I chose the article Needles in a Haystack to analyze this week. The article describes the work of a 25 year-old San Franciscan computer programmer, Austin Heap who happened to come across an article about Iranians decrying that their votes were not counted in the recent presidential election. He thought he could help curb the government’s restriction of websites visited by developing a safe proxy for Iranians to use. With the help of a defected ex-Iranian government official he acquired the architecture for Iran’s filter software. Heap subsequently created an anti-censorship software called Haystack. He began to distribute this technology in Iran which is against U.S. trade law. The State Department assisted Heap in obtaining fast-track approval for the legal distribution of his technology to Iran. Since then, Heap has cofounded the Censorship Research Center, “a nonprofit dedicated to fighting censorship everywhere”.
The central problem addressed is freedom of speech and freedom assembly in Iran and the countervailing views of these principles in the United States. Heap has utilized an architecture deregulator to address this problem. Interestingly, this is the only method that is available to a single individual (non-citizen of Iran) living outside of Iran. Heap had no means of addressing the laws, market (to any significant extent) or norms of Iran. Conversely, the U.S. government has exercised both market influences through economic sanctions and restriction of trade and lawful sanctions through international organization such as the United Nations. It could also be suggest that the U.S. has attempted to change the norms inside of Iran by explicit and economic support of Iranian dissidents. The effects of market, law and norm regulators imposed by the United States appear to be slower moving and not as immediately impactful as the work of Heap’s architectural deregulator. Heap’s deregulator facilitates free speech and communication in a non-directed fashion, as the previous three regulators endeavor targeted influences on society. Thus, the impact of Heap’s work is unknown as it decentralizes power rather than shifting it to other centralized structures.
Furthermore, the support by the U.S. of Heap’s software—though originally illegal according to U.S. Trade Law—could be viewed as what Lessig (2006) terms indirection. This misdirection of responsibility can assist in shielding the U.S. as an active proponent in creating structures that undermine Iranian law. It would be interesting to know if Heap’s work and foundation are supported by U.S. government funding. Ironically, the current support for such technology by the U.S. could prove to have unintended consequences if similar methods are utilized to assist individuals in the U.S. in evading U.S. laws. Since the context of Iranian values is being filtered through U.S. values, a strong value contradiction (within the U.S.) is not in effect—unless the idea of sovereignty is being addressed. However, as the prevalence in use of such technologies to deter U.S. surveillance and apprehension increases, I purport that there will be reduction in U.S. Government support for these technologies and subsequent debates within the political and judicial environments. The article concerning backdoor encryption algorithms provides evidence of this conflicting value—within Iran these technologies are good and within the U.S. they are bad. Moreover, the proliferation of technologies created in the U.S. laden with U.S. values of such as liberty or free markets theory are powerful change agents in the international scene. This suggests ethical questions of sovereignty and governance should be reviewed by the United States as cyberspace facilitates communication and international influence to degrees not available previously.
In this example, I can see no other methods of influence available to Heap to empower citizens in the method he is interested. I suggest a more salient argument here is the role of citizens as deregulators of governmental control. As suggested in the articles concerning the government’s use of new technologies to control the actions and monitor citizens; the level of freedom available to citizens is being monitored and the long-term consequences remain unknown. Will the architecture of cyberspace stifle citizen participation and increase government control or will hackers and technology activists play the balancing force within this medium to counteract such control and continue the debate between security and freedom? I agree with Lessig that “code embeds certain values or makes certain values impossible” (p.125) and hope that if government continues to over emphasize security that programmers emerge as the philosophical defenders of liberty in order for citizens to consider the impact of such regulation on market, law, social norms and most importantly architectural frameworks.
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