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Home , Mass surveillance

Postscript

Maria Los

University of Ottawa, Canada [email protected]

Each of the articles in this issue addresses some important topics that have not been studied systematically by anyone else. The usual assertions of authors that their research breaks new ground are in this case fully justified. Very little has been published on the unique characteristics (if any) of in post- communist societies. My postscript is an attempt to provide some context or a map on which the current research could be sited.

Context: A Sketch of a Process

Based on my earlier research on the post-communist transformation in Poland and beyond, I was able to identify the basic features of the process of transition and the role played by the police structures and their secret knowledge in shaping, monitoring, and subverting that process (Łoś 2002, 2003, 2005). A book I co-authored with Polish sociologist Andrzej Zybertowicz (Łoś and Zybertowicz 2000) gives an account of hidden but essential mechanisms that were at play before, during, and after the “negotiated revolutions” of 1989.

It may be argued that almost thirty years after the system change in Central and , those old divisions based on the former communist status of individuals or groups do not really matter anymore. Yet, given the dynastic nature of post-communist networks, their unique subculture, interests, and mentality appear to be intergenerationally reproduced through nepotistic and/or familial ties. My research in this area does not extend to the present day, but there are some more up-to-date Polish publications that reconstruct the biographies of former communist functionaries and their families and clearly demonstrate the continuity of the web woven by their power, interests, and loyalties (for example, Kania, Targalski, and Marosz 2016, 2017). As well, recent accusations alleging that ’s President Putin is flooding the with disinformation and trying to skew Western elections should serve as a reminder of the perils of underestimating the KGB mindset.

What I present below is an outline of a process of post-communist transition that is reduced to the essential elements of particular relevance to the question of surveillance. This is an approximate and standardised representation that does not dwell on differences between individual post-communist countries, but focuses on key occurrences that took place to a greater or lesser extent in all or almost all of these countries. Because of the nature of this text, I do not give here the sources on which my findings are based but instead list references to my selected publications, where the detailed documentation can be found.

In my other publications, I attempted to evaluate the totalitarian potential of the new surveillance

Los, Maria. 2018. Postscript. Surveillance & Society 16(3): 362-369. ://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/index | ISSN: 1477-7487 © The author(s), 2018 | Licensed to the Surveillance Studies Network under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives license. Los: Postscript technologies (see Łoś 2006). Through my earlier inquiry into the nature of the twentieth century’s scientific , embodied in the communist and Nazi regimes, I have established a number of conditions that were required for their realisation (Łoś 2004). They included a monistic centralisation of control,1 social uprooting, atomisation and obliteration of the social, as well as the negation (or eradication) of such notions as liberty, truth, , and the Self. To a large degree, these conditions were achieved through deliberate processes of ruthless social engineering guided by powerful utopian ideological visions, which were buttressed by self-referential “scientific” narratives.

Subsequently, I used these findings as the criteria to assess potential vulnerability, or affinity, of the contemporary practices of regulation and surveillance to totalising designs. My conclusion was that the (late) modern epistemologies, new surveillance technology, and globalisation2 have contributed to de- traditionalisation, de-socialisation, and atomisation of society and a displacement of the Self. These processes have been accompanied by a hollowing out of both the epistemological and ethical normativity through the refutation of relevance of such notions as truth and morality (or moral integrity) (Łoś 2006).

Privatising the Police State

One of the extremely important—but largely overlooked by researchers—aspects of the post-communist transition was a swift commercialisation of a large part of the police state’s security apparatus—including means of coercion and surveillance—and their private appropriation by both military and civilian former secret service networks. The huge state apparatus that constituted the core of the communist totalitarian system became a contested terrain where the stakes were very high, and the best positioned players were to be rewarded with plum assets, which would enable them to steer the process of change and become virtual kingmakers in the years to come. It is worth noting that a hidden privatization of the police state legacy started well before the old regime’s collapse and it was likely initiated and monitored (coordinated?) by the KGB and/or GRU. This would help explain why this process took place at the same time and in a similar way in virtually all Soviet bloc countries.3

Prior to the final collapse of communism, communist elites realised that they had to design alternative ways of exercising control over the society and ensuring the hold of power in the event of regime change. This called for a comprehensive engagement of secret services in securing alternative forms of surveillance and active control in the politically, economically, and technologically changing reality. To be ready for every contingency, they felt they needed to prepare a private takeover of strategic sectors by informal communist elite networks. With the new state’s declared transition towards liberal democracy, the old police state complex had to be reduced and refurbished, but not necessarily destroyed. As a result, in most post-communist countries, a significant proportion of the former police state resources have been converted into a vast private security industry, encompassing security and protection companies, detective services, debt collection companies, economic intelligence agencies, data banks, and so on. These private ventures were usually owned, managed, and staffed by former functionaries of secret police, state militia, military complex, and other control agencies. They brought with them secret knowledge, skills,

1 By this I do not mean a straightforward centralization of power. As I explain it elsewhere, “The totalitarian experience of the past century teaches us that to pursue total, monistic domination, the ruling structure cannot be itself monolithic and coherent, yet it must generate a belief in a menacing deeper unity, hidden underneath and perpetuated behind the scenes” (Łoś 2006: 71). 2 I discuss various aspects of globalization and more specifically globalization of surveillance in Łoś (2006). 3 According to Antoni Macierewicz, the Interior Minister in 1919–92, the creation of the detective and security companies by communist operatives was initiated and at least in part directed by the Soviet intelligence services as an alternative surveillance apparatus that could be integrated with the Soviet/Russian services for information- gathering purposes in the event of the breakup of the Soviet bloc (quoted in J. M. 1997). For a historical examination of some aspects of the role of Moscow in the transition in Poland, see Cenckiewicz (2011).

Surveillance & Society 16(3) 363 Los: Postscript equipment, the readiness to use violence, political connections, organised links, and nets of informers.

Sowers of , Definers of Risks

Initially, the private security sector offered both legal and criminal services to both legal and criminal actors. It could be counted on for illegal debt collection, protection rackets, extortion, secret bugging and filming, illegal arms trade, prostitution, and contacts with organised crime.4 The industry was notorious for its involvement in most brutal of the post-communist era. Security sector employees were named in numerous bank robberies, vanishing security vans transporting large sums of money, hostage- takings, kidnappings, arson, torture, and murder. This greatly contributed to the growing disillusionment and fear in society at large, interpreted by some commentators as nostalgia for the communist past. Once again, these already traumatised societies were faced with calamities not of their own making and out of their control.

One of the key outcomes of this whole process was that the new private security sector, surreptitiously transplanted from the previous regime, took over many vital functions traditionally reserved for the state, such as , adjudication, security, intelligence gathering, and setting limits to secret surveillance and use of coercion. As such, it destabilised the fledgling democratic state and deprived it of the opportunity to establish its legitimacy. The lines between the private security industry and the state police and secret services were becoming blurred. In Poland, this new industry had enough influence on legislative processes that for nearly a decade it was able to prevent passage of any law that would regulate it through requirement of licensing, vetting employees, and so on. When a law was finally passed in 1997 (with a two-year grace period), it was so diluted that it was practically unenforceable. Instead, it immensely broadened the demand for private protection by making it compulsory for a whole range of state and private companies to retain security and/or protection services. It was only in 2001 that a more robust law was finally passed, but by that time the fortunes were already made or lost, turf wars mercilessly settled, and scruffy industry needed some respectability.5

The aftermath of the regime change in all formerly communist countries was characterised by an escalating fear of crime. Any radical change of this magnitude is likely to trigger a rapid increase in individual and organised crime. This understandably causes insecurity and perhaps an exaggerated perception of the threat of criminal victimisation on the part of ordinary citizens. Yet, given the relentless preoccupation with crime and crass fear mongering by some politicians and other public figures, the fear- of-crime campaign might have been deliberate and served some powerful interests. It seems that as they re-emerged as a private security industry, former secret police quickly became the primary providers of risk definitions and risk management technologies. By simultaneously contributing to social insecurity, defining risks, and supplying expensive and intrusive means to address them, these merchants of fear—as they were dubbed by some —were effectively shaping a new risk mentality that generated huge demand for their own products and services.

There may be various interpretations of the possible reasons for such frantic fear mongering on the part of old/new power networks and the media. First of all, societies ruled for decades by fear may become

4 For an excellent analysis of the crucial role of the access to violence in the Polish post-communist economy, see Sojak and Zybertowicz (2008). 5 At that time, a public relations campaign was launched to improve the industry’s image through more favourable media reporting, sleek advertising, and the appearance of popular TV series, featuring kindly, heroic, or glamorous private security agents. For example, a TV docu-series featured a real-life ex-militia-turned-private-detective, Krzysztof Rutkowski. A colourful showman, with a catchy vocabulary, he solved crimes faster than it took the police to arrive at the scene.

Surveillance & Society 16(3) 364 Los: Postscript dangerously emboldened by sudden freedom from fear. The substitution of fear of crime for previous fear of the (communist) state can be seen as a shrewd move by those who were the main beneficiaries of the managed revolutions but who could also become the main targets of popular wrath. Secondly, the cultivation of fear of conventional crime might have served as a deliberate diversion from the real hardships and criminal wrongs of the period of transition. Thirdly, it might simply have been considered “good for business,” as it produced demand for security services and devices that otherwise would not generate enough interest. Fourthly, insecurity about criminal victimisation might make individuals and businesses less reluctant to disclose their private data to security agents. Finally, fear of crime tends to lift security to the level of top priority and those who appear to provide at least some solutions win popular approval (in this case, the privatised post-communist security networks and not the weak and marginalised state).

For the sake of brevity, my summary of the process of the police state privatisation omits all the messy details and therefore may create an impression of a well-planned, tightly coordinated, cohesive process, orchestrated from behind the scenes. Of course, in reality it was far less coherent and unequivocal. The available evidence points to a complex combination of directives from Moscow, pre-planned general strategies worked out by top communist inner circles in some of the (post)communist countries, a relative unity of interests of the police state secret forces and their ability—due to superior resources and information—to respond with some coherence to a rapidly changing situation.

The Spectre of Cyber-Totalitarianism

It is rarely noticed that the collapse of communism in Europe coincided with the onset of the global that opened new and unprecedented opportunities both for citizen participation and expanded surveillance. Former communist societies, still wearing the scars of the previous regime were intrigued by these new technologies and their novel promise. Especially their younger and better-educated strata saw the internet as an alternative space akin to a global civil society, where they could safely exercise their newly gained freedom. For those who searched for freedom and alternatives to mainstream media, the internet offered a space to create independent information outlets, to publish and connect. For former secret police networks, however, the surveillance capacity of evolving digital technology presented a unique opportunity to enhance their involvement in personal, business, and government data collection and processing. It was once hoped that the new technologies might give post-communist societies a chance to free themselves from the chains of and total control. To some extent these hopes were fulfilled, but there is nothing intrinsic to digital technologies that would prevent them from being systematically used for nefarious or even totalitarian purposes by so-inclined powerful actors.

Does this signify a real and imminent danger of a digitally enhanced repetition of the twentieth century’s horrors? It doesn’t have to. But it may, if do not try harder to study and understand the long-term consequences of the society for various regions of the world. Recent developments in Russia and should be studied in depth. After a period of trying to undermine and curtail the internet, they seem to have learned how to use it to further their own goals and interests. Be it Russia’s ever tighter digital surveillance, harassment, and manipulation of the Russian-language internet sites,6 cyber warfare, disinformation campaigns, and global interference in the world’s affairs or China’s international hacking and economic and technological , domestic online censorship, or its totalitarian experiment in Xinjiang province.

6 See Tetyana Lokot’s article in this Special Issue for an excellent description and analysis of the many strategies used by Russia under Vladimir Putin to police online speech and spread misinformation in an effort to silence domestic opposition.

Surveillance & Society 16(3) 365 Los: Postscript

The latter is described by the Economist (2018a, 2018b) as “the nightmarish extreme that the new technology makes possible.” Fearing insurrection and separatism by Uighurs (a Muslim minority with some links to global jihad), China’s rulers have combined conventional and digital techniques of surveillance to submit the Uighurs to a system of complete control. The well-tested conventional methods used have included mass detention of Uighurs in re-education camps and a comprehensive system of population management involving intense control and human surveillance. Digital methods of control implemented in Xinjiang province include a dense saturation with CCTV artificial intelligence (AI) assisted cameras; voice and facial recognition technology; a compulsory government-issued spyware for mobile phones; and data-rich smart ID cards, containing a wealth of information about the card holders and their relatives, including their DNA, attitudes, and “reliability status.” All these data are entered into the Integrated Joint Operations Platform, which uses AI software to generate lists of people who should be detained.

The extreme control measures that are being deployed by Russia and China have been enabled by both the new surveillance technologies and many years’ experience of exercising total control over their populations through traditional, low-tech surveillance, invigilation, and indoctrination. Therefore, at least at this stage of AI development, combining the two approaches appears to be the most effective strategy for those bent on experimenting with totalitarian projects. This highlights the importance of research on surveillance, both conventional and digital, employed in communist and post-communist countries, which has been long overlooked by researchers in face of spectacular expansion of surveillance in the post 9/11 West.

In This Volume

This volume brings together several papers that touch upon diverse, seemingly unrelated, issues, but they all contribute, directly or indirectly, to a general picture of contemporary surveillance in post-communist countries. They also generate new questions that may be taken up in future research.

The article by Lavinia Stan and Marian Zulean on post-communist reforms of the intelligence sector in Romania addresses the key question of whether these reforms constituted a break with the former regime’s practices. Based on their research, the authors conclude that there is a strong organisational continuity between the communist Securitate and post-communist secret services. Despite some significant legal reforms, the latter seem to be able to disregard formal requirements of accountability, democratic oversight, and respect for human . The authors note the primary role of these services in the overall system of control in contemporary Romania, their closeness to the , and the continuous overreliance on mass surveillance.

This raises some more general questions that need to be addressed in the future, namely: (1) What is the essence of differences (if any) between a post-communist security apparatus and that which evolved in Western countries after the 9/11 attacks, and (2) What role has the new, digital technology played in continuation and/or discontinuation of communist-style security culture and practices in post-communist countries?

The issue of continuity versus change is also addressed in Rashid Gabdulhakov’s paper on citizen-led justice. He asks whether current digital vigilantism in Russia might be rooted in the Soviet-era practices of collective justice, exemplified by comrades’ courts,7 or whether it represents an entirely new development made possible by the global technological revolution and the appearance of social media. The author shows that when digital vigilantism first started in Russia under its second president, Vladimir Putin, it was organised, institutionalised, and financed by the Kremlin. Even when new groups eventually emerged

7 For more information on collective (or popular) justice in the USSR and Poland, see Łoś (1988: cht. 3).

Surveillance & Society 16(3) 366 Los: Postscript that were not pro-state, they were either co-opted or closely watched and often manipulated for political purposes. While his conclusions are nuanced, he stresses important similarities in the paramount role the state played in both Soviet times and in post-communist Russia in regulating, organising, and sponsoring “vigilantism.” He also notes significant differences between comrades’ courts and digital vigilantism, especially with respect to participants (older versus younger), targets (prescribed by the ruling ideology versus diverse), and the audience (local, small versus borderless, potentially vast).

While Gabdulhakov makes some interesting recommendations for future research, I want to add two more: (1) in-depth comparisons between current Western and Russian forms of digital vigilantism and reactions to them by their respective governments, and (2) in-depth comparisons between Russia and other post-communist countries in order to assess the specificity of the present situation in Russia and to gauge the extent to which the collectivist values also endure in other post-communist societies.

Daniela Richterova’s paper is based on the newly declassified archival materials from communist Czechoslovakia. She assesses the secret services’ ability to handle the new challenges presented by international terrorists visiting their country. She concludes that despite their long-perfected skills in invigilating and suppressing the domestic population, these services were quite inept in maintaining tight surveillance over international terrorists and revolutionaries who often visited Czechoslovakia for unknown purposes in the 1970s and 1980s. The author also argues that her findings render problematic Claire Sterling’s (1981) account of the international of that era as being largely (Soviet) state- sponsored.

How does this historical research relate to post-communist developments in surveillance? One surprising answer may be that it is what the paper leaves out of the picture that deserves more thorough scrutiny in terms of its implications for post-communist surveillance. What is left out is the USSR.

An important question may be asked in this context: What was the role of the in dictating specific tasks to be performed by Czechoslovak secret services and what was the division of labour in foreign intelligence gathering and, consequently, specialisation of skills and knowledge among different Soviet bloc countries? While the USSR wanted security forces of its “satellites” to maintain internal order and suppress any opposition, it also imposed strict control over their access to the Warsaw Pact’s classified intelligence and to any Soviet KGB or GRU covert operations conducted on the member state’s territory. The post-Prague-Spring Czechoslovakia was not the most trusted partner for the Soviet KGB and given the sweeping in the Czechoslovak StB—that removed many younger and better trained operatives at that time—it should not be surprising that they did not always know or were not informed what was going on around them. Unfortunately, while declassified archival materials may offer a valuable glimpse into the inner workings of secret services, they are unlikely to contain any direct information about Soviet operations in satellite countries.

A broader question that brings us back to the continuity/discontinuity issue is whether and in what way the KGB and/or Russian continue to operate in post-communist countries, what kind of surveillance and webs of informers they maintain, and what their relations are with post-communist security networks in these countries.

In their article, Jelena Budak and Edo Rajh present results of a study on surveillance concerns among internet users in Croatia. They established that those internet users who are more concerned about online surveillance are on average less educated and older (over 50), more likely to be female, and spend less time online. They tend to have less trust in government, other people, and the internet and are more likely to adopt countersurveillance strategies, such as providing false data online or withholding information. In this case, the question of continuity/discontinuity relates to differences in attitudes and declared behaviours among younger and older internet users. These are interesting results, but—as the authors

Surveillance & Society 16(3) 367 Los: Postscript themselves note—further research could look more in-depth into the question of whether these generational differences can be explained at least in part by the older generation’s past experience under communism.

Is it possible that their concerns about online are actually an expression of fear of being visible that might be a remnant of some enduring mental and psychological defence mechanisms or risk aversion strategies learned while living under the communist regime?8 But one should also keep in mind that marked generational differences in attitudes towards the new digital technology exist everywhere in the world and therefore it cannot be assumed a priori that history has anything to do with them. A more fundamental question may be: Does the experience of living under a communist regime have a lasting effect on people’s psyche and their attitudes towards new forms of surveillance and towards risks in general?

Tetyana Lokot’s contribution to this volume presents the results of her very interesting “netnographic” research on strategies used by Russian opposition activists to negotiate visibility and security in their online resistance practices. She describes the massive digital surveillance infrastructure that has evolved over recent years in Russia to police online speech. The pervasive digital surveillance, online harassment, and information warfare force the opposition activists to be creative in using various digital security tools and protocols in their effort to safely navigate the internet. Yet, as they do not want to sacrifice visibility of their message, they are constantly torn between the contradictory demands of security and visibility.

In this case, an ethnographic inquiry into the online problems faced by Russian opposition activists proved to be a very effective tool for probing the extent and methods of online speech control in contemporary Russia and the massive secret resources devoted to this endeavour. My suggestion for further research would be to extend this project to include China to enable comparisons between the two countries known for their dedication to online policing. Alternatively, it would also be interesting to see this study extended in time in order to gauge the direction and scope of changes in Russia’s efforts to harness the internet in its battle against political activism.

Conclusion

I think that good research is a product of curiosity, courage, and integrity.

A challenging but critical question to be tackled in future research on surveillance and society relates to the prospect of a new incarnation of the police or totalitarian state appearing in cyber space as its primary site, with more traditional forms of control and repression serving as a backup. The process whereby the means of censorship, mind-control, and manipulation are relocated to the alternative, digital realm should be studied thoroughly. We must ask ourselves what the implications would be of the information technology revolution being hijacked and compelled to promote police state goals. Would it affect the future direction of technological development? How would it change the world we live in? How would it change us?

I argued elsewhere (Łoś 2006) that totalitarianism is by definition a global project that cannot be fully accomplished in just one community or country. The ultimate feature of totalitarian domination is the absence of an exit. While we join the web voluntarily, it is increasingly difficult—if not impossible—to conduct our daily lives offline. It seems that leaders of both Russia and China are aware of this and see it as an opportunity to extend their thought control through the global reach of the internet.

8 For elaboration of some of those defence mechanisms, such as control mentality and taboo mentality, see Łoś (2002).

Surveillance & Society 16(3) 368 Los: Postscript

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