Thomas Paine statue, Thetford, Norfolk. Wikicommons/Andrewself. Some rights reserved.‘Government founded… on a system of universal peace, on the indefeasible
hereditary Rights of Man … interests not particular individuals but nations in
its progress, and promises a new era to the human race.’ – Tom Paine, Rights of Man
In the second decade of the twenty
first century, citizenship is defined not just by the people being able to
choose the political leadership of their nation through regular elections, but
also by the legal protection of their human rights, such as media freedom,
personal privacy, fair trials and religious toleration.
Enshrined in both national
constitutions and international treaties, these democratic precepts ensure that
individual citizens can express their views and campaign for causes without
fear of persecution or discrimination. Yet, when they were first codified
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’ modernising revolutions which
overthrew aristocratic and priestly despotism in western Europe and North
America, these fundamental freedoms were initially restricted to a minority of
the population: white male property-owners.
Despite the universalist rhetoric
of the English 1689 Bill of Rights, the French
1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen and the USA’s 1791 Bill of Rights, men without property, all women and the African slaves who were
property remained outside their constitutional protection. In this pioneering
liberal iteration, political and civil freedom was founded upon economic
exploitation. Human rights were the privilege of the few, not the emancipation
of the many.
Over the past two centuries, this
oligarchic interpretation of citizenship has been superseded by a more
democratic vision of individual liberty. Adopted in the immediate aftermath of
the victory over fascism, the United Nations’ 1948 Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and
the 1950
European Convention on Human Rights included the previously excluded within
their provisions.
All adults were now entitled to
the full rights of political citizenship. When these mid-twentieth century
charters were being drawn up, there were fierce debates between Left and Right
over whether social and economic rights should also be given legal recognition.
Seeking to mobilise the masses against its internal and external enemies, the
Jacobins had promised in their 1793
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen that the French republic would ensure
that all citizens had access to the necessities of life.
In 1944, responding to the global
wartime emergency, US president Franklin Roosevelt had called for a new bill of
rights which guaranteed employment, housing, healthcare, education and pensions
for the whole population. Although the Right vetoed their inclusion in the 1948
and 1950 charters, the Left’s socio-economic precepts of human liberty were
eventually codified in the United Nations’ 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Individual freedoms required
the collective means to realise them in practice. The liberties of the many
must take precedence over the privileges of the few.
During the past few decades, this
socialist version of human rights has been almost forgotten. For the Left as
well as the Right, the implosion of the Soviet Union has justified a return to
the original liberal interpretation of these constitutional principles. According
to the USSR’s 1936 Fundamental Rights & Duties of Citizens, every adult was entitled to an
impressive collection of both political-civil and socio-economic freedoms.
Unfortunately, as anyone who tried to put them into practice soon discovered to
their cost, these emancipatory promises had been devised as ideological
mystifications. By emphasising social and economic rights over political and
civil liberty, the Stalinist dictatorship could deny both types of citizenship
to its citizens. Not surprisingly, many of those who opposed this totalitarian
regime concluded that the Left’s attempts to extend human rights into civil
society had negated their original intention: protecting individual freedom
from state tyranny.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall
in 1989, the demise of Stalinism in Eastern Europe and Russia was symbolised by
their new democratic governments’ enthusiasm for the eighteenth century
interpretation of personal liberty. The USA’s 1791 Bill of Rights didn’t need augmenting by the UN’s 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. On the contrary, political and
civil freedom from state interference was the only possible form of freedom in
the post-modern world. Liberalism and democracy were synonymous.
The recent revelations by Edward
Snowden and other whistle-blowers about the American empire’s megalomaniac
scheme to spy upon every inhabitant of the planet have discredited ‘the West’s’
self-identification as the global champion of human rights.
Even with their huge resources,
the Stalinist spooks of the KGB with their twentieth century industrial
technologies were only able to monitor the activities of a minority of Soviet
citizens. In contrast, the NSA is now equipped with twenty-first century
digital technologies which can intercept the emails, texts, phone calls, web
browsing, media downloads and social media activity of almost all of humanity.
Most worryingly, the liberal
guarantees of the 1791 Bill of Rights have failed to protect the American people from the totalitarian
ambitions of their own nation’s secret police. Added as the 4th Amendment of
the US constitution, a clause of this charter promised that the private
communications of individual citizens could only be intercepted in exceptional
circumstances which required judicial authorisation. However, this fundamental
principle was quickly discarded to reassure an American public terrorised by Al
Qaeda’s 2001 murderous attacks on New York and Washington DC.
Having obtained the approval of a
supine legislature and compliant courts, the US government ordered the NSA to
build the technical infrastructure for the ubiquitous surveillance of the
entire global population. Like its defunct Stalinist rival, the American empire
now champions the ideal of individual freedom to negate its implementation in
practice. Far from advancing political and civil rights, the abandonment of
socio-economic rights has emboldened the imperial hegemon to eviscerate all
legal restrictions on its repressive powers at home and abroad. National
security is now the antithesis of personal liberty.
The NSA’s totalitarian project to
place the whole of humanity under permanent real-time surveillance is built
upon the dominance of corporate America over the Net. Whether for targeted
advertising, market research or customer relations, these dotcom companies have
become proficient at gathering and analysing data about how people are using
their products and services.
From social media postings to
on-line shopping, people are constantly sharing intimate details of their
private lives with strangers. For the NSA’s spooks, gaining access to this
confidential information which can reveal an individual’s political opinions,
moral beliefs and cultural tastes is a top priority. Since anyone could be an
enemy of the American empire, everyone on this planet is a target of
surveillance.
According to some clever hackers
and resourceful entrepreneurs, this illegal snooping can be thwarted by
developing strong forms of encryption for the masses. However, as revealed by
Snowden’s leaks, any technological fix is unlikely to provide a long-term
solution for protecting personal privacy. It isn’t just that the NSA has become
adept at breaking encryption by compromising software and hardware security.
Above all, the eighteenth century’s concept of a citizenry composed of atomised
individuals is an anachronism for the twenty-first century’s networked masses.
Thomas Paine: William Blake notebook, detail. Wikicommons. Some rights reserved
Capitalism in its dotage
What was once revolutionary has
now become reactionary. At the dawn of modernity, liberalism emerged as the
philosophy of the white male property-owners who challenged monarchical
oppression and clerical bigotry. With capitalism now in its dotage, the
boosters of neo-liberalism have appropriated this radical heritage to excuse
the social and environmental depredations of corrupt governments, fraudulent
banks and tax-dodging corporations. By praising political-civil rights to
demonise socio-economic rights, these apologists of the American empire have
undermined the juridical foundations of both types of citizenship. The defence
of liberal democracy against Stalinist tyranny has morphed into the advocacy of
neo-liberal oligarchy against plebeian democracy.
At this dangerous moment in the
history of humanity, personal freedom is threatened by the intrusive attentions
of both authoritarian states and monopolistic businesses. If liberty and
democracy are to be enhanced within the Net, what is now required is an
energetic public debate over how to construct a new constitutional settlement
which nurtures today’s collective forms of digital citizenship.
In the virtual world, as in real
life, people must be confident not only that their personal communications will
remain private, but also that they can freely express controversial opinions
without inhibition. Crucially, these political and civil rights must be
combined with socio-economic rights. The sharing of information over the Net is
a premonition of the democratisation of the whole productive process.
If they are to contribute to this
collaborative endeavour, everyone must have access to the knowledge and
technologies which will be used to build the emerging network society. Like its
liberal and socialist predecessors, this new dispensation should be guided by
its own rules of the game. The creation of a Net Bill of Rights codifies the
mutually agreed principles for regulating individuals’ on-line activities in
the common interest. By collectively defining a new vision of digital
citizenship, this generation can make its own world-historical contribution
towards building a truly human civilisation. The better future must be
anticipated in the troubled present. Let’s seize this opportunity to transform
our utopian dreams into everyday life!
This article was originally published on the Cybersalon website on March 8, 2015.