This is damned interesting, and so is Singapore.
I don't think all the interest suddenly vanishes; I saw this article yesterday, but didn't have the time to respond in the depth that I felt it deserved. Right off the bat, I will say that I'm not particularly familiar with Singaporean culture, and although I've heard and read quite a few things about Singapore, it's always difficult to make judgments from the outside looking in. Also, not having much experience with Foreign Policy magazine and their biases, I'd say the overall tone of the article was generally supportive of surveillance in general, but it raised several good points. The fundamental premise here seems to be that through harnessing mass surveillance and big-data analysis, a more harmonious society can be created, which on its face, seemed like a bit of a non-sequitur. With Singapore's different culture and laws surrounding privacy, it allows for surveillance to tackle all sorts of problems, allowing them to accomplish governmental goals in a more intelligent and informed way: Ultimately, I felt like the article was heavy on claims, but light on the details of exactly how the rubber meets the road. Of course this entire piece was written with the blessing of the Singapore government, and judging from the example about a lawsuit brought against the New York Times Co. over a libelous column against their PM in the International Herald Tribune, the government monitors critical writing and opinions carefully, so I read it with a grain of salt. The first example, about SARS, does the best job of highlighting the benefits from big-data analysis. Connecting the dots of where and when an infectious disease is breaking is certainly the holy grail of public health. It reminds me that Google is actually really good at tracking and predicting flu activity just from analyzing search queries. I can agree that harnessing big-data analysis for purposes like this are in the public's interest, but obviously the RAHS system goes much further than that. For all the of the hyperbolic and inflammatory accusations claiming that the US is just like 1984, Singapore is clearly much closer to that reality than the US is. I thought it was interesting that their internet traffic is monitored for two types of prohibited content: porn and racial invective. The author made a note of the fact that they do a poor job of blocking porn, although there was no analysis as to why porn is officially blocked, or whether their porous filters allow it on purpose. The bit about racial invective, however, was quite interesting:
Singaporeans have been charged under the Sedition Act for making racist statements online, but officials are quick to point out that they don't consider this censorship. Hateful speech threatens to tear the nation's multiethnic social fabric and is therefore a national security threat, they say. After the 2012 arrest of two Chinese teenage boys, who police alleged had made racist comments on Facebook and Twitter about ethnic Malays, a senior police official explained to reporters: "The right to free speech does not extend to making remarks that incite racial and religious friction and conflict. The Internet may be a convenient medium to express one's views, but members of the public should bear in mind that they are no less accountable for their actions online." The premise that the right to free speech shouldn't extend to inciting racial or religious friction is one I don't necessarily agree with, although I would be curious to hear what other Hubskites think about this. Certainly free speech is not an absolute right, but the idea of "religious friction" as being off-limits seems like an ambiguous determination which could be ripe for abuse. I can understand the desire to maintain harmony in a racially diverse urban society, but I have to question if banning, limiting, or otherwise controlling speech about race is really creating harmony, or just merely preventing the public expression of acrimony caused by other underlying factors. The author also addresses what I would consider a fundamental tension in any democratic society employing mass surveillance, especially one as authoritarian as Singapore, and that's how to handle critique of the ruling party. A democracy requires the free and open exchange of ideas and information between citizens; controlling the public conversation is tantamount to controlling the democracy. There seems to be an interesting distinction made by the Singaporean government in this regard, allowing some criticism of the official dogma, while "commentary that impugns an individual's character or motives. . . is off-limits because, like racial invective, it is seen as a threat to the nation's delicate balance." I suspect I might not be getting a full story here, and my lack of knowledge when it comes to Singaporean internal politics does myself a disservice. It is interesting to note that defenders of US surveillance practices will sometimes say that if you're not a criminal, why should you worry about surveillance? It seems that among Singaporeans, there is a slight tweak to that aphorism: "if you're not a criminal or an opponent of the government, you don't have anything to worry about." Coupled with all of the individual surveillance, this seems like a system ready to be abused, and although the article offers virtually no examples of such abuse, I have to wonder in what myriad of unpublicized ways these powers are being used. In the end, I leave the article with an appreciation for the double-edged sword that mass surveillance and big-data analysis is. The author notes that recently the RAHS system has been expanded to get detailed metrics about public opinions and perceptions which would probably otherwise be impossible to see. A government which is responsive to the mood and feelings of the public is certainly a good thing, although I would expect that a technocratic government like Singapore's recognizes that populism is hardly a silver bullet. Several examples at the end illustrate that the ruling party is coming under increasing pressure on a variety of fundamental issues like labor, housing, food, economic growth, etc. While surveillance and big-data analysis may provide unique insight into new solutions, the pernicious authoritarian aspects of those techniques could just as easily turn repression into a solution. Again, given my lack of knowledge of Singaporean culture, internal politics, and history, I have little choice but to accept the quote from the RAHS study at face value, but I think it serves to highlight the varied and fluid nature of social contracts between people and their government. It's important to remember that any social policy inevitably involves a trade-off of values, and it's hard for me to say what should or shouldn't work for them. In any complex system, it's difficult to pull out one particular policy and determine its results; Singapore obviously has had great successes with respect to economic growth and public safety and their focus on the social contract between citizens and their government seems well placed. Essentially, it comes down to an issue of how such a system is used. There is no magic solution to any of the problems faced by governments, as the author duly notes at the very end of the article. Governance is a tricky issue; so long as the public has trust and faith in their leaders, and those leaders enact policies and use their powers in ways which benefit the public as a whole, that should be the ultimate goal. The sidelong comparisons to US surveillance felt out of place considering how the US intelligence community, in some ways, places itself above the social contract.Across Singapore's national ministries and departments today, armies of civil servants use scenario-based planning and big-data analysis from RAHS for a host of applications beyond fending off bombs and bugs. They use it to plan procurement cycles and budgets, make economic forecasts, inform immigration policy, study housing markets, and develop education plans for Singaporean schoolchildren -- and they are looking to analyze Facebook posts, Twitter messages, and other social media in an attempt to "gauge the nation's mood" about everything from government social programs to the potential for civil unrest.
Post a comment or an article that the law deems racially offensive or inflammatory and the police may come to your door.
"In Singapore, the threshold for surveillance is deemed relatively higher," according to one RAHS study, with the majority of citizens having accepted the "surveillance situation" as necessary for deterring terrorism and "self-radicalization." Singaporeans speak, often reverently, of the "social contract" between the people and their government. They have consciously chosen to surrender certain civil liberties and individual freedoms in exchange for fundamental guarantees: security, education, affordable housing, health care.
But the social contract is negotiable and "should not be taken for granted," the RAHS team warns. "Nor should it be expected to be perpetual. Surveillance measures considered acceptable today may not be tolerable by future generations of Singaporeans."
You'll note that every time someone says something racially insensitive and overly public from the anonymity of twitter, the masses come out of the woodwork and scream that they ought to go to jail. In Singapore, they actually do. (Or, hopefully, they just don't bother.) It's worth noting that much of the west has a severe double standard on this (and in Britain, at least, people get prosecuted for the exact situation I'm describing; just as they do in Singapore). I would hazard a guess that the so-called slippery slope argument which I despise so much is actually closest to being a potential reality in a city with a culture like Singapore's. We've seen seemingly stable situations plunge into martial law or dictatorial rule several times in Southeastern Asia. According to the article, things are trending in the other direction, but that doesn't mean a whole lot. We'll see. My takeaway with regard to the United States (and there's clearly subcontext on FP's part) is that this system is "perfect" (works most optimally, assuming benevolent rulers) for a city-state with limited population and size. If you implement something like this in the United States -- in other words, even more encompassing than what we have -- you get the same amount of intrusion but way too many things slipping through the cracks. I bet. I don't know.The premise that the right to free speech shouldn't extend to inciting racial or religious friction is one I don't necessarily agree with, although I would be curious to hear what other Hubskites think about this.
It is interesting to note that defenders of US surveillance practices will sometimes say that if you're not a criminal, why should you worry about surveillance? It seems that among Singaporeans, there is a slight tweak to that aphorism: "if you're not a criminal or an opponent of the government, you don't have anything to worry about." Coupled with all of the individual surveillance, this seems like a system ready to be abused, and although the article offers virtually no examples of such abuse, I have to wonder in what myriad of unpublicized ways these powers are being used.
I'm a little curious if you could expand on what you mean by the double standard. After thinking about what you said, I did a little casual research into hate speech laws, particularly in the United States. I'd say that I'm generally supportive of laws which target hate speech, but only insofar as the speech in question passes the "imminent lawless action" test established in Brandenburg v. Ohio. I was a little surprised to find myself also agreeing with Scalia's majority decision in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul: Displays containing some words, such as racial slurs, would be prohibited to proponents of all views, whereas fighting words that "do not themselves invoke race, color, creed, religion, or gender — aspersions upon a person's mother, for example — would seemingly be usable ad libitum in the placards of those arguing in favor of racial, color, etc., tolerance and equality, but could not be used by those speakers' opponents." The Court concluded that "St. Paul has no such authority to license one side of a debate to fight freestyle, while requiring the other to follow Marquess of Queensberry rules." The more I look into it, the more I realize it is a complicated issue where clear-cut rules are hard to determine. I'm not really active on Twitter, so I can't say that I'm familiar with the phenomenon there, but I think the SCOTUS has tried to walk a fine line between defending as much of the 1A as possible while still giving room to proscribe "fighting words". I'm curious what the specifics are of the law in Singapore. Are you saying that the SCOTUS jurisprudence on this topic embodies a double standard? Certainly the 1A only applies to the proscription of speech by the state, so whether hate speech should be banned by Twitter is perhaps a different issue. I definitely agree. Singapore has an interesting style of government; it strikes me as a very well managed democracy with the dominant party PAP having control over the courts and media. I can't say with any evidence, but from what I gather, and the author made an oblique reference to this, that the TIA program was largely preserved, through reshuffling, renaming, and transferring parts of it to the NSA. A TIA program like that does seem to be problematic, especially if monopolized by an intelligence community, both in regards to civil liberties and effectiveness.You'll note that every time someone says something racially insensitive and overly public from the anonymity of twitter, the masses come out of the woodwork and scream that they ought to go to jail. In Singapore, they actually do. (Or, hopefully, they just don't bother.) It's worth noting that much of the west has a severe double standard on this (and in Britain, at least, people get prosecuted for the exact situation I'm describing; just as they do in Singapore).
"As explained earlier, see supra, at 386, the reason why fighting words are categorically excluded from the protection of the First Amendment is not that their content communicates any particular idea, but that their content embodies a particularly intolerable (and socially unnecessary) mode of expressing whatever idea the speaker wishes to convey. St. Paul has not singled out an especially offensive mode of expression—it has not, for example, selected for prohibition only those fighting words that communicate ideas in a threatening (as opposed to a merely obnoxious) manner. Rather, it has proscribed fighting words of whatever manner that communicate messages of racial, gender, or religious intolerance. Selectivity of this sort creates the possibility that the city is seeking to handicap the expression of particular ideas. . ."
I would hazard a guess that the so-called slippery slope argument which I despise so much is actually closest to being a potential reality in a city with a culture like Singapore's. We've seen seemingly stable situations plunge into martial law or dictatorial rule several times in Southeastern Asia. According to the article, things are trending in the other direction, but that doesn't mean a whole lot. We'll see.
If you implement something like this in the United States -- in other words, even more encompassing than what we have -- you get the same amount of intrusion but way too many things slipping through the cracks. I bet. I don't know.
The double standard that I see is this: everyone fights for free speech all the time, but the moment free speech laws lead to libel cases that get thrown out due to general haziness, everyone is up in arms. The last time I was in London, the front page of the Evening Whatever was all agog with a twitter case -- some loser had told a female MP he was going to come rape her etc. Big deal. Front page for a while. I think he was ultimately prosecuted -- but that was London. In the US, with Brandenburg, before you can prosecute you have to prove the threat is real. I think the point that was made at the time was: sure, maybe the twitter loser isn't going to come kill her but being called a cunt &c and then having your name splashed everywhere and having to look over your shoulder just in case and having people come out of the woodwork on twitter in support of the twitter rapist ... all for saying something about, abortion probably, maternity laws, I don't know ... well, that's some severe psychological trauma. But in America, it's too "abstract," so nothing happens. People say stupid shit on twitter all the time; no one ever gets in trouble. I think people have a tendency to a) want their free speech, and b) not want anyone to publicly tell their politicians they deserve to be raped. Both of those things are reasonable, but in the US they are contradictory. And then there's the other point of view, adequately summed up by the twitter loser: EDIT: jesus christ it was something a lot fucking dumber than abortion or maternity laws, that's for sure."If you can't threaten to rape a celebrity, what is the point in having them?"
I definitely see where you're coming from here. I think the internet has caused both subtle and drastic shifts in how we communicate with one another. Internet mobs are a fairly new thing and increasingly courts will have to address where along that line they fall. With so many new modes of communications in today's world, individuals and institutions need to adapt.