Regulation by Revelation: The Opportunities and Challenges of Information Control in an Intelligence Era

Over the last twenty years, revolutions in data capture and analysis have given enforcement and security agencies unparalleled access to the inner workings and private lives of their adversaries—and ordinary citizens. As a consequence, we would expect to see dramatic improvements in state and private security. However, domestic security agencies are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information available to them, and have only marginally improved their operational effectiveness. The third wave global Jihadist insurgency works from a model that is analogous to “unicorn” technology corporations, which then provides insights on how to counter these groups. Attempts to keep up with the evolving enemy shift the social contract between governments and citizens. Whilst technologically advanced functionaries create ever more impressive technology, legislators struggle to understand and regulate its impact: the focus on the rights of the individual has been replaced with the primacy of protecting the state. Whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and the LuxLeaks and Panama Papers regarding tax evasion have been the route to transparency for these developments and have made these revelations without protection and to wide scorn. Yet whistleblowers remain the key route for legislators to generate popular and interest group support to try to impose governance over the ungovernable information wars.