Liberty and security, a tightrope balancing act

CONTROVERSY over social media surveillance has hit new levels following confirmation of monitoring by British security services.

In a statement released by Charles Farr, the Director General of the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism, GCHQ is legally entitled to intercept UK residents’ Facebook and Google communications 

because they are defined as ‘external communications’.

The news comes as concerns rise over the systematic use by terrorist organisations, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), of social media to spread propaganda and recruit fighters.

"ISIS is making effective use of startling images depicting their operations, notably including mass executions of Iraqi soldiers in Tikrit last week. Their fearsome reputation, bolstered by such images, has translated into success on the battlefield, with Iraqi security forces fleeing strategic towns and cities rather than engage the militants directly," Jordan Perry, an analyst at risk advisory company Maplecroft, has been reported as saying. "It is very likely that intelligence agencies in Europe, the US and elsewhere are monitoring the online chatter of Islamist groups – including Isis – very closely indeed."

The balancing between privacy rights and the need to forestall potential terror campaigns is not a new issue. Following leaks by former United States intelligence analyst Edward Snowden concerning the level of government surveillance observers have questioned how much liberty can be sacrificed in the name of security.

In his statement Mr Farr says: "Any regime that … only permitted interception in relation to specific persons or premises, would not have allowed adequate levels of intelligence information to be obtained and would not have met the undoubted requirements of intelligence for the protection of national security."

Meanwhile privacy rights campaigners and politicians have hit back, calling for an overhaul of the 'Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIPA) to block, what they claim, is an attempt by security agencies to circumvent the law.

Lord Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, was reported by the Guardian newspaper as saying: "Mr Farr's statement is the best argument I have seen for a thorough overhaul of surveillance law to bring it into the modern age. When Ripa was enacted, social media didn't exist.

"It is fatuous to pretend that elderly laws can cope with modern communications, as Mr Farr convincingly demonstrates. No doubt our intelligence agencies take their legal duties seriously, but the problem is that those legal duties fail to address the 21st century. We need new laws to counter new threats, carrying public confidence with them."

The debate over how much access to people's private information often overlooks certain considerations, however. The open nature of access to social media and the unfeasible prospect of monitoring millions of different accounts are often quoted as reasons for people not to fear scrutiny of their individual accounts.

So long as groups, such as ISIS, continue to expand their use of social networking sites to recruit impressionable young members it seems unlikely that any restriction of abilities to stop widespread terror attacks will gain the needed momentum to bring about a significant change in the law.

"I think it was obvious very early on that they (ISIS) launched their offensive with a social media campaign well planned in advance. This wasn't an afterthought. This wasn't something that they made up as they went along," said American analyst John Little, who monitors national security, conflicts and technology at Blogs of War.