Hazards of the surveillance state and privatizing national security
Private tech firms have quietly replaced defense contractors as dominant forces in national security strategies, often trampling on basic rights and freedoms.
In a nutshell
- Unchecked governments weaponize technology in opaque deals
- State overreach, rather than private firms, drives erosion of civil liberties
- Surveillance is a government domestic control mechanism
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Not too long ago, defense companies, weapons manufacturers and military contractors were at the center of countless political debates and public controversies. They were even the targets of journalistic investigations, exposés and public scandals. Companies like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman or more infamously, Blackwater, were all too frequently in the news. Their formidable political influence was unmistakable, and their operational impact was clearly known and understood by the public.
The products and services they provided to various governments were very straightforward and their business models, incentives and tactics were more or less transparent. They sold fighter jets and bombs, rented out mercenaries or sold governments geopolitical research and military intelligence and equipment. They played a supportive role, complementing state defense activities and undertaking parts of projects that the government could not handle, or did not want to handle directly.
The defense giants that monopolized government contracts for decades have been overshadowed by Big Tech companies.
No matter what one might think of the ethical and moral aspects of these partnerships and their outcomes, the roles, practices and objectives of these companies were clearly laid out. Most importantly, it was evident to the public that whatever these entities did, however morally questionable it may have been, it did not affect them personally, as their remit did not extend to domestic policies.
This clarity and certainty has radically waned over the last few years. The defense giants that monopolized government contracts for decades have been overshadowed by Big Tech companies. Their mandates and limitations are worryingly opaque, and so are their tactics, the tools they use, the powers they are granted and the impact they have. More worryingly, at this point it has become unclear who their targets are.
Brave new world
Artificial intelligence applications, facial recognition systems, advanced surveillance tools and big data analytics have made private tech companies indispensable to national security. Without a doubt, they have introduced important innovations, improved efficiency and saved the taxpayer a lot of money.
However, all this has arguably come at the expense of accountability and transparency. As was the case with their predecessors, these tech firms also operate behind layers of confidentiality agreements and intellectual property protections, and they are largely shielded from transparency laws and freedom of information requests. The difference is that this time, the products and services they sell to the government go well beyond conventional weapons of war and actually have the potential to affect a nation’s own citizens without them ever knowing about it.
Through the evolution of technology and its relevant applications, the lines have been dangerously blurred between national defense and national security, between military tools and weapons that are meant to be deployed in a theater of war and tech products that are being used domestically and on a regular basis.
AI-driven data collection, facial recognition and biometric applications and mass on- and off-line surveillance technologies are now commonplace in everything from ordinary policing to public transportation. Citizens are usually totally unaware that their data is being collected and analyzed by private contractors working with their own government, and even if they are aware of it, they are rarely given the opportunity to opt out.
This clearly presents a fundamental violation of individual liberty and the right to privacy, and it marks a dangerous power shift away from democratically accountable institutions and toward entities that are accountable primarily to shareholders, whose main concern is profit maximization.
‘The customer is always right’
While the merits of privatization are undeniable in most areas of economic activity, the arguments that support it in the case of defense and security are weakened by the potential for moral corruption and the threats to individual liberty. When the government (and not the citizenry) is the customer, and “the customer is always right,” it is not difficult to recognize what dangerous lengths these companies will go to keep their customer happy.
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When faced with the choice between safeguarding basic rights and freedoms or securing a government contract and increasing profitability, it would be naive to think that most CEOs would choose the former. And when the government itself is capable of incredible abuses and shocking trespasses, as we have seen documented countless times in modern history, it is even more naive to believe that it would not ask (or at least tolerate) the same ethical “flexibility” from those it hires to do its bidding.
This moral hazard was central to the scandals that emerged during the Iraq war, or more recently, the revelations that came to light thanks to whistleblowers like Edward Snowden. Governments have repeatedly turned a blind eye to dubious or even outright unlawful practices by their contractors, and the public usually only finds out years later thanks to journalistic scrutiny or insiders who speak out (and often pay a high price for it).
Scenarios
This danger is amplified today due to the blurring of the lines between national defense and domestic security discussed above. Unfortunately, it is hard to imagine an optimistic scenario going forward. As previously highlighted, citizens are largely unaware of the direct impact these public-private partnerships have on them and they hardly ever have the chance to opt out. Even if they did, it is not guaranteed that they would.
Most likely: Technological advances come at the expense of privacy
In the digital age, there seems to be some sort of unspoken understanding that technological advances come at the expense of privacy. After all, 5.24 billion, or 63.9 percent of the world’s population, according to Statista, use social media and choose to share their data voluntarily to access these platforms’ services. How many of them would agree to do the same to access security services? It is therefore most likely that this trend will continue unabated and will become the new normal, if it has not already.
It is important to remember that it is not the contractors themselves that lie at the core of this problem. They are merely operating like rational economic actors, delivering a service to a client that asked for it. That client happens to be not only in charge of making the law, but in many cases is above the law as well. Governments habitually carve out special exceptions, privileges and “emergency powers” for themselves that do not apply to anyone else in society. In other words, even if private companies refused to cooperate and do business with the state, governments would simply forcibly access the data of their private citizen customers, as they so often do in the European Union.
Possible: Government overreach leads to pushback, demands for real oversight
The only way that this course can be corrected is if it results in explosive scandals like the ones we saw in the past that could have the potential to change public opinion and force people to revisit the cost-benefit analysis of their governments’ policies and their contractors’ practices.
For instance, with AI supercharging data collection and analysis and with the potential weaponization of this information, government overreach could rise to unprecedented levels, directly threatening freedom of speech or individual financial sovereignty. Armed with a “data monopoly,” the concept of a “social credit system” does not seem so outlandish anymore even for Western “liberal” governments. Such a tectonic shift could trigger a reaction from the body politic and perhaps lead to demands for greater transparency from private contractors, meaningful checks and balances, and effective oversight mechanisms.
Less likely: Big Tech contractors escape government control
Finally, there is a third possible scenario – less probable, but certainly not unprecedented. The power and influence of private contractors could eventually reach “critical mass” and allow them to directly challenge the authority of their own customers.
In June 2023, we saw this play out in Russia, when the Wagner group, a now-defunct Russian private military company, staged an uprising against the government. It was an extremely short-lived coup, but it served as a warning of what might happen if governments become over-reliant on private companies for their military and security needs and if the power balance tips in their favor.
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