Information: Part Two

In many ways the September 11th attacks marked a dramatic shift in the nature of conflict, and did so in two very important ways:

1) For the first time in history, the primary threat to U.S. national security is not a nation-state. Rather, it is a network of people unified around a radical interpretation of Islam and who have the goal of creating a pan-Arabic state and destroying nations whose ideologies run counter to their own. Keep in mind, they are at war with the PEOPLE of the West and not the States themselves; this is why they seek to target citizens.
2) The globalized world has enabled Al Qaeda to operate pretty much anywhere. In order for a network of people to operate globally, they must communicate with each other. Thus, a major front in this conflict is cyberspace.

And so begins the next installment of my series on information. Undoubtedly, Al Qaeda is in the process of planning an attack on the United States. Since they have been allowed to reestablish themselves in the tribal areas of Pakistan, they can spend more time operating their network and less time running from the US Military. Indeed, they operate largely with impunity in these extremely remote areas of the world.

Knowing this, there is a premium on having the ability to gather intelligence on their operations, both signals intelligence (the interception of phone calls, e-mails, etc.) and human intelligence (having operatives working on the inside of the network). The more intelligence we are able to gather, the more effective we will be at stopping whatever plans they might have. For example, wouldn't it be nice to know if Al Qaeda is planning to set off a nuclear weapon in, say, Los Angeles? Preferably, we would want to know this well in advance so we can stop it.

Information is now the most important tool the U.S. has in fighting the War on Terror. After September 11th, the Bush administration ordered the National Security Agency (NSA) to illegally wiretap American citizens in the United States. Without question, this is unconstitutional and a gross violation of our privacy rights. We have a strong tradition of protecting the privacy of our citizens and it's a bad deal when our president orders actions which completely undermines such a fundamental civil right.

I'm not fully aware of the legal arrangements which have been made since September 11th with respect to intelligence gathering. I do know that there is a process where, if it can be demonstrated that someone in the US has connections to a foreign terrorist network, it is legal to spy on them. Apparently obtaining the warrant required to do so can take a long time, more than 200 man hours on average.

I could go on about this for a long time, but I really wanted to emphasize the importance of intelligence in the context of the threats the US (and the West) are facing from organizations like Al Qaeda. Fortunately, congress (and Republicans in particular) have been very good at making sure that privacy rights continue to be guaranteed.

For anyone who's read 1984, the dangers of a government spying on its own people are clear. While I seriously doubt that something like that would actually happen, it remains an important consideration. My hope is that the Obama administration will place an emphasis on protecting the rights of US citizens, in contrast to the Bush administration. Since President Obama is an expert on constitutional law, I'm pretty optimistic that civil liberties will be preserved in the tradition of our nation.

Information: Part One

This is the first part in a series (of unknown length) on the role of information in the 21st century. Obviously this is a very broad topic, and it is likely that I will go off on tangents from time to time, but it is one that I've been giving some thought to of late. So please bear with me and forgive the loosely-structured nature of this discussion.

Many members of Western societies take the flow of information for granted. We have unfettered access to the internet, 24-hour news networks, and YouTube. In the US, we have the freedom of speech guaranteed to us in the 1st Amendment. However, a huge portion of the world lives without the flow of information we enjoy. I would like to spend some time on how a state which constricts its citizens' access to information can alter the future of a society, and indeed the world.

Imagine living in a society where you have NO access to the internet, NO news channels, and NO phone lines. Further, imagine living under the rule of a government which actively seeks to cut of all ties to the outside world. There is no rule of law, no access to education, and pervasive fear that expressing one's opinion could result in execution. This was life for the Afghan people for generations, living under one repressive regime after another, largely the result of the Russian and British Empires battling for control over Central Asia in what is known as The Great Game. In fact, the state of Afghanistan was CREATED by the British and ruled through puppet governments for quite some time.

The result of this history is a population who have had little to no exposure to the outside world and whom have been victim of one repressive regime after another. When the Taliban emerged with control of the country following the Soviet withdrawal, it used Islam as a means to control the Afghan people. Of course, this version of Islam was so extreme and so far from the mainstream that it could barely be identified as the same religion practiced by over a billion people in the world. In some capacity or another, Islam was used as a political tool to gain power and create a population of people who were utterly resistant to outside influence.

Now, you might be thinking that it is impossible for the restriction of information and the teaching of extremist ideology by a government to have that much of an influence on a population. A good example is in some former Soviet states in the region - Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan - the Soviet union was so successful at erasing the history of these societies, that people living today cannot tell you an accurate history of their past because all recorded knowledge has been purged, and all first-hand information went away as previous generations passed on. This was all part of the USSR's plans to "Sovietize" the Central Asia region.

When the movie Titanic illegally made its way into Afghanistan (3-4 years after it came out), many Afghan men began styling a haircut they referred to as "The Leo," obviously after Leonardo DiCaprio's haircut from the movie. The Taliban immediately BANNED this haircut because it represented an outside influence to Afghan society. The Taliban was so repressive that people were actually put in jail if they were seen sporting this haircut!

So, why should we care about all of this? The short answer is what happened on September 11th. It is no secret that the biggest cause of terrorism is NOT a hatred for the West or free societies. Rather, it is the product of extremely repressed, extremely poor people who have in essence been brainwashed as a result of their living conditions. It is easy to generate hatred for America when the people who supposedly hate us hear only the information their government wants them to hear.

Al Qaeda will not succeed in their goal simply because more and more people are gaining access to information about the outside world and are being exposed to the real America. We did not win the Cold War because of tanks, machine guns, or the existence of a nuclear arsenal capable of cracking our planet in half. Rather, we won because our country won the ideological battle in the eyes of the world. Communism failed as an ideology because the people living under the Soviet regime saw the freedom and prosperity enjoyed by the average American.

I have always been a proponent of the "lead by example" approach; it is what ultimately won the Cold War and it is why we will ultimately win the ideological battle with extreme Islam. Indeed, the strongest asset we have as a nation is our ability to set an example and generate respect among people of the world. It is therefore absolutely CRUCIAL that we maintain this asset as we move into the future. We must ensure that the "American dream" is alive and well; that EVERY person in this country has the opportunity to make a better life for themselves.