With the recent controversy over Edward Snowden and his leaks regarding government surveillance, it is hardly astounding that a international communications espionage program headed by the united states would be in existence, but what is truly astounding is the publics’ seemingly oblivious knowledge of such a system and the sparse lack of attention that is paid to it even after controversies such a wiki leaks, anonymous, and Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden.  An even larger problem remains the disturbing lack of ethics revealed by the existence of such a program that is the coordination of multiple countries.

The program is called ECHELON and scholars in law have studied the programs existence before, however to many it is not common knowledge. According to scholar Lawrence Sloan in an article in the Duke Law Journal “Echelon and the Legal Restraints on Signals Intelligence”, ECHELON is a worldwide communications espionage effort. It is a joint project by the National Security Agency in the USA along with its counter parts in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Scholars like Sloan believe that ECHELON intercepts all forms of global communication, from telephone communications, to the Internet to satellite data transmission as well as high frequency radio, microwave radio relay, and subsea cables.

The purpose of this spy network is to comb communications for messages related to terrorism and international crime. Although Britain and America deny such a system exists, BBC News obtained confirmation that ECHELON is a reality from the government of Australia and their Inspector General of Intelligence and Security Bill Blick.

It is a tool that can easily be abused and in Europe allegations were surfacing that the system could be used to conduct illegal economic espionage on behalf of American companies to give them an advantage over their foreign competitors. Scholars already believe ECHELON has the likely potential of being used to spy on individual citizens.

ECHELON truly does represent a viable threat to personal security despite the claimed purpose. Invasion of privacy is a paramount concern, since the project seems to operate in absence of the law and order of international regimes and personal liberties of both the citizens who the agencies claim to be watching out for, and those of foreign citizens as well.  ECHELON truly takes Big Brother to an unprecedented level, standing as a hypocritical tool for nations that claim to protect the rights, liberties and freedoms of their citizens. These rights and liberties have already lost ground in the post 911 world, but one was wonder how far is too far. ECHELON begs the question, to what end will governments go in the name of “fighting terrorism”? How much more ground will our personal liberties have to give in this new era?

By merely existing this type of system may be a threat to democracy. The system itself has no moral compass for rights and wrongs; that is placed entirely in the hands of the systems operators and directors who are consolidating power with such a tool. One wonders what would happen if dictatorships and autocracies like North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Russia were to create a similar project together, or other countries as well.  Cyberspace and personal privacy could prove to become the battleground of information warfare. Thinking about how many regimes arrest, in prison, detain or kidnap private citizens already for dissent, a tool like ECHELON could expedite and simplify those highly unethical practices.

The public needs more disclosure on projects like ECHELON or personal and cyberspace privacy may very well become virtues of the past.

Although many scholars and people may have hoped for social media and cyber space to bring a brighter democratic future for the entire world, I happen to believe that the internet democratic utopian idea needs a much more cautious approach and more complex analysis. I believe these technologies are tools, which can be used to enhance freedom but also to consolidate power and influence and still must compete with long held institutions of power in many parts of the world.

Arguably Internet and the phenomenon of social media have given voices to those who would otherwise not be heard and in some cases allowed for significant mobilization in the name of democracy. The Internet and social media are undoubtedly powerful tools, which was ultimately proved in the Arab spring uprising, providing a tremendous platform for mobilization with an initially unprecedented outcome and in some countries a form of effective change.  However, the fact remains that almost four years later, Egypt has not been able to obtain the democracy it desired, even with such a profound tool and Syria, which followed in the tides of the Arab Spring continues to engage in a decimating civil war.

Like Egypt, in many parts of the world the Internet and democratic mobilization must clash with long held powers of institutions making change no quick agenda.  Russia faced a wave of protests against Vladimir Putin with little to no avail and Putin’s regime remains strong. As an article in Maclean’s magazine mentioned there is a popular widespread discontent among Russians with Putin and the government, but people feel powerless to change it and those who are leaving the country actually strengthen the regime.  In the case of Russia, social media and the Internet and mobilization can only go so far against the regime, state control and brutal crack down on protestors.

urther more those who want to consolidate and keep power, like Putin and the Kremlin understand that social media, multimedia, the internet and related integrated information technologies are tools to use at their disposal as well. As the Faris and Etling Article “Madison and the Smart Mob” states, the Kremlin deployed pro-Kremlin bloggers to debate critics of Putin, and Russia’s most popular blogging platform “Live Journal” was bought by a Putin ally. Further more the Kremlin established soviet like era “Pioneers” pro-Kremlin youth group, called Noshi (Ours) to establish a stronger public opinion amongst Russian youth and to counteract dissidence, all who are cable of deploying and using cyber technologies for their organization’s agenda.

The Internet is never a source of guarantee in fostering the growth of human rights.  The internet in Russia, which is relatively free despite state control of print media, for example, has done little to curve the culture of hate and discrimination to gays and lesbians bringing into question the ability of cyber information to improve human rights in countries that fall under authoritative regimes and have long held cultural mistrusts.  Despite access to educational resources through the Internet, some polls suggest as many as 84% of adults disapprove of homosexual relationships and laws like the “anti-gay propaganda law” pass with high favor in public opinion.

There is no doubt that in already democratic countries with rules and norms open to fair and free political process and public speech, cyber space and social media can increase democracy but for many parts of the world it is still the wild west as well as tool of power to be harnessed. It is important to remember that extremists groups and terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Al Qaeda have used cyberspace and multimedia as propaganda and public opinion weapons to win favor of people in their embattled regions. Often they use strategies which directly target youth through messages spread in rap videos and in the case of Hezbollah, online combat training games one which ended in the player receiving an award for assassinating Israel’s Prime Minister Sharon, among many other cyber tools and websites engineered to engage other segments of the population as well.

In Democratic societies money and influence can still create favor and consolidate power in cyber world where so many voices constantly stream. Companies and organizations with access to resources and educated people can still create a larger voice which might be heard over others.  Companies and social media can also buy and sell your information at will with little penalty and even private citizens can easily access the information of others even going as far as to use Google earth to actually locate an image of the home where someone lives. My thought is if private citizens are able to do this, one wonders what governments may be cable of.

It is important to remember that the Internet and cyberspace are tools, and although in some areas of the world, democracy has been positively affected by this revolution, these tools are at the disposal of anyone who has the knowledge and expertise to utilize them and can easily be misused and abused. Democratic change through cyberspace may prove to be a slow and uncertain process in many parts of the world where the mobilized numbers will still have to clash with the power and strength of long held institutions, which are also extending their reach onto cyberspace.

Cyberspace is no democratic utopia; it is simply the next frontier.