Autocracy, Repression and Bitcoins

We all know it’s happening. We hear about it. See it in whatever our sources of news might be. But we often do not link this pattern of illiberalism to our individual lives. For example, as massive protests in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan mount because of an exceptionally large increase in the cost of fuel – gasoline prices have more than doubled – too many voices are now crying out, reflecting wider discontent with authoritarian rule. Violence is escalating. 

According to the Associated Press, January 8th: “In a televised address to the nation, [Kazakh] President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev referred to those involved in the turmoil as ‘terrorists,’ ‘bandits’ and ‘militants [manipulated by “foreign actors” and toxic “independent media”] — though it is unclear how peaceful protests turned violent… ‘I have given the order to law enforcement and the army to shoot to kill without warning,’ Tokayev said. ‘Those who don’t surrender will be eliminated.’...

“Amid the growing crackdown, internet service has been severely disrupted and sometimes blocked, and several airports were closed, including one in Almaty, the country’s largest city, making it difficult to get information about what’s happening inside the country. Cellphone services have been severely disrupted as well… Tokayev has also called on a Russian-led military alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, or CSTO, for help, and troops began arriving Thursday [1/6]. Stories of mass shootings and violent reactions are pouring out of Kazakhstan. It is unlikely that Vladimir Putin will allow these independent, anti-authoritarian protestors to succeed in a neighboring ally.

For those of in the United States, watching the value of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency drop to its lowest level in months, this fall may be attributed to a suggestion from the Federal Reserve that of likely increasing interest rates… or it just might reflect the turmoil in Kazakhstan, a nation that represents 18% of the world’s Bitcoin mining. And since crypto currencies are simply based on what the market will bear, the vulnerability of such currencies is simply underscored by their fragility. 

In a nearby member of the European Union (also a NATO) member, Hungary’s anti-democracy leader Viktor Orbán, who has received Donald Trump’s strong endorsement, is cackling as other EU nations are joining his illiberal march. It seems that the Polish government is heavily involved in using the latest spyware to surveille their own citizens, particularly those who oppose Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Poland’s ruling conservative party and his ilk. “Poland’s most powerful politician has acknowledged that the country bought advanced spyware from the Israeli surveillance software maker NSO Group but denied that it was being used to target his political opponents… Kaczynski… said in an interview that the software, Pegasus, is being used by secret services in many countries to combat crime and corruption.

“He said the use of such spyware arose in response to the growing use of encryption to mask data in transit. By hacking phones, where the data have been de-encrypted, it lets authorities monitor communications and real-time conversations… ‘It would be bad if the Polish services did not have this type of tool,’ Kaczynski said in an interview… Kaczynski’s allies had denied that Poland purchased and used Pegasus… The admissions by Kaczynski in the interview follow exclusive reports by the Associated Press that Citizen Lab, a cyber watchdog group at the University of Toronto, found that three Polish government critics were hacked with NSO’s Pegasus spyware.

“On Thursday [1/6], Amnesty International independently verified the finding by Citizen Lab that Polish Sen. Krzysztof Brejza’s phone had been hacked multiple times in 2019 when he was running the opposition’s parliamentary election campaign… Text messages stolen from Brejza’s phone were doctored and aired by state-controlled TV as part of a smear campaign in the heat of the race, which the populist ruling party went on to narrowly win.” Associated Press. But that would be old news here in the United States.

Indeed, it’s no secret that Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies have been trolling our own social media platforms for rather individualized entries into their aggregate data bases. Information from multiple sites is increasingly linked to their files on specific U.S. citizens, both to enhance their ability to disseminate targeted disinformation to such individuals and to gather statistical and other relevant data for their overall files. But don’t think that the same level of review isn’t happening here with data collection by U.S. agencies. 

The Brennen for Justice, January 7th, tells us: “Social media has become a significant source of information for U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and the State Department are among the many federal agencies that routinely monitor social platforms, for purposes ranging from conducting investigations to identifying threats to screening travelers and immigrants. This is not surprising; as the U.S. Supreme Court has said, social media platforms have become ‘for many . . . the principal sources for knowing current events, . . . speaking and listening in the modern public square, and otherwise exploring the vast realms of human thought and knowledge’ — in other words, an essential means for participating in public life and communicating with others.

“At the same time, this growing — and mostly unregulated — use of social media raises a host of civil rights and civil liberties concerns. Because social media can reveal a wealth of personal information — including about political and religious views, personal and professional connections, and health and sexuality — its use by the government is rife with risks for freedom of speech, assembly, and faith, particularly for the Black, Latino, and Muslim communities that are historically targeted by law enforcement and intelligence efforts. These risks are far from theoretical: many agencies have a track record of using these programs to target minority communities and social movements. For all that, there is little evidence that this type of monitoring advances security objectives; agencies rarely measure the usefulness of social media monitoring and DHS’s own pilot programs showed that they were not helpful in identifying threats. Nevertheless, the use of social media for a range of purposes continues to grow.”

Everywhere you look, there are signs that democracy is eroding. Technology has outpaced reasonable containment legislation. That “everybody does it” does not justify the practice of spying on a nation’s own citizens. My blogs on the demise of American representative democracy, a move to “anocracy” (a transitional space between democracy and authoritarianism) are just one part of this ugly trend. Unless we fight strongly against what seems to be a massive and highly infectious tsunami of repressive government, including those who wish to take over government to further solidify that repression, our vision of a free and fair America will soon vaporize.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the belief of too many Americans that “it” can’t happen here just may be the reason that it will.