim Killock (Open Rights Group)

• Lee Salter (MediaWise, Sussex University, UK)

Output

Practice-/General-interest output

Academic publications

Conference “Surveillance and Citizenship”

Media strand research questions

• a. How have the British news media represented the Snowden leaks and digital surveillance more broadly?

• b. How have journalists responded to the events following the Snowden leaks, in particular with regards to press freedom and the handling of security-related information?

Research carried out so far…

• Content analysis of coverage of five peak moments of coverage in UK national newspapers.

• Ways of discussing debates over surveillance:

– E.g. angles, opinions expressed, words used to discuss surveillance

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/27

/20

13

6/1

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36

/24

/20

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7/8

/20

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7/2

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38

/5/2

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/19

/20

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/30

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/14

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/28

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/25

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/6/2

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/20

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/20

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/3/2

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/17

/20

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/14

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4/2

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/12

/20

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/9/2

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/23

/20

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/18

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/29

/20

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/13

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/27

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Timeline of Media Coverage

NSA

Snowden

GCHQ

Initial Snowden Revelations David Miranda Case Lee Rigby Report

Embassy snooping Snooping on World Leaders Charlie Hebdo Aftermath

Case Study Timeframe Number of Articles

Total (Relevant)

Edward Snowden 09/06/13 - 16/06/13 214

Snooping on Embassy and

World Leaders

29/06/13 - 27/07/13 and

11/10/13 - 08/11/13

253 (137)

David Miranda Case 18/08/13 - 15/09/13 204 (124)

Lee Rigby Report 15/11/14 - 13/12/14 102 (78)

Charlie Hebdo Aftermath 07/01/15 - 04/02/15 278

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Lee Rigby Snooping

Case Study by Newspaper

The People

The Sun

Daily Star/Star on Sunday

the I

Independent/Independent on Sunday

Daily Telegraph/Sunday Telegraph

The Times/Sunday Times

Daily Mirror/Sunday Mirror

Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday

Daily Express/Sunday Express

The Guardian/Observer

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

Surveillance Angle

Lee Rigby

Snooping

Opinions on surveillance (Lee Rigby case)

• Social media companies should do more to fight terror: • David Cameron: “The Prime Minister called on the technology

companies to live up to their “social responsibility” and develop ways of blocking inflammatory material before it was posted”.

• Intelligence Services should act more on surveillance information: • The Intelligence and Security Committee: “GCHQ’s failure to report

an item of intelligence which revealed contact between Adebowaleand the Aqap extremist CHARLIE was significant. It would have led to different investigative decisions”.

• Renate Samson (Big Brother Watch): “The conclusion that a failing of a technology company should determine future legislation, whilst the catalogue of errors by the intelligence agencies is all but excused, is of grave concern”.

Opinions on surveillance: Snooping on world leaders/embassies case

Surveillance is damaging to international relations:• President Hollande: “We cannot accept this kind of

behaviour between partners and allies” he said. “No negotiations of transactions can be held in all areas until we have these guarantees [that the eavesdropping will stop].

• Martin Schulz (President of European Parliament): “If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU/US relations”.

• Viviane Reading (EU Justice Commissioner): “We cannot negotiate a large transatlantic market if there is any doubt that our partners are bugging the offices of European negotiators”.

Civil Society strand research objectives

• a. Investigate the nature of public knowledge and attitudes with regards to digital surveillance and examine changes in digital communication practices and forms of self-regulating behaviour

• b. Investigate the impact of the Snowden leaks on political activism and advocacy

Political activism and the ‘chilling effect’

‘Study after study has shown that human behavior changes when we know we’re being watched. Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively are less free.’

(Edward Snowden)

Method

• 10-15 interviews with civil society organisations and grassroots activists (10 done so far):– Greenpeace– Trade Union Congress– Stop the War Coalition– Global Justice Now– No Dash for Gas– ACORN– Muslim Council of Britain– Muslim Association of Britain– Campaign Against Arms Trade– CAGE– Uncut UK

Interview themes

a) Understanding and experience of surveillance

b) Knowledge and opinions of Snowden leaks

c) Attitudes towards state surveillance

d) Online behaviour and practices

e) Changes and responses to Snowden leaks

(In)visibility of surveillance

• ‘being watched’• ‘I automatically think of the State and that can be anything

from everyday visible stuff like CCTV, which is the most visible, and online things, online monitoring.’

• ‘I believe surveillance as a term has developed; before it used to more ‘physical’ in a sense that cameras would be set up on certain streets and the intelligent forces would look out for you. Now it has extended to how citizens act on the internet and what they say in their social media and mobile applications.’

• ‘I would say that my experience of it has been undercover police officers.’

Snowden and Wikileaks

‘I don’t know much beyond the fact that he released loads of files that included stuff. The main stuff I followed was on Afghanistan. The big headlines right at the start was the stuff relating to Afghanistan.’

‘Surveillance realism’

• ‘it doesn’t surprise you; it is exactly what I would expect…I think it is scary and it is a really bad and sad state of affairs that I do expect that nothing is private.’

• ‘I think the level of it is terrifying and the more you look into it, the more terrifying it is but actually I think I probably wasn’t surprised.’

• ‘to be honest, after 9/11 and after 7/7, I assume my phone was being tapped because you could feel something when people phoned you or you are ringing and it was something I never used to hear before. So I assume and I can understand why, like most organisations, particularly Muslim organisations, they might have been doing it.’

Online behaviour not linked to Snowden

• ‘I think it’s about being always aware of the general threat. I don’t think in fact that Snowden in particular has had an impact on a single aspect of how we work…In a sense he confirmed what was the sort of thing people suspected was happening anyway, but I don’t think that revelation has changed anything we do.’

Encryption limited – convenience and publicity

• ‘Definitely in an ideal world we would have exclusive access to everything and full control over all the information which comes into contact with our organisation…But…we just want ease of access to be honest. Actually I can send an email to a few thousand people and do a few other things and I don’t need to spend days or weeks actually learning how to do it because I’m not very technically minded.’

• ‘We are a public and transparent organisation, so if the State wants to know anything we are doing they can.’

• ‘Outsourcing’ of counter-surveillance resistance

‘Chilling effect’?

1. In conjunction with revelations of police infiltration, the Snowden leaks are part of an entrenched sense of fear and paranoia amongst political activists which is debilitating.

2. The chilling effect manifests itself in terms of a ‘spectrum of radicalism’ within political activism – ‘keeping the mainstream in check’.