-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 A packet sent by an American or European should be given no greater privileges then a packet sent by someone from the middle east. Those holding dual citizenry (one being of their locale and the other a product of the internet' stateless generation) will not find this question odd. But to end racial profiling in the protocol (example [1]) questioning the rationale of stateful civil liberties is also required. Initially this argument will seem a moral one but there are practical reasons to consider. The increasingly globalised society is doing little to stem the threat of terrorism while at the same time increasing the call for more equal rights. Together this warrants questioning the justification and benefits of discriminatory rights. ## Justification A primary tool for the arbitration of discriminatory surveillance policies are secret courts. One justification for secret courts is the protection of sources and methods. Any investigation into an on-going threat requires some form of secrecy. Terrorism is one such threat. But this is not the only on-going threat that courts handle. We should consider whether the vanilla judicial systems cannot already handle this requirement. Existing courts must also handle on-going threats and have to do so while considering how the utilisation of secrecy for greater security, and perhaps more efficient investigation, balances against the risk to social contracts that define liberties and rights. With each justification for protection of methods when investigation terrorism threats we can ask if these were any different for investigations into the racketeering ring of, say, Al Capone. Clearly such investigations would be more efficient when perpetrators can be swept off into secret prisons on the signature of a secret judge. Existing courts already provide some room for discretionary secrecy. The prosecution can determine which evidence they disclose to the courts or wider public. In many nations there is also room for disclosure only to the judge while avoiding exposure to the wider public record. Finally parallel construction [2] is a questionable but often used method for protecting both sources and methods. Further, some exposure of methods provides an early feedback to individuals that they can get caught. Whereas when the means to find criminals are unknown and the criminals themselves are whisked off into secrecy this benefit is completely lost. Another justification for secret courts may be risk of spys within the court itself. With intent to obtain influence or at least advanced warning of investigative activity. But are our judiciaries less equipped to handle this threat than when it comes from state sponsored intelligence agencies? If anything the threat is diminished because the architecture and premise of terrorist institutions is much more decentralised than state intelligence. Terrorist institutions are one partly of memetics. The violent form of "grumpy cat" [3]. Within societies threatened by their ideologies the appeal reaches only a few in like mind. Unlike your 3-letter-agency-of-choice they lack the appeal to mount sufficient infiltration of any local judiciary. Further, the centralisation of all terrorist based investigation in the form of a handful of secret courts may be one of the few reasons left consider the threat of infiltration. Whereas if public courts were used this threat would be diffused as is the case with investigations into other national or international on-going threats. Therefore... **The justification for nationalist or racial rights may be efficiency alone. But at what cost?** ## Benefits and Cost For most the foundational documents of their country of origin are held in almost religious regard. As in religion these documents are subject to interpretation even though the indoctrinated claim they are timelessly impervious to it. They are social contracts. The cost benefit analysis weighed tacitly by judges when permitting secrecy is a consideration of the social contract a given case may effect. They collectively change that contract through their actions. This subjectivity is both a risk and a necessity. I once asked a rabbi why kosher laws do not allow Jews to eat a chicken and cheese sandwich? What the Bible forbids is boiling a "kid" in its mothers milk. I've rarely enjoyed boiled sandwiches and never heard of chicken milk. The Rabbi explained something to the effect "God gave the law to man for the rabbinate to change and interpret. The kosher laws are as much about how behaviour is perceived as it is about what God commands. Someone on the other side of the room may just see you eating meat and cheese together. This would encourage the wrong understanding of that law." Interpretation is a slippery slope. Yet, at least Judaic law acknowledges the social contract and that perception is important. Where as our governments, through secrecy, negate even the possibility or interpretation or consideration of perception. With our collective identity and social threats becoming ever globalised the result of enforcing an absolute interpretation is ignorance of sovereignty (see drone warfare) and increasing rejection of equal rights. With these acts the state in turning from a conduit that fosters individuality into one that reinforces homogeneity. With the risk that the meme will increasingly hold more weight than the rationale. I have been lucky enough to have lived in countries that know how much they suck at war so the Americanism "War on ..." always seems strange. Yet the "War on Drugs" or "War on Poverty" are efforts that this society perceives as a collective will because of shared equality. If we want the War on Terror to be perceived as a collective issue globally we will need to start with endowing the "other" with equality. Those that frame this debate in the context "Liberty versus Security"... **It is easy to confuse Privilege for Liberty.** ## Racial Profiling I'm certain there is reason to question these arguments yet I believe they give some reason for debate. (i) The public judiciary already has many of the tools required to handle current threats. (ii) Centralization into secret courts creates its own vulnerability and its own justification. (iii) Necessity for efficiency ignores the cost to social contracts in a globalised context. (iv) Secrecy makes impossible consideration of equal rights in a global context and removes the possibility to account for perception. (v) Secrecy removes a feedback that informs civil behaviour in societies. Along with the judiciary there is a parallel of discriminatory profiling within the field of engineering. Our protocols have been built for such profiling. I do not feel alone in questioning whether the current stewards of the internet shouldn't be replaced with those of government agency from which the internet was born. Balkanisation is increasingly being seen as a solution, not the threat. Yet we protest while boringly waiting for some form of acknowledgement of responsibility from the IETF to change the protocols. In our digital world the concern for how protocols support and make discrimination possible will seem less distant. Rather than congratulate ourselves for dejecting a member of the NSA from the Crypto Forum Research Group we should be more disturbed by the inability of the IETF to acknowledge any responsibility for the ethics in the protocols. - -- 1. "GeoIP is a threat to democracy" https://cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2014-July/005037.html 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction 3. https://startpage.com/do/search?cat=pics&query=grumpy+cat -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJU75vTAAoJEHi6xtksL8/uwC8P/0PkrdsbZzo4qcosdVeNC9Ei sroo0ohyICt34uxeEpTisdWxv0GKPVFGqSDBAYfvRwc1+Ko6YnEeDlqb3+TNktTE GIzZAwslb3LJx09IERh6xMbdMkkXl2iw9qkRmvDK56Txk5B9HNY3bR/xBFN9oi4x mzOx8uN39xLxnUAff8071wkAzepZXVT6TC1gIq/95Vqrt8cP8C5oP+q04jHnxSev X+B18+3ytQvlbbRMVu3BPfDd8/PBdga6jdvnDIaVclM6Olagw1hwHv5IgXIA6edP 5UGc5v+uadYknVabDN/bQXqo9rYLAbwgAJgbaGPemdFLOl6mnsIaGiQCrKa/C2wm m1GX6D/kna3bUVHm6pZ+W0A7c9ERMLgDjItrCApUdXGgU2c770shxkQZVyWwUY5g G4fhpk9PgEeouZVRtHVjSw2cAhhsTNVaWWotJ3UPL9n6Soxtu68wNV/hQUhsEAHO NPCTV6LZVjaN11jZi+2JhLVe2w+4d6GNQjSkm1C1cs7XHqZ2P0Z4R6oigU8n6PIx aEZGvvhRct3PUodshOqQUwV1Ml4nUTEn6diJvDkHxW5YN2XHfJIv3zLo4tMQ6fF8 DV+uUSBl+arNKe/ehmxN+G550JVoQnOLUOcihNeCqFqWBCtlsWnP4vgRFFfl79iH EyI9rZP34J/yJMOJK/h/ =rYE3 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----