Dictatorship or democracy?

Democracy, as Winston Churchill famously said, “is the worst system of government, except for all the others that have been tried”.

But many people – understandably – think that democracy only has to do with voting once in a while for the party of your choice, and perhaps things like free speech and independent courts. While these things are fundamental to the system, there is, however, more. The private sector also play – or should play – an unofficial but essential role which is all too often not understood, not in the least by the captains of industry who frequently have big, but unseen influence behind the curtains.

Last week Reuters news agency broke a big story which made waves internationally, but scarcely registered on South Africans’ radar screens.

It appears that RSA, described as “one of the most influential firms in the computer security industry”, has entered into a contract, worth $10m, with the National Security Agency (NSA) in America, “to embed encryption software that it could crack into widely used computer products”.

Translated into normal English, this means that RSA (so named after the initials of the three founders) added a back door to encrypted e-mails through which the NSA could read them. Many companies, but also politicians, diplomats and ordinary people encrypt all or some of their e-mails in order to prevent Big Brother from reading them.

According to Reuters, the NSA started putting pressure on RSA in the twilight days of the Clinton Administration, but the company resolutely refused. However, two factors changed that.

A month after 9/11, President George W. Bush gave permission – in secret, of course – for the large-scale interception of electronic communications by the NSA. Armed with this backing, the NSA redoubled its pressure on RSA.

At the same time, the RSA leadership was replaced with different people, more bent on making money and less encumbered with pesky principles. To them, the contract looked lucrative, and Bob was your uncle.

With the back door secretly added to all the encyption programmes sold by RSA to its customers, these blissfully went on exchanging sensitive information, not knowing that an army of hard-working NSA spies were lapping up every word.

Edward Snowden’s revelations have, however, radically changed the world climate. The tolerance for the NSA’s secret eaves-dropping has diminished drastically. To his credit, President Barack Obama has now apparently realised from which direction the wind is blowing. A court has criticised the NSA heavily and hinted that its practices are unconstitutional, although the Supreme Court will, of course, have the last say.

A presidential commission advised the President last week that the NSA should no longer have anything to do with encryption software, as this lessens the credibility of companies who make them. Obama still has to pronounce on the report.

Many people will undoubtedly ask what the hullabaloo is all about. They don’t care that bodies like the NSA or its equivalents in other countries read their mail; after all, they have nothing to hide.

Well, good luck to them. It is a matter of keeping “the worst system of government” intact.

Eaves-dropping is one of the most favoured methods of dictatorships to keep the population in check. It started with Hitler and Stalin, and other Communist dictators eagerly took this habit over.

Democracies do not read other people’s private mail, except under strictly controlled conditions. If the police have a suspicion that X has robbed a bank or that Y and his buddies are planning a terrorist attack, they lay their case before an independent judge. And if they can convince him, they may proceed.

But the mass interception of your and my mail – that reeks of dictatorship.

Luckily, as the exposing of the NSA’s practices show, democracy has an in-built capacity to correct itself. In a recent article in The Guardian, Cambridge professor David Runciman writes that democracies are often untidy, and they have a notorious inability to take swift and decisive action. They frequently go off the rails.

But when dictatorships go wrong – and they invariably do, just as democracies – they have no built-in capacity to correct themselves. Democracies often roll and wobble about, like a ship in a storm at sea, but they correct themselves.

Edward Snowden’s relevations about the NSA stepping over the line is a typical example. And so is Reuters’ exposition of the collusion between the NSA and RSA.

One problem remains. Is the private sector, especially the big multinational companies, also transparent and responsible enough to be corrected when they transgress? In RSA’s case, profit clearly was more important than principles.

Perhaps we should start talking about the role of the private sector as well, and not only look to governments’ secretive ways.

 -  Fin24

* Leopold Scholtz is an independent political analyst who lives in Europe. Views expressed are his own.