Anonymity, democracy, and cyberspace - Part V: Democratic Process and Nonpublic Politics

Social Research, Spring, 2002 by Yaman Akdeniz

Introduction

THE Internet is a social, cultural, commercial, educational, and entertainment global communications system whose legitimate purpose is to benefit and empower online users by lowering the barriers to the creation and distribution of a variety of content throughout the world. The Internet boom in the 1990s created new opportunities for communications and for discussion. The Internet is now not only used for socially useful and commercial purposes by consumers but also used to publicize human rights abuses and preserve freedom of expression. Major concerns have arisen about the vehicle the Internet provides for personal snooping by commercial institutions and also (and more seriously) by governmental organizations and law enforcement bodies keeping track of individual usage of the Internet for the purposes of marketing, policing, or otherwise. (1)

With the rapid growth of the Internet as the newest medium for global communications and commerce comes the need to review the interaction of conflicting demands for respect for privacy, freedom of expression, and the detection and punishment of crime. Although the advancement of technology means that "privacy rights" are more and more in danger and open to abuse, the Internet does not create new privacy issues. Rather, it makes existing ones--such as confidentiality, authentication, and integrity of the personal information and correspondence circulated--difficult to control and secure. Political activists, human rights campaigners and organizations, and dissident movements in repressive regimes rely on anonymous communications to communicate human rights abuses in their countries or their views on the political state of their governments through the Internet. Furthermore, users can engage in whistle-blowing, receive counseling, or engage in all forms of discussion.

This article will describe anonymity on the Internet, how it can be achieved, and why it is an essential tool for free speech. The article will also describe proposals to outlaw anonymity over the Internet, since anonymity has been often tied to criminal activity over the Internet by law enforcement bodies.

Anonymity and the Internet

Anonymity is socially useful and has been a vital tool for the preservation of political speech and discourse throughout history. As a concept anonymity is closely related to free speech and privacy. Internet technology allows anonymous communications and this can be used for several purposes, including those that are socially useful and those that are criminal.

There are many organizations dealing with human rights abuses all around the world, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and these organizations do use the Internet to communicate with their members or with dissident groups. Before governments can suppress the dissemination of critical writings and reports, authors can distribute their work through the Internet outside repressive regimes. It is well known that the Burmese dissidents or the Mexican Zapatistas use the Internet to communicate with the rest of the world. (2) The net is critical and vital to human rights activists, political dissidents, and whistle-blowers globally to facilitate confidential communications free from government or other intrusion. Anonymity and the use of strong encryption tools can help to preserve political discourse and dissemination of information related to human rights abuses in the Information Age.

Tools that provide and maintain anonymity are used by political and some special-subject interest groups, such as users of the Critical Path AIDS Project's website, users of Stop Prisoner Rape (SPR) in the United States, and Samaritans in the United Kingdom. Readers of notices from groups that send out electronic alerts, such as Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, can ensure that the alerts have not been altered by people wishing to disrupt the group's activities. Alternatively, many members of SPR's mailing list have asked to remain anonymous due to the stigma of prisoner rape. It is important for this kind of user who seeks to access sensitive information to remain anonymous, and it should be his or her right to do so in this context.

Internet privacy activists have developed experimental anonymous re-mailer programs that address these concerns with respect to free speech and personal liberty. An anonymous remailer is simply a computer service that forwards e-mails or files to other addresses over the Internet. But the re-mailer also strips off the "header" part of the messages, which shows where they came from and who sent them. The most untraceable re-mailers (e.g., MixMaster) (3) use public key cryptography that allows unprecedented anonymity both to groups who wish to communicate in complete privacy and to whistle-blowers who have reason to fear persecution if their identity became known. According to Patrick Ball, true anonymous re-mailers maintain no database of addresses: