[Article] Governments Increase their Monitoring and Control of Citizens

Originally published in the September 2011 Socionomist Download Complete Issue (1.4 MB)

Temperatures weren’t the only things heating up this summer. After protests and riots in multiple countries, authoritarians accelerated their efforts to institutionalize cultures of surveillance and control.

You will recall that Alan Hall described the extensive role social mood plays in society’s opposing desires for freedom and security. This is an opportune time to re-read Hall’s landmark study from the April and May 2010 issues. It is free to anyone on the Web; click here.

The battle between authoritarians and anti-authoritarians is one of the most important issues socionomists are following. Here is a sampling of noteworthy events from June through September:

• The Massachusetts state government plans to create a database to track drivers’ movements via scanners mounted on police cruisers. Each scanner can read thousands of license plates per hour; Massachusetts’ database would store the information indefinitely. What worries Massachusetts’ anti-authoritarians is the state’s plans to store data on all citizens, not just criminals. The state’s civil libertarians are gearing up for a battle against what they refer to as “the Big Brother database.”¹

Licensed to Scan: A police officer in Lomita, California operates a license plate reader.

• New laws in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina tighten the screws on immigrants lacking papers. The laws force businesses to fire undocumented immigrants; they also enable local police to demand documents from anyone they regard as suspicious and to detain and arrest suspects without warrants.²

Eye on Immigrants: Following a traffic stop in Gwinnett County, Georgia, police detain 10 suspected illegal immigrants who were believed to be involved in a human-smuggling ring.

• Gordon Frazer, head of Microsoft’s operations in the United Kingdom, admitted that data that the company stores in facilities in the European Union are not immune to United States’ Patriot-Act seizures. Microsoft is headquartered in the U.S.and therefore has to comply with the law, Frazer explained.³ The Patriot Act increased authorities’ power to monitor communications and search medical, financial and other records. The act was instituted in 2001 during a Cycle-degree social mood decline—in keeping with bear-market mood at the time.
• San Francisco’s mass transit system blocked cell phone service at a number of transit stations in an attempt to thwart recent protests that were coordinated via social networks. The hacker group Anonymous then retaliated by posting contact information for more than 2,000 transit system customers.⁴ The hackers also posted online an embarrassing nude photo of the chief spokesman of Bay Area Rapid Transit, who had taken responsibility for the cell phone blackout.⁵
  
• After a high-speed train crash in China killed 40 people and injured 192 others, authorities enacted a blackout on all news except that which was positive or had come directly from the government. The move forced editors at Chinese newspapers to replace crash articles with other stories and cartoons. The Chinese government also forced Internet portals to remove links to news reports and videos about the crash.⁶
  
• During the recent riots in the United Kingdom, authorities considered disrupting online social networking, including Blackberry Messenger and Twitter, which they say rioters and looters used to coordinate their four days of mayhem.⁷ If the riots resume, it will likely be during a negative mood phase; look for officials in London and elsewhere to actually flip the switch this time.
• Chinese state media blamed the summer U.K.riots on the lack of Chinese-style controls on social media. China and other authoritarian states are using the riots as justification to further control information and people.⁸ For example, the Chinese Communist Party recently took control of The Beijing News and the Beijing Times, “two of Beijing’s most popular newspapers.”⁹
  
• China proposes to legalize state-backed “disappearances,” the secret, indefinite detention of prisoners. Human rights advocates call the proposal “terrifying” and say it would contravene international standards.¹⁰
• The government of Canada plans to bring back preventative detention and warrantless arrests. Canada gave its police the controversial, broad powers as an anti-terrorism measure in 2001—during a major social mood decline—and then allowed them to expire in 2007, near the social mood peak.¹¹
• Pakistanis a front-runner in the race to control the Internet. It is cracking down on Pakistanis’ ability to surf the Web anonymously, access banned websites and send emails that the government cannot intercept. The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority sent a legal notice to all Internet service providers ordering them to report “all such mechanisms including EVPNs [encrypted virtual private networks] which conceal communication to the extent that prohibits monitoring.” A Karachis oftware executive said the encryption ban “is like banning cars because suicide bombers use them. …a blanket, knee-jerk, response.”¹²
  
• The government of Saudi Arabia, which has (so far) this year beheaded 38 people¹³ and extended its regulation of printed material to the Internet, is now moving to crack down on its citizens even more. A draft law would impose jail terms of 10 years or more on people who question the integrity of the king or crown prince.¹⁴
• The June 2011 issue of The Elliott Wave Theorist warned of a rough road ahead for the bitcoin project, an attempt to create a digital currency independent of government control. Robert Prechter wrote:

It would be nice if bitcoin were more powerful than governments, but don’t kid yourself. An organization with a monopoly on bombs, prisons, SWAT teams and initiating force can do what it wants. While it may initially seem difficult to stop individuals from using bitcoins, it is well to realize that government can crush anybody and anything.¹⁵

• Federal courts recently crushed the Liberty Dollar—a competing currency established almost 15 years ago—by convicting its founder of making, possessing and selling his own coins. The FBI press release quoted the U.S. Attorney in the case:

Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism. … a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country. We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption, and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government.¹⁶

Competing Currency: U.S. authorities saw the Liberty Dollar as a threat to the nation’s economic stability.

• WikiLeaks, which we identified as an authoritarian-battle flashpoint in the May 2010 issue, has now published on the Internet its entire uncensored catalog of U.S.diplomatic cables. One of them offers new evidence supporting claims by Iraqi police officers that American troops handcuffed and executed 10 Iraqi civilians—including four women and five young children—and then destroyed the evidence with an airstrike.¹⁷ The U.S. again accused WikiLeaks of threatening national security and the safety of confidential informants. WikiLeaks is on very thin ice; we stand by our May 2010 prediction: “The days of unrestricted whistleblowers on the Web are numbered.”

Fading Anonymity: What was once a human right is now seen as a catalyst for bad behavior.

• Spiegel magazine writes of a grassroots “war on web anonymity” that ostensibly seeks to control online hate speech.¹⁸ According to Slate.com, “In all but the most extreme scenarios—everywhere outside of repressive governments—anonymity damages online communities. … [and encourages] people … to behave badly.”¹⁹ Declining social mood has wrought quite an attitude shift on this issue since 1999, when the American Association for the Advancement of Science wrote, “Anonymous communication should be regarded as a strong human right.”²⁰

As long as social mood continues its negative trend as EWI expects, governments will continue to expand their repression. The broader public, for a time, may continue to submit. Now—11 years since the 2000 mood peak and 10 years since the September 11 attacks—an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll revealed that “two-thirds of Americans say it’s fitting to sacrifice some privacy and freedoms in the fight against terrorism.”²¹ Broader society is complicit in its own repression.

Next, look for the authoritarian battle to intensify in proportion to the extent of the social mood decline.■

CITATIONS/FURTHER READING

¹Johnson, O. (2011, July 21). Lawyer: cop scanner ‘crosses line.’ The Boston Herald, Retrieved from http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1353264.

²It gets even worse (2011, July 3). The New York Times, Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/opinion/04mon1.html?_r=2.

³Whittaker, Z. (2011, June 28). Microsoft admits patriot act can access eu-based cloud data. Zdnet.com, Retrieved from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/microsoft-admits-patriot-act-can-access-eu-based-cloud-data/11225.

⁴Marshall, J.S. (2011, August 15). Hackers protest bart decision to block cellphones. Yahoo! News, Retrieved from http://news.yahoo.com/hackers-protest-bart-decision-block-cellphones-021628029.html.

⁵Goodin, D. (2011, August 24). Vandal posts official’s nude pic to protest cell shutdown. The Register, Retrieved from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/24/bart_official_exposed/.

⁶LaFraniere, S. (2011, July 31). Media blackout in china after wreck. The New York Times, Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/world/asia/01crackdown.html?sc=recg.

⁷Abbas, M. (2011, August 11).UKmay disrupt social networks during unrest. Reuters, Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/11/us-britain-riot-networks-idUSTRE77A20C20110811.

⁸Morozov, E. (2011, August 13). Repressing the internet, western-style. The Wall Street Journal, Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903918104576502214236127064.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLE_Video_Top.

⁹Miks, J. (2011, September 4).Beijingpapers taken over. The Diplomat, Retrieved from http://the-diplomat.com/china-power/2011/09/04/beijing-papers-taken-over/.

¹⁰Foster, P. (2011, August 31).Chinaseeks to legalise ‘disappearances’. The Telegraph, Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8732276/China-seeks-to-legalise-disappearances.html.

¹¹Hiltz, R. (2011, September 6). Harper plans to bring back extraordinary anti-terror powers for police. The Ottawa Citizen, Retrieved from http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Harper+plans+bring+back+extraordinary+anti+terror+powers+police/5361176/story.html.

¹²Halliday, J. & Shah, S. (2011, August 30).Pakistanto ban encryption software. The Guardian, Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/30/pakistan-bans-encryption-software.

¹³Saudi executes convicted killer (2011, September 6). IOL News, Retrieved from http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/saudi-executes-convicted-killer-1.1132360.

¹⁴Nothing liberal yet: The saudi rulers are running against the arab grain of freedom. The Economist, Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/node/21524853?partner=rss&emc=rss.

¹⁵Prechter, R. (2011, June). Bitcoin. The Elliott Wave Theorist.

¹⁶U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of North Carolina (2011). Defendant convicted of minting his own currency. Charlotte, NC: Retrieved from http://www.fbi.gov/charlotte/press-releases/2011/defendant-convicted-of-minting-his-own-currency.

¹⁷Wikileaks iraq: U.S. troops may have executed civilians (2011, September 2). International Business Times, Retrieved from http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/207794/20110902/wikileaks-iraq-wikileaks-cables-wikileaks-release-ishaqi-massacre.htm.

¹⁸Rosenback, M. & Schmundt, H. (2011, August 5). The war on web anonymity. Spiegel, Retrieved from http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,778138,00.html.

¹⁹Manjoo, F. (2011, March 9). Troll, reveal thyself: Why we need to get rid of anonymous comments. Slate, Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2287739.

²⁰Teich, A., Frankel, M.S., Kling, R., & Lee, Y. (1999, January 27). Anonymous communication policies for the internet: Results and recommendations of the aaas conference. American Association for the Advancement of Science, Retrieved from http://www.aaas.org/spp/anon/project.shtml.

²¹Agiesta, J., & Benac, N. (2011, September 6). Poll: OK to trade some freedoms to fight terrorism. Yahoo! News, Retrieved from http://news.yahoo.com/poll-ok-trade-freedoms-fight-terrorism-070707737.html.

The Socionomist is designed to help readers understand and anticipate waves of social mood. We also present the latest essays in the field of socionomics, the study of social mood; we anticipate that many of the hypotheses will be subjected to scientific testing in future scholarly studies.

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Most economists, historians and sociologists presume that events determine society’s mood. But socionomics hypothesizes the opposite: that social mood determines the character of social events. The events of history—such as investment booms and busts, political events, macroeconomic trends and even peace and war—are the products of a naturally occurring pattern of social-mood fluctuation. Such events, therefore, are not randomly distributed, as is commonly believed, but are in fact probabilistically predictable. Socionomics also posits that the stock market is the best available meter of a society’s aggregate mood, that news is irrelevant to social mood, and that financial and economic decision-making are fundamentally different in that financial decisions are motivated by the herding impulse while economic choices are guided by supply and demand. For more information about socionomic theory, see (1) the text, The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior © 2011, by Robert Prechter; (2) the introductory documentary History's Hidden Engine; (3) the video Toward a New Science of Social Prediction, Prechter’s 2004 speech before the London School of Economics in which he presents evidence to support his socionomic hypothesis; and (4) the Socionomics Institute’s website, www.socionomics.net. At no time will the Socionomics Institute make specific recommendations about a course of action for any specific person, and at no time may a reader, caller or viewer be justified in inferring that any such advice is intended.

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