Is social media intelligence private? Privacy in public and the nature of social media intelligence

ABSTRACT

SOCMINT (SOCial Media INTelligence) is increasingly considered relevant and cost efficient information, and the exploitation of social media information in the name of security and public safety is generally regarded as unproblematic. We will critically scrutinize this claim and argue that the exploitation of such information by Intelligence and Security Services raises new ethical concerns. Drawing on recent moral discussions about privacy, we will argue that individuals have an interest in privacy in public spaces, including online spaces. We will discuss the role of such public privacy interests and argue that the systematic surveillance of social media platforms by security authorities potentially entail a negative chilling effect.     

Imperfect Federalism: The Intergovernmental Partnership for Homeland Security

The terror attacks of September 11, 2001, posed a set of security challenges for the nation's cities that the increasingly decentralized federal system was poorly prepared to meet. Although it was generally agreed that domestic security required a close intergovernmental partnership, strong national leadership and support were lacking in creating and guiding this partnership. To make matters more difficult, political considerations in Congress generally trumped the assessment of security risks in the distribution of federal fiscal aid. This article explores the strains in the intergovernmental homeland security partnership, their causes, and efforts to adapt and reform. Despite some progress toward a more rational public administration of homeland security, the partnership still reflects the deficiencies of imperfect federalism.     

试论入世后治安行政管理模式的转换——特种行业、娱乐场所治安管理工作的新方法、新思路

WTO的加入使得旧体制下治安行政管理模式的种种弊端日益显现。特种行业、娱乐场所已成为治安行政管理的重要内容,公安机关治安管理部门正面临着管理观念、管理模式、管理方法的转变。在新的形势下,如何加强特种行业、娱乐场所的治安管理是一个亟待研究的课题,只有从观念、具体工作及立法保障上对其加以更新和规范,才能适应新形势的要求。     

Playing with Fire: The Civil Liberties Implications of September 11th

The aftermath of September 11th has seen a worrisome rise in invasive surveillance measures. Both adopted by statute and initiated by agencies, these provisions provide unprecedented powers for government agents to investigate suspects and search individuals, whether they are directly involved in terrorism or not. The prevailing wisdom has been that the American people will accept these restrictions as the natural cost of heightened security, and initial evidence suggests the public has been willing to tolerate greater limits on civil liberties. However, over time such support will erode, leaving in place permanent restrictions on civil liberties that not only will concern Americans, but also may turn them against government officials and civic participation. Thus, contrary to many interpretations of September 11th, this article argues that the policy response has only sown the seeds for greater detachment from and dissatisfaction with government as the public becomes increasingly separated from the workings and operations of public policy.     

Private Provision of Services and Infrastructure – An Expanding Industry of the Nineties

A conference devoted to the public sector a decade ago is unlikely to have paid any attention to the private provision of public services and infrastructure, as at that stage such activities had had very little impact on the operations of governments in Australia. This article argues that private provision is an important emerging element of public sector service delivery.While generally supportive of such developments, the article presents reasons why governments have increasingly turned to private provision including the benefits involved, but also raises potential management and accountability considerations.     

A new role for ‘the public’? Exploring cyber security controversies in the case of WannaCry

ABSTRACT

As cyber-security incidents become increasingly prevalent, we are facing a major political and democratic challenge: who comprises “the public” in relation to such incidents? Based on a study of the controversies surrounding the WannaCry ransomware attack, this article unpacks issues facing the creation of publics in contemporary ICT-mediated security practices. It shows how cyber-security incidents, such as WannaCry, do not neatly align with traditional national security politics and democracy, and it demonstrates the need to attend to how security publics are created. This may paradoxically entail both political and democratic challenges and possibilities for security politics in the digital age.     

THE MARKET PROVISION OF MANDATORY SOCIAL SECURITY: Protecting the Public Interest in Perpetuity

Pressures to introduce market reforms to public social security system emerged as a reaction to state welfare paternalism, drawing strength from the spirit of liberalism and emphasizing the virtues of the marketplace. Market reform advocates seek to shift the prevailing social security paradigm away from community solidarity to individual responsibility, with a view to divesting government of some of its statutory social security responsibilities. Market reform of public social security provision redefines the public‐private boundary, making socio‐political governance more a process of co‐ordination, steering, influencing, and balancing pluralist interactions, with the civil service increasingly expected to act as trustee of the public interest. What, however, the public interest is and how it differs from private interest is problematic and it should reflect the shared values that create social bonds and identity within a society. The daunting twin challenges facing governments are to design a set of regulatory arrangements that can protect the public interest in perpetuity, and to resist calls for government subsidies to support the economic rent expectations of privatized providers. To meet these challenges the “hollowed‐out” state must become a “smart” state.     

Social security and private saving: theory and historical evidence

This article is a nontechnical presentation of the debate that has gone on during the past decade over whether the U.S. social security system has depressed private saving in the economy. The heart of the article is an assessment of economist Martin Feldstein's original evidence, presentation of the alternative evidence that concluded that currently available historical data do not support the proposition that social security reduces private saving, and an evaluation of the contradictory evidence presented by Feldstein in response to the alternative evidence. The article concludes that, although the total body of evidence is inconclusive, the historical evidence fails to support the hypothesis that social security has reduced private saving. The Office of Research, Statistics, and International Policy, as part of its ongoing research mission, investigates the interrelationship between social security and the economy. This article presents an examination of one of several aspects of this relationship relevant to public policy considerations and is intended to make previously published technical papers available to a broader audience.     

U.S. Initiative to Place Weapons in Space: The Catalyst for a Space-Based Arms Race with China and Russia

The United States must ensure sustainability and stability in space by protecting its satellites to safeguard national security and economic vitality. Concerns for obtaining this security are mounting, as U.S. satellites are increasingly vulnerable to developing threats from adversaries. This article proposes that the United States will eventually initiate the weaponization of space to defend its space systems and supporting infrastructure. The consequence for such an initiative will manifest a pronounced counteraction from China and Russia, the key spacefaring adversaries of the United States. Such a counteraction will consist of a space-based arms race, as each nation will jockey to position itself as the dominant power in space.     

MANAGING WITH LESS

Managers everywhere are faced always with problems of scarcity, with setting priorities, making trade-offs and allocating short resources. One part of the administrative task is necessarily about getting the most done for the least cost. But is Australian government administration now entering a particularly severe period of restraint, which will place even sharper challenges upon managers in the public service? I think the answer to this question is yes, and that there is general agreement about this within the public service itself. Problems of managing with less are therefore contemporary and pressing; and this paper is a summary of ways in which those problems are being approached. One way issues in calls for improved efficiency in government. This is not, however, a straightforward matter at all. Improvements or so called improvements to efficiency will always meet some resistance for a mixture of reasons. Some managers think that the need for change is not as great as critics maintain, so giving them no cause to do more than continue their normal practices of good management. Others see a renewed emphasis on efficiency as cutting into the resources properly available to the public service, so harming the community which the administration is supposed to serve. Managing with less is not then merely a technical issue. It involves questions about the meaning of efficiency and the role of management, and also judgments about the nature of the period in which we live and about who gains and who loses when we do indeed have to manage with less: that is, political and even moral considerations are mixed up with considerations of good management and efficiency. These matters of value, choice and conflict cannot be avoided.     

Secrecy,Security and Digital Literacy in an Era of Meta-Data: Why the Canadian Westminster Model Falls Short

The purpose of this article is to undertake a critical assessment of the governance of Canada's national security apparatus and, more specifically, the growing digitization and data-driven dimensions of such an apparatus. Over the previous decade, since 9/11, the advent of electronic government (e-government) and its emphasis on horizontality and interoperability became intertwined with the security apparatus of the public sector: the recent Snowden affair in the US has once again brought such discussions to the forefront. It is within such a context that the rise of ‘big data’ (or meta-data) as an identifiable term denotes a confluence of forces and contradictory tensions between openness and secrecy for the public sector both operationally and democratically. We examine Canada's Westminster insularity in this regard, how Canadian reforms meant to augment oversight and review capacities of security agencies have been stunted in recent years, and why such stalled actions matter to the privacy and safety of Canadian citizens. Conversely, a case for more openness and governance innovation is put forth premised on two main and inter-related directions: more political oversight and public dialogue on the one hand, and a greater emphasis on privacy as a responsibility on the other hand. Together these directions emphasize a more activist and participative civil culture that is central to ensuring societal resilience in an increasingly virtual and complex security environment.     

The challenges of fractionalized property rights in public‐private hybrid organizations: The good,the bad,and the ugly

Policy designers seeking to harness profit‐driven efficiency for public purposes are increasingly creating organizations with fractionalized property rights that distribute “ownership” among public and private actors. The resulting hybrids are quite diverse, including mixed enterprises, public‐private partnerships, social entrepreneurship organizations, government‐sponsored enterprises, and various other hybrid forms. Marrying public purposes to private sector efficiency and strategic flexibility provides a tempting rationale for mixing public and private owners in hybrid organizations. Because public‐private hybrids involve fractionalized property rights, however, they exhibit tension among owners over both strategy and, more importantly, goals. To understand public‐private hybrids, we assess them in terms of six dimensions of property rights: fragmentation of ownership, clarity of allocation, cost of alienation, security from trespass, credibility of persistence, and autonomy (of both owners and managers). The unclear allocation of fractionalized ownership rights facilitates the appropriation of financial residuals and asset ownership opportunistically. Other weaknesses in the property rights configurations of public‐private hybrids create managerial dissonance or opportunistic behavior that typically leads to a narrowing of goals, but sometimes also to organizational failure.     

Minilateral security's relevance to US strategy in the Indo-Pacific: challenges and prospects

The Indo-Pacific region's security landscape is unfolding in highly uncertain and potentially explosive ways. The postwar American-led network of bilateral alliances – underpinned by concrete guarantees of extended deterrence and containment – is now yielding to a more diverse set of alignments and coalitions to manage an increasingly complex array of regional security issues. Multilateralism and minilateralism have emerged as two increasingly prominent forms of such cooperation. Minilateralism's informality and flexibility appeals to those who are sceptical about multilateralism's traditional focus on norm adherence and community-building even as great power competition in the Indo-Pacific is sharply intensifying. However, minilateralism's track record in the region is underdeveloped. The potential for this policy approach to be applied by the United States and its regional security partners as an enduring and credible means of diplomatic and security collaboration in the region will remain unfulfilled as long as the Trump administration's own geopolitical orientation remains uncertain.     

Winning Hearts and Minds in Civil Wars: Governance,Leadership Change,and Support for Violent Groups in Iraq

The “hearts and minds” model of combating rebellions holds that civilians are less likely to support violent opposition groups if the government provides public services and security. Building on this model, we argue that a political event that raises popular expectations of future public service and security provision increases support for the government and decreases sympathy for violent opposition groups. To test this argument, we leverage a unique research design opportunity that stems from the unforeseen announcement of the resignation of Iraq's divisive prime minister in August 2014 while an original survey was being administered across the country. We show that the leadership transition led Iraq's displeased Sunni Arab minority to shift support from the violent opposition to the government. In line with our argument, this realignment was due to rising optimism among Sunni Arabs that the new government would provide services and public goods—specifically security, electricity, and jobs.     

China's evolving role in African security

China’s engagement in Africa is increasingly defined by its role in bolstering peace and security. Beijing has signalled greater political will with peacekeeping deployments on the continent, as well as increasing capabilities with its new naval base in Djibouti. Positive outcomes could include greater Chinese support for African security efforts and increased regional security cooperation with the United States. But these will depend substantially on how China's wider strategic outlook and relationships evolve.     

Foreign Policy as Battlefield: A Study of National Interest and Party Motives

In no other policy arena are party unity and national unity considered as critical as in security and foreign policy. Party unity on foreign policy is viewed as a national security strategy of particular importance in times of international crisis and uncertainty, or as an expression of party strategy and ideological considerations. Through an empirical study of programs, congresses, voters and ideology of the Swedish parties 1945–1993, we show that the presence or absence of tension in the international system does not affect the inclination of parties to take issue on matters of foreign policy. We also show that parties argue just as much about issues that are central to Swedish security policy as they do about issues that do not directly affect national interest. The main sources of party disagreement over foreign policy seem to be ideologically motivated.     

The Prohibition against Torture: Why the UK Government is Falling Short and the Risks that Remain

While the UK's official position is that it neither uses nor condones torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment (CIDT), it is now a matter of public and parliamentary record that UK security services and military personnel colluded in rendition, torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, both as part of the CIA's Rendition, Detention and Interrogation (RDI) programme, at military detention facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq, and through involvement in the detention and interrogation of prisoners by allied security forces. This paper will explain why the government is falling short of its obligations under international law, and why considerable risks remain that UK intelligence and security services will continue to collude in torture and CIDT .     

Network Dynamics and Network Effectiveness: A Methodological Framework for Public Sector Networks in the Field of National Security

The network form of organisation is becoming increasingly important across many areas of public administration, but most analysts would agree that not enough is known about networks. This article is based on a detailed qualitative study of public sector networks in the field of national security in Australia. It reviews the dynamics and effectiveness of networks as organisational forms in this important field. A methodological framework involving five interdependent levels of analysis—structure, culture, policy, technology and relationships—is put forward to account for the internal dynamics of networks and the conditions that promote their effectiveness. The article concludes with recommendations for analysing networks in ways that can assist with the important task of network management.     

刍议旅客列车刑事案件侦查管辖的重构

目前旅客列车刑事案件侦查管辖模式的不合理是导致旅客列车违法犯罪没有得到真正、有效打击的主要原因。从诉讼价值的最大化出发,应对旅客列车违法犯罪侦查管辖进行重构,即旅客列车上的刑事案件由列车运行地铁路公安处管辖。所谓运行地铁路公安机关管辖是指当旅客列车运行在某一个铁路公安处的辖区内,列车上发生的刑事案件由该辖区所属的铁路公安处进行立案、侦查等相关的诉讼活动。     

浅谈铁路治安防控体系的构成

建立铁路治安防控体系,要动员全社会力量、运用各种手段和措施来防控复杂的铁路治安问题。但对于作为铁路治安防控主体的全社会力量究竟包括哪些元素,作为铁路治安防控的客体,铁路治安问题主要表现在哪些方面,铁路治安防控最基本的措施又是什么,需要有明确的认识,否则会影响铁路治安防控系统模式的确立与铁路治安防控的实际操作。根据铁路公安机关近年来的实践,结合有关人员对铁路治安防控体系的探讨,本文试从铁路治安防控体系的主体、客体、措施等方面谈铁路治安防控体系的构成。