Rethinking National Security in a Digital Age

PhD submitted at Jadavpur University (2018) Thesis title: 'Social Media Surveillance in Digital Capitlaism and the Rise of Networked States:A Study of Digital Labor, Privacy, Security and Identity'

2017

The Information Society allowed the interaction and distribution of information and ideasthrough the Internet and cyberspace. Information is power. However, fundamental rights, the rule oflaw and democracy must be preserved. It is therefore necessary to implement public, national,European and international cybersecurity policies. That is why there is a European cybersecuritystrategy. As for the Portuguese case we have developed a growing production of legislation tosafeguard the citizen. The EU economy is already hit by cybercrime against private individuals andthe private sector. Cybercriminals employ increasingly refined procedures to introduce themselvesin computer systems. In countries outside the EU, governments can use cyberspace in aninappropriate way for surveillance and control of their citizens. The EU can refute this position bysupporting online freedom and ensuring respect for fundamental rights online. Increasingly it isdifficult to establish boundaries in the sphere of what is private and in what is public. Constantsurveillance of individuals and not only is inevitable. (PDF) Information society based on surveillance and control.The political implications of heightened surveillance. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335728307_Information_society_based_on_surveillance_and_controlThe_political_implications_of_heightened_surveillance [accessed Oct 05 2019].

2018

REAL: Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature, 2019

Zenith International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 2016

This paper is an attempt to review the book "Disruptive Power: The Crisis of the State in the Digital Age" (2015) by Taylor Owen. The work gains prominence in the wake of rising threats to the state power from ICT related activisms like cyber attacks, distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, counter surveillance on the state by Anonymous individuals and groups, data theft, hacking, military signal decoding, digital diplomacy, digital civil disobedience, individual centric real time reporting, virtual currency, surveillance circumvention technology, artificial intelligence, algorithm encoded automatic attacks, digitalized defense and the blurring boundaries between the virtual and the real. State has been able to withstand its ideological enemies like socialism, anarchism, religion etc. and has been successful in defending itself from enemies like terrorism, mafia, and varying ranges of revolutions. On all these occasions state has one common advantage-it knows its enemies, their ideologies, physical boundaries, organizational potential, influence of the ideas-and more importantly-their chances to succeed in strangling the state. But in the case of digital enemy-the enemies of the state are Anonymous most of time-and their form, place and methods of attack on the state also remain unknown on most occasions. This anonymity of the Anonymous gives them extraordinary potential to strike at the state without involving much efforts and costs-and most important of all-without being caught or shot. The Anonymous do not need to maintain any organization, office, hierarchy etc. nor do they need to present themselves physically against the state like in strikes, protests or revolutions-and they do not need violence as well. This makes the Anonymous stay very active all the time as certain traits that are considered lethargic like locking yourself in the room, being unsocial or to put in Robert Putnam's language-the bowling alone syndrome etc. actually strengthen the presence and networking capacity of the Anonymous. All these factors make the presence of Anonymous untraceable and asymmetrical-and yet their actions are highly symmetrical. Owen's work tries to explore the crisis that the state has been facing due to the advancements in ICTs and tries to explore how Network-Power is limiting the sovereign power of the state.

Computer Law & Security Review, 2015

"The so-called cyber-threat commands the attention of multinational corporations, governments and the strategic community, keen as they are to harness the power of digital communications yet anxious to protect their interests. Attacks such as those which disrupted on-line banking in Estonia and defaced government websites in Georgia, as well as the infamous Stuxnet worm that temporarily shut down Iran’s nuclear programme, are vivid examples of what may be possible within this new strategic domain. But are our networked societies really vulnerable, as some have suggested, to a knock-out blow, perpetrated by state-sponsored hackers or terrorists? And what can be done to defend the state from this and from the encroachment of external networks that transcend its borders and breach its laws? This Adelphi tackles the range of issues raised by our dependence on digital networks. It considers how instantaneous, global communications are challenging national and social orders and what shape those challenges may take as the net is cast ever wider. Comparing the transformations of the Information Age with those of previous generations, when new technologies and emerging transnational threats spread panic in political and strategic circles, the authors examine the real implications for states and statehood."

in Tumber, Howard & Waisbord, Silvio Routledge Companion to Media and Human Rights, London: Routledge, 2017

This chapter will introduce readers to key research and debates in the area of media, surveillance and human rights, focusing on democracies during a period when online information sharing is increasingly necessary to participate fully in society. Increased transparency has been accompanied by a considerable extension of the public and private infrastructure available to governments for surveillance, with the stated intention of protecting our liberties, security and rights during a period of global conflict. This chapter will discuss the implications for citizens, journalists and NGOs, including privacy, as some argue the nature and reach of mass surveillance threatens the liberties it is claimed to protect. It will explore surveillance and propaganda in the digital era, including the dynamics, and increasing interdependence, between the state and corporate power. The chapter argues debates must be widened to include more focus on the uses of surveillance including its relation to propaganda. Research must strengthen understanding of the effects of surveillance systems on public debate and free speech, and examine how responses could build greater resilience and resistance for activists, journalists and especially vulnerable communities.

The emergence of new digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the provision of social network services nowadays can be considered not only as technological revolution but also as a great source of data concerning the major global dynamics. The sizable bloom of data amount, diversity and velocity generated by countless individuals has enriched the research progress in various academic fields such as political, media, cultural and anthropologic studies. Meanwhile, the global society has reached considerable results regarding the level of public interaction, exchange of information and engagement into the overall process of institutional decisions-making and governmental functionalism. Still, despite the numerous positive ICTs outcomes, the social opinion towards the implementation of certain specific digital services into the democratic matters remains controversial. Due to this point, the current article emphasizes the implementation of surveillance into the contemporary democratic matters with the intention to represent the motives of social concern towards the subject.

The International Journal of Press/Politics, 2016

Disruptive Power and The Real Cyber War by Shawn M Powers and Michael Jablonski both examine the complicated and evolving relationship between actors in the contemporary international system and political uses of the internet. Though each project was initiated before Edward Snowden's landmark 2013 revelations about the pervasiveness and (many would say) wild illegality of the US National Security Administration's domestic and global electronic surveillance programs, both books are essential reading for anyone concerned about the shifting power relations between and among governments and the governed in the wake of the digital revolution-and we should all be concerned. Disruptive Power is the broadest of the two in scope, providing 'a sweeping look at the way digital technologies are shaking up the workings of the institutions that have traditionally controlled international affairs', as the cover copy puts it. Owen essentially attempts to do in the context of the international system what Bob McChesney did with regard to the political economy of the US media in Digital Disconnect (2013): where McChesney points out the ways that media serve as a tool for power, money and influence to accumulate at the top and skewers what he calls the American catechism's doctrinal belief that media capitalism leads to information freedom, Owen explores existing and emerging actors' use of 21st-century communication tools to accumulate and assert power in the international system. Until the summer of 2013, Owen focused his research on the 'tension' that states face 'as both enablers and targets of disruptive actors', hypothesizing that digital technology … was enabling nontraditional international actors to take on and in some important ways replace the capacity of states and large institutions in ways that were both filled with opportunity but also fundamentally destabilizing to the established international order.