[bestbits] Surveillance: not just a US issue

[Pranesh Prakash]

Anne Jellema [2013-10-08 06:17]:
> Thanks Pranesh - these are fascinating pieces. I have been wondering for
> awhile if there is a widespread pattern of govts using hotly contested
> license negotiations or spectrum auctions to secure access to data. It only
> makes sense that they would try, I guess. 

Telecom companies, in every country I know of, operate under a licence
from the government.  This is so even when we aren't talking about
wireless (and hence aren't talking about spectrum).  The difficulty of
procuring the licence might vary greatly across countries, but you need
a licence.  This gives the government an extra leverage over telecom
providers (and ISPs) that they do not have over web services companies.
 The government can't threaten to revoke a web service's licence if it
fails to comply with certain licence requirements.

This is also another reason why it is far more difficult to convince
telecom operators to put in place "transparency reports" than it is to
convince web services, though even that in itself is difficult enough.

And licence requirements are much easier to put in place (since they,
essentially, are contracts) than governmental regulations and
legislation.  Further, they receive far less scrutiny.

Importantly, privacy-threatening or free expression-threatening licence
conditions do not need imposed under 'hotly contested licence
negotiations', since generally, though not necessarily, the parties have
very unequal bargaining positions.  The government usually would have a
state-owned telecom operator already and can prevent private companies
from being granted licences unless they comply.

Further, if the government offers to pay the telecom company for the
additional monetary costs of surveillance, which they many times do not,
the cost of violating the privacy and trust of their customers / their
customers' freedom of expression, association, etc., is negligible for
the telecom company.  So unless the monetary costs imposed by the
licence conditions are both high and are forced to be internalised, the
telecom company really needn't care.

> Does anyone have similar
> intelligence from other countries?

While I don't have similar intelligence from other countries, I can't
readily think of reasons as to why there would be significant departures
from this analysis.

-- 
Pranesh Prakash
Policy Director
Centre for Internet and Society
T: +91 80 40926283 | W: http://cis-india.org
PGP ID: 0x1D5C5F07 | Twitter: @pranesh_prakash
-------------------+
Postgraduate Associate & Access to Knowledge Fellow
Information Society Project, Yale Law School
T: +1 520 314 7147 | W: http://yaleisp.org

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/bestbits/attachments/20131008/80ebc61f/attachment.sig>