Originally published on the CGS blog on December 7, 2011.
It’s no secret that technology and new media have fueled recent revolutions throughout the world, particularly the Arab Spring. Facebook pages allow protestors to rally together around a cause or share thoughts in honor of martyrs. Smart phones let witnesses take photos and videos of violence and then immediately Tweet the multimedia. Organizing and planning for protests and marches is done almost entirely online. Information from places where journalists are forbidden is relayed to friends and relatives abroad through Skype, email and instant messaging. Social media and other new technologies are some of the biggest winners of the Arab Spring, empowering protestors becoming worldwide symbols of the power of free speech and democracy in action.
While this story is inspirational, the relationship between technology and revolution is not always that rosy. Just as protestors can use technology as a tool for democracy, autocratic governments have also been able to use technology as a tool to control and repress those who try to rebel. Governments have increasingly blocked social networking sites and interfered with internet and phone service in an attempt to impede the efforts of protestors. Even worse, governments have used the internet to track and monitor, and then punish, the most vocal proponents of the uprisings.
Frank La Rue, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, said “Governments are using increasingly sophisticated technologies and tactics which are often hidden from the public to censor online content and monitor and identify individuals who disseminate critical or sensitive information, which frequently lead to arbitrary arrests and detention.” These tyrannical regimes are using the Internet not just to cut off communication amongst protestors but also to track and then abuse opposition leaders.
Perhaps nowhere has this malevolent use of technology been more extensive than in Syria, where the uprisings have been met with the most brutal crackdown of the Arab Spring. The government of current dictator Bashar al-Assad has censored the Internet to try to limit communications and prevent the spread of information about the violence his regime has committed. Assad has barred most foreign journalists from operating within the country, making the ability of protestors to post images and video online one of the few ways the international community is able to monitor the situation.
In a move that shows the extreme level of Assad’s desperation, there are reports that the regime has gone as far as to ban the use of iPhones in the country. This ban would severely limit the actions of citizen journalists and make it even harder for the actions of the regime to become known beyond Syria’s borders. It also further violates the rights of protestors to free speech and expression.
Almost as appalling as the use of technology as a mechanism of control are the actions of several U.S. companies that make them almost complicit in Internet monitoring and censoring. Blue Coat Systems, a company based in California that makes internet-blocking equipment, acknowledged in October that at least 13 of its devices were being used in Syria. Logs for the devices show that the Syrian government was using them to censor and filter information on the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria and to deny access to a website that has been posting information on the Syrian uprisings. Attempts to access social networking sites were either blocked or recorded.
The U.S. Commerce Department has launched an investigation into the situation with Blue Coat Systems and a second American company named NetApp, which also makes Internet surveillance equipment, discovered its technology was in use in Syria. U.S. companies have been forbidden from exporting to Syria since sanctions were put in place in 2004. Blue Coat Systems claims they shipped their product to Dubai, which they then believed would be transferred to Iraq. The company says that they have no idea how 13 of the 14 devices they shipped ended up in Syria. This is typical of many U.S. companies for a broad range of exports who rarely track the transfer of goods beyond the first legal sale abroad.
American companies are not alone in finding their products misused by dictators in the Middle East. Egyptian security forces used the technology of a British company to monitor protestors Skype activity. Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi used a French company’s technology to read dissidents’ emails and instant messaging. It has proved extremely difficult for Western corporations to keep their products out of the hands of autocrats who wildly deviate from their intended use.
It is unacceptable for technology companies based in free societies to unwittingly support the brutal crackdown of dictators. Profits should not come before the American values of democracy and free speech. Blue Coat Systems and other companies need to put in place stronger mechanisms for tracing their products internationally and preventing the misuse of their equipment by those the U.S. government has sanctioned.
The right to free speech and expression is increasingly understood as a basic human right. Protestors have stood up worldwide for these freedoms throughout the last year, bravely calling for change with voices that have long been silenced. No company or individual should stand in the way of this movement. No company or individual should prevent these calls from being heard.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will participate in a conference on internet freedom later this week in The Hague. Look for an update to our blog following this conference.
