[governance] Former FCC commissioner Michael Copps on The National Security-Communications Industry Complex

[Thomas Lowenhaupt]

Folks,

Below is an insightful article by former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Copps> on his experiences with 
national security interests while at the FCC. Copps' experiences led me 
to ponder how civil society might enter into a trusting multistakeholder 
negotiation knowing of these close relationships between government and 
industry. Here's one approach.

Civil society must acknowledge that the nation-state has a vital role in 
matters of security. And we must accept that an institutional aversion 
to failure in these matters is natural.

With this awareness we can ask that nation-state participants in 
multistakeholder talks present a "statement of needs." This statement 
should present in general scope, and as much detail as practicable, the 
nature of relationships sought by government to meet these needs.

Working from these understandings civil society can enter into a 
trusting relationship in Brazil and elsewhere.

Tom Lowenhaupt


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[/The Benton Foundation publishes articles penned by Commissioner Copps 
each month for our Digital Beat Blog 
<http://benton.org/blog?utm_campaign=Newsletters&utm_source=sendgrid&utm_medium=email>./]

*The Long Arm of the National Security-Communications Industry Complex*

This is a story about more than just the national security implications 
of government surveillance, but it begins there.

The New York Times reported in a front page story 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/07/us/cia-is-said-to-pay-att-for-call-data.html?utm_campaign=Newsletters&utm_source=sendgrid&utm_medium=email> 
earlier this month that the Central Intelligence Agency 
<https://www.cia.gov/index.html?utm_campaign=Newsletters&utm_source=sendgrid&utm_medium=email> 
is paying AT&T in excess of $10 million annually for information from 
the company’s telephone records, including the international calls of 
U.S. citizens. The article pointed out that this work "is conducted 
under a voluntary contract, not under subpoenas or court orders 
compelling the company to participate, according to officials." The 
story adds yet another chapter to the still-unfolding revelations about 
National Security Agency 
<http://www.nsa.gov/?utm_campaign=Newsletters&utm_source=sendgrid&utm_medium=email> 
surveillance. Every week seems to bring new reports about the close and 
almost seamless ties that bind the several intelligence agencies to the 
huge telecom and broadband companies that bestride our nation’s 
communications infrastructure.

When I became a Member of the Federal Communications Commission 
<http://www.fcc.gov/?utm_campaign=Newsletters&utm_source=sendgrid&utm_medium=email> 
(FCC) in 2001, I assumed I would be privy to at least a credible amount 
of information about what the companies under FCC oversight were doing 
behind the scenes. My expectations went unfulfilled.

Did I expect the nation’s most sensitive intelligence information to be 
shared with me? No, I did not. But would it have been helpful for me to 
know more about how the industry executives who visited me on a whole 
range of non-national security communications industry issues were at 
the same time working hand-in-glove with the White House and these 
secretive agencies on a far more intimate and confidential basis than I 
was? Yes, absolutely.

Warnings about various special interest-government complexes hearken 
back to President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell speech 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY&utm_campaign=Newsletters&utm_source=sendgrid&utm_medium=email> 
wherein he warned of the dangers that the military-industrial complex 
held for democratic government. Historians consider Ike’s admonition as 
a high-point of his Presidency. Since that speech almost 53 years ago, 
the influence of special interests and corporate power has only grown -- 
at the White House, in Congress, and among the federal agencies.

Maybe I’m a slow learner, or maybe I just wasn’t supposed to know, but 
it finally dawned on me that the CEOs and top management who came 
calling on me at the FCC were far better informed and connected than I 
was -- because their companies were the ones running these sensitive 
monitoring and surveillance operations in behalf of the national 
security agencies. It was, very often, their workers and their 
technologies that drove the process. Meanwhile, industry leaders 
themselves served on such influential but hush-hush boards as The 
President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee 
<http://www.dhs.gov/nstac?utm_campaign=Newsletters&utm_source=sendgrid&utm_medium=email>. 


As I began to grasp the power of these huge companies to leverage their 
influence on non-national security matters, I also began to understand 
that my influence as a Commissioner at an independent federal agency was 
more limited than I had thought. In a lengthy July 25, 2013 article in 
the National Journal, Chief Correspondent Michael Hirsh 
<?utm_campaign=Newsletters&utm_source=sendgrid&utm_medium=email> traced 
in considerable detail how our nation’s leading telecom and tech 
companies supported -- and even helped create -- the “surveillance 
state.” It is, of course, a story going back long before Iraq and 
Afghanistan to the days of World War II, and it’s the stuff of a 
thriller novel -- except it’s not that entertaining.

Hirsh tells how the NSA became an influential voice in the evolution of 
our communications systems, becoming a “major presence” in such 
seemingly non-defense decisions as industry mergers and consolidations. 
But these transactions weren’t “non-defense” to the intelligence 
agencies. On the contrary, it was easier and more efficient for the 
agencies to deal with huge industry players where the number of 
decision-makers was narrowed and where the sheer power of size helped 
get the national security job done.

It wasn’t news to me that these huge companies wielded far-reaching 
power all across Washington. I just didn’t realize how much power until 
I had been there a while. Then I began to think: /what difference does 
it make if one or two Commissioners at the FCC don’t approve of a 
pending merger between telecom giants?/ (And, goodness knows, there are 
plenty of such transactions!) I conjured up images of a national 
security agency meeting at the White House 
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/?utm_campaign=Newsletters&utm_source=sendgrid&utm_medium=email> 
and someone saying, /“This guy Copps down at the FCC is opposed to this 
merger.”/ And I could envision a White House or national security type 
saying, /“So what? These companies are working with us on all kinds of 
secret projects, and that takes precedence over any Commissioner’s 
worries about diminishing competition in communications or about 
consumer protection.”/

And so the consolidation bazaar rolls on, companies continue to merge, 
and we find ourselves in a world wherein a few dominant players drive 
the last spikes into the coffin of competition. I am not arguing that 
national security concerns alone brought us to this point; there are 
plenty of other reasons that Big Telecom wants to grow even bigger. I 
*/am/* saying that both parties to this national security-communications 
industry complex derived great benefits (in their eyes) from this 
partnership. I */am/* saying the tentacles of this cooperative 
enterprise reach widely and deeply into many aspects of our national 
life. And I */am/* saying the American people need to know more -- much 
more -- about this.

We can argue the pros and cons of national security surveillance, and it 
is a debate worth having. But this debate needs to be informed by facts. 
Maybe we can’t have all the facts in all their detail, but certainly we 
need more than we presently possess. There is a point where national 
security depends upon secrecy. There is also a point where national 
security depends upon sunlight. The balance is sadly out-of-whack right 
now, and we are paying the price in the loss of government credibility 
both at home and abroad.

Finally, we need to conduct this discussion in a broader context because 
it is part of even larger issues. Every day brings non-national security 
revelations about companies developing and deploying new ways to invade 
our personal space, capture every available fact about our daily lives 
and habits, and share them for purely commercial benefit. This is not an 
issue separate from what I have been discussing in this piece. And, as 
deeply troubling as the privacy and consumer issues are, the 
implications for democracy are just as severe. Open communications are a 
prerequisite of self-government. Any short-circuiting of this openness 
diminishes the ability of free people to chart their own democratic future.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Copps served as a commissioner on the Federal Communications 
Commission from May 2001 to December 2011 and was the FCC's Acting 
Chairman from January to June 2009. His years at the Commission have 
been highlighted by his strong defense of "the public interest"; 
outreach to what he calls "non-traditional stakeholders" in the 
decisions of the FCC, particularly minorities, Native Americans and the 
various disabilities communities; and actions to stem the tide of what 
he regards as excessive consolidation in the nation's media and 
telecommunications industries. In 2012, former Commissioner Copps joined 
Common Cause to lead its Media and Democracy Reform Initiative. Common 
Cause is a nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 1970 
by John Gardner as a vehicle for citizens to make their voices heard in 
the political process and to hold their elected leaders accountable to 
the public interest.

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