Spying and Security

It almost goes without saying that the spying and security state has metastasised over the past twenty years or so, and is only likely to get worse as states look to exploit digital technology to further their regimentation and control of society.

However, a further interesting question is whether such spying and surveillance are a “necessary” part of the deliverance of safety and security. Would, for example, private security agencies have the need to spy on people's private communications in order to keep their clients safe, and, if so, could this be achieved on an entirely voluntary basis in a free society?

Security, like any other good, is an end that consumes scarce resources, and so its provision must be valued more highly than other ends to which those resources could be devoted. Because a state is as an institution that enforces a territorial monopoly of the provision of law, order and defence funded by compulsory levies (taxes), it is able to provide a “blanket” security service without ever having to worry about whether its "customers" will leave it to patronise a competing provider. As a result, the state is cut off from any communication, through the profit and loss system, of whether it has correctly allocated resources efficiently to provide for security needs; as such the state can refer only to other criteria in order to judge the urgency of a particular security threat, and the measures that should be taken to tackle it.

¹

This would not be the case on the free market. Private, competing, security agencies would not be able to apportion more resources towards the production of security than its customers were willing to pay for. In times, therefore, of relatively light or transient threats (such as one-off acts of crime by heterogeneous individuals) then the gathering of anything other than targeted (as opposed to mass) intelligence would simply be a waste.

²

In fact, this state of affairs is likely to be the norm in a free society. Most "organised" crime consists of the underground provision of peaceful and voluntary services that the state has outlawed, while "terrorist" threats tend to be political backlashes against the state’s own actions.

³

The closest you might get to any kind of comprehensive criminal threat in a free society is various forms of human trafficking, such as paedophile rings and kidnap for forced labour. It is therefore very unlikely that there would be the need for systematic intelligence gathering in a world free of the state.

However, for argument’s sake, let's say that there is a genuinely serious and imminent threat of organised crime which commands a pressing need for intelligence of this threat by a private security agency in order to defend its customers. What could it do? It goes without saying that a security agency could certainly not forcibly tap into the servers and networks of private providers of communication services. Tentatively, however, it is just about conceivable that such monitoring could emerge on a voluntary basis.

Let us look at this first from the angle of security firms and their customers. Such companies could negotiate contracts to monitor information that passes over electronic networks, with the specific nature of such monitoring subject to the corresponding nature of the threat. However, the major difference between this and between state intelligence gathering is that it is unlikely to be a secret (as it largely is with the state). Such an exercise will come a cost, a cost which must be justified in the eyes of consumers. In an environment where there is a genuinely serious threat, then such monitoring is likely to be a major selling point. If people, on balance, estimate any threat as being worth this kind of action then they will be eager to provide custom to those security services that can offer it. On the other hand, if a threat is deemed not to be quite so serious to the extent that customers either do not care if other people's communications are monitored or they would actively leave for an alternative provider to avoid it, could a security firm carry on the practice in secret? The answer is almost certainly no because this would cause the firm to incur costs that customers are not willing to pay for. Such a firm would therefore see its customer base shrink to the advantage of suppliers who do not incur these deadweight costs. The practice would therefore be self-liquidating at the point when threats are no longer deemed to be worthy of the expense of intelligence gathering. This is contrast to the permanent spying and security state instituted by governments.

Second – and critically – the monitoring of communications would need to have the consent of the customers of telecoms and internet providers. Again, the permissibility of this would be judged by these customers in the light of the urgency of a threat. In the absence of such threats, providers that do not invade the privacy of communications would receive custom ahead of those that do would not. In the event of a very serious and urgent threat, however, people may be unwilling to deal with parties whose communications were not filtered through a monitored channel. However, it is also likely that these services would be tailored to specific regions that may be under threat, or levels of monitoring could be targeted at specific groups based either on their vulnerability or on their propensity to commit an atrocity. There would not be the blanket monitoring of absolutely everybody, together with the provision of the same service to everybody regardless of who they are and where they are.

Would consent make intelligence gathering useless? Not necessarily. Between themselves, of course, criminals can use channels that are not subject to monitoring. But when the fear of a threat is genuinely perceived to be high, channels offering absolute privacy may be difficult to come by on the free market. Government monitoring is likely to be much easier to circumvent on the grounds that the state is likely to indulge in mass monitoring when there is, in fact, societal demand for higher, not lower privacy. In any case, however, all criminal organisations must at some point communicate with the outside world (for purposes of attaining supply, for example), and these latter communications would be subject to monitoring. While not perfect, therefore, it would not be impossible to piece together the movements and intentions of serious criminals.

The above is just a basic outline of what might happen in a free society. However, it is worth emphasising again the main point – that most of the need for intelligence gathering is generated by the state’s own avoidable acts. Moreover, we have, of course, assumed that the state is genuinely trying to protect its citizens; of great import also is the very convincing argument that states merely manufacture and exaggerate threats for the very purpose of intruding into people's lives, leading to the conclusion that mass surveillance is an end in itself rather than the means. Thus, while mass intelligence gathering could conceivably be accomplished in a free society, it would almost certainly be unnecessary and absent.

The best way to end the world of spying, surveillance and secrets is to end the state itself.

1. This would be the case even if we were to assume that the state was faithful in executing its security provision, instead of using it as a tool to accumulate more power for itself.

2. Whether or not a private court will sanction the monitoring of specific suspects is beyond the scope of this essay. Our focus here is on the mass monitoring of people the majority whom will be innocent.

3. Further, even if there was the threat of invasion of a free society by, say, a neighbouring state, this would be much harder for that state to accomplish when defence provision is scattered and heterogeneous rather than concentrated and homogenous in the form of the government's army, navy and air force.