MY TAKE ON NDTV’S WTP ON INTERNET CENSORSHIP

 

B.RAMAN

 

Barkha Dutt’s We The People Show on NDTV on the night of August 26,2012, had an interesting and topical live debate on Internet Censorship. It was well-formatted and well-conducted with some good interventions  and had the inimitable professional stamp of Barkha. Kudos to her .

2. However, as pointed out by me in my tweeted feed-back to Barkha, the security perspective was missing. We had a plethora of non-Governmental perspectives, with Governmental security perspectives largely kept out. Even among non-Governmental experts, those dealing   with national security issues were conspicuous by their absence.

3.Three points made during the debate were untenable and remained unchallenged since there were no security experts among the participants. I will confine my present remarks only to those points for the benefit of my loyal readers and followers.

4. The first point, which made an instant appeal to Barkha’s people, was that the best way of countering disinformation and rumours is through a proactive Government dissemination of correct information. Sounds beautiful, but it was an over-simplistic argument by someone who had not studied religious, racial and communal violence all over the world since religion was born.

5.Most incidents of religious and communal violence are due to inflamed passions triggered off partly by real incidents and partly by exaggerated accounts of the real incidents spread through rumours and disinformation. Psychological experts will tell you that when religious passions are aroused, people  tend to believe the version of the religious clergy and not that of the Government.

6. That is why all over the world---in democracies as well as in dictatorial societies--- the laws give the police prohibitory powers to prevent people from assembling in the streets and adding to the passions through word  of mouth or printed or hand-written literature. Examples of such prohibitory powers are Section 144 and Curfew.

7. The standard drill for dealing with religious and communal passions all over the world is prohibit people from assembling in the streets and places of worship, make spreading of rumours criminal and seize literature tending to add to the passions. Through these measures, the Police and the security  forces prevent the passions from aggravating and give a window of  manoeuvrability to the political leaders and the leaders of the communities to explain the correct facts and bring down the passions. Once they succeed, the prohibitory orders are lifted.

8. The conventional prohibitory powers enacted  about 150 years ago to prevent an aggravation of religious and communal  passions cannot be applied to the Internet and its social networking sites when they are sought to be misused to disseminate exaggerated accounts and rumours. Special powers and special action are necessary to control the fanning of passions through the Net and social networking sites. Such powers have been given to law and order authorities all over the world. These powers relate to Net surveillance and action to block or jam sites tending to inflame passions temporarily till the aggravation of passions is prevented and the political and community leaders are able to cool it by disseminating correct information.

9. The dissemination of disinformation, rumours and morphed images alleging commission of atrocities on the Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine State of Myanmar started in July. The Myanmar Government detected such dissemination within two weeks and brought it to the notice of not only its Muslim residents, but also  the Governments of the OIC member-States. Its version of the true facts is not accepted even today either by the Rohingyas or by the OIC states. What other option it has but to block the offending sites till passions come down?

10. The unconventional digital prohibitory powers are not meant to be used permanently. They are meant to be used temporarily till passions come down and the circulation of rumours subsides. In my Articles on the violence in the Rakhine State of Myanmar and in Assam, I have been advocating an avoidance of over-reaction which could aggravate the Muslim anger and calibrated blocking of Net sites to control passions of Muslims and calm down the panic of the people from the North-East.

11. In a tweet to me, Barkha said she found my feed-back confusing. She said: ‘Sir, you are criticising me for not inviting  the MHA, but you yourself criticised their blocking.”  I advocated the blocking of the sites of the ill-wishers of the State and criticised the blocking of the well-wishers like Kanchan Gupta, the journalist. Even though I did not agree with the MHA’s assessment on many points, I did feel that We The People had as much right to know the views of the MHA as it had to know the views of people like Kabir Bedi, the film-actor.

12. I want to challenge two points made by Shri Jay Panda, the highly respected political leader of Orissa. He claimed that there has been no act of terrorism in the US after 9/11.Incorrect. There has been no act of catastrophic terrorism in the US after 9/11, but there have been  sub-catastrophic acts of terrorism and attempted terrorism even after 9/11.Examples:The attempted plane bombing by a shoe bomber (prevented by an alert air hostess), the attempted explosion on board a Detroit-bound plane  (prevented by an alert passenger), the attempted explosion in Times Sq , New York, by a Taliban-trained Pakistani (prevented by an alert pedestrian), the shooting down of a number of US soldiers by a follower of a US Muslim cleric of Yemeni origin, who subsequently became the head of the Yemen branch of  Al Qaeda and was killed in a Drone Strike in Yemen last year.

13.There have been terrorist attacks and attempted terrorist acts in the US even after 9/11 but they were prevented from assuming catastrophic proportions, inter alia, by the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) of the US set up by an enlightened political leadership of the US in 2004.Shri Navin Patnaik, the Chief Minister of Orissa, has been in the forefront of Chief Ministers opposing the NCTC even in a modified form.

14. I am sick and tired of people who keep claiming that there has been no terrorism in the US after 9/11, whereas terrorists continue to be active in India. I would like to pose the following questions to Shri Panda and others of Barkha’s people:

( a ).India has the world’s second largest Muslim population. How many are there in the US?

( b ). India is next door to the world’s epicentre of jihadi terrorism. How far away is the US from this epicentre?

( c ).After 9/11, US Congressmen have willingly given their counter-terrorism agencies new powers and new capabilities like the NCTC to deal with jihadi terrorism. Shri Panda, how many have you and your ilk given us?

( d ).In the US, arrested jihadi suspects are treated like war criminals seeking to wage war against the US and detained in the military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay. Shri Panda, you don’t even allow us to keep them for interrogation in our Police Stations for a few days.

( e).Shri Panda,Shri Kabir Bedi and other Barkha’s people:In the third ban notification issued by the Department of Communications and IT , about 18 Tweeter handles were ordered to be blocked. Of these,I understand, only one is that of a Muslim. The remaining are all of Hindus. Do you mean to say that only Hindus tweet and Muslims don’t.  None of you had the intellectual honesty to draw attention to this during the debate.

15.Shri Panda also claimed that such special digital prohibitory powers are given only to the security forces in India and that the security forces in other democracies do not seek such powers.

16. On April 25,2012, the British media reported as follows: “A suggestion has been put forward by Sir David Ormand, the former head of the UK’s intelligence gathering centre GCHQ, urging UK government that social media sites should be covered strictly. Terrorist and criminals elements use social websites like Facebook and Twitter to achieve their heinous objectives, according to Ormand. He said that the responsible authorities should keep the suspects under constant surveillance. The former intelligence officer was of the view that individual accounts should be hacked if necessary, but added this should only be done under special circumstances. “Social media is how people are talking to each other,” he said. There have been reports that Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden are using social media to communicate,” and Mr Omand said that in such circumstances the authorities need to be able to gain access to private accounts.”

17. Similarly, in the US, intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies have many more powers for Net surveillance and counter-action than we have in India.

18. Despite my criticism, I compliment Barkha for having this debate live and at short notice. I appreciate how difficult it would have been to organise this live and in a co-ordinated and time-bound manner. Her team headed by Ruby Dingra, the producer, deserve equal credit.

19.The debate drew attention to the lack of professionalism in our Net surveillance architecture, our weak-data base of threats of digital origin, our weak machinery for follow-up action on perceived threats, our weak analytical capability in matters relating to criminal misuse of the  Net and the weak co-ordination between the MHA and the intelligence agencies on the one side and the Department of Communications and IT on the other.

20. Till now, our focus has largely been on action required to meet threats of a military and para-military nature arising from State actors through the cyber space. The recent events  have shown the need for equal focus on strengthening our capability to meet non-conventional threats of a psychological nature from indigenous and foreign non-State actors.

21. Barkha’s show  drew attention to some of these aspects in a lucid manner for which she has to be complimented. However, some of us in the national security community----serving and retired---could not help forming a suspicion that the show was influenced to some extent by cronyism, but unfortunately that is becoming the order of the day in our TV world. (28-8-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)

MY TAKE ON WHY KANCHAN GUPTA WAS TARGETED

B.RAMAN

I have known Shri Kanchan Gupta since 2000. I was a member of the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) from 2000 to end-2002. He was working in the PMO under Shri Brajesh Mishra, the then Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee and National Security Adviser. Kanchan used to attend meetings of the NSAB on behalf of  Shri Mishra.

2. Kanchan then went on a posting to the Indian Embassy in Cairo and we lost touch with each other. After his return from Cairo on the completion of his posting, I ran into him in 2008 -, before the 2009 elections, at a policy brain-storming organised by Shri Dayananda Sarawathi at a tourist resort near Ahmedabad. Among those who attended were Shri Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, Shri Mohan Bhagwat, the present chief of the RSS, Shri Ram Madhav of the RSS, Shri Arun Shourie, Shri Kanchan Gupta, Mrs. Nirmala Sitharaman, the present spokesperson of the BJP, Shri Ajit Doval, former Director, Intelligence Bureau, Shri Prakash Singh, former Director-General of the Border Security Force, and many other retired public servants. Shri L.K.Advani was to attend, but did not.

3. I was invited to make a presentation on Pakistan, which I did. One of the sessions was devoted to a discussion on what should be the media strategy of the BJP. There was a feeling amongst some of the participants that the mainstream media was not giving sufficient opportunity to the BJP and other right-wing forces to air their views on matters of national interest and even if they did on some occasions, there was a distortion of their views. It was suggested by some participants that the BJP could get over this handicap by making good use of the online media.

4. I notice that the BJP, the supporters of Shri Modi and other right-wing elements have since been trying to do so with the help of IT-savvy  supporters of the Hindutva ideology in India and the US. In fact, it has been my impression that the Hindutva elements have had a head-start over the Congress in the use of the online media, including the social media networks, for the dissemination of their ideology and points of view.

5. After the meeting in 2008, I have not met Kanchan again, but we have been in touch with each other off and on through E-Mail and Tweets. We hold each other in great esteem despite differences in the way we view and analyse developments of national interests I have always thought of Kanchan as patriotic and upright. I consider him an individual of high intellectual integrity.

6.Kanchan recently resigned from “The Pioneer” in which he was holding  a senior position and took charge of a new online news journal. Sometime later, I received an E-mail from a journalist working for a New Delhi-based journal which had played an active role in the witch-hunt and inquisition of Barkha Dutt of NDTV towards 2010-end. He said in his mail that he was planning a story on the BJP’s Net-based media strategy and wanted to have a discussion with me  on this. His request was  triggered by some comments tweeted by me some months ago on the 2008 brain-storming. Subsequently, I had also tweeted drawing attention to a report carried by Rediff on the likely net-based media budgets of the BJP and Shri Modi. I did not reply to him.

7.When I went online early on the morning of August 23,2012, I noticed some Tweets alleging that Kanchan’s Twitter line had been blocked on the orders of the Government. But, I was able to access it. However, his TL remained frozen at midnight of August 22. I tweeted to Kanchan to find out the facts. Some of my followers, who had seen this Tweet, replied that while some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) seemed to have blocked his Twitter Line, some others have not.

8. In reply to my Tweet, I received a Tweet from Kanchan by DM. I was surprised he did not reply in the normal manner , but instead chose a DM.

9.Subsequently, I saw in the media the photocopies of the four Memos issued by the Government to Internet Service Providers directing them to block certain web sites and Twitter lines. I noticed three odd features in these communications:

( a ).None of them was typed on an official letterhead.

( b ).None of them carried the stamp of the issuing Department.

( c ).While two of them spelt out at the bottom Tele/Fax and gave the numbers, two others carried pictures of a telephone and a Fax machine and gave the numbers against them.

10. I just wanted to draw the attention of my readers to these odd features. This should not be interpreted to mean I doubt the authenticity of these communications. I would like to underline that the Government itself has not denied their authenticity.

11.While three of the communications directed the blocking of the sites/lines of Islamic organisations, either in India or Pakistan, the fourth included the Twitter lines of some Hindus/Hindu entities too and asked for them to be blocked. My assessment from this is that after having initially targeted some Islamic sites/lines, the Government wanted to convey an impression to the Muslim community that it was being objective by bringing some Hindus/Hindu entities too in the lists.

12. It needs to be noted that while the Islamic sites carry on vicious, provocative propaganda, the Hindus and Hindu entities targeted by the Government do not do so. They merely counter the pernicious propaganda of the Islamic fundamentalists. The Government has sought to silence them too by targeting them.

13. In my view, Kanchan was one of those thus targeted by the Government for the following reasons:

( a ).Amongst the pro-Hindutva journalists, he is the most active online.

( b ).He is seen by the Government as spearheading the Net-based media strategy of the Hindutva and other right-wing elements.

( c ). His new online venture is seen by the Government as having been started with an eye on the 2014 elections.

14. As an online Editor, Kanchan’s dependence on social media networks for communicating with his followers, readers and contributors would be heavy. The Government wanted to needle him and create difficulties for him in developing his new online venture.

15. But the uproar over the blocking of sites/lines of journalists, particularly Kanchan, has forced the Government on the defensive and it has refrained from any follow-up action against Kanchan.

16. It is obvious to me that the attempted blocking of Kanchan indicated the Government’s keenness to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the recent panic due to the online dissemination of exaggerated reports and rumours to create difficulties in the implementation of the Net-based media strategy of the BJP and other right-wing elements. It has misfired at least for the time being. (24-8-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)

CYBER COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE: NEED FOR FINESSE

B.RAMAN

Intelligence is the collection of information from the real world that could be important for our national security.

2.Counter-intelligence is the technique of preventing our ill-wishers from collecting intelligence about us that could weaken our national security.

3. Cyber-intelligence is the collection of intelligence having a bearing on our national security by systematically monitoring the web.

4.Cyber counter-intelligence is the prevention, detection and neutralisation of attempts by our ill-wishers to weaken our national security by misusing the web for destabilising us. It is also the prevention, detection and neutralisation of attempts by our ill-wishers to penetrate our cyber security architecture for the collection of  information about us and for using this capability for disrupting our economy and the fighting capabilities of our armed forces.

5.The Task Force For the Revamping of the Intelligence Apparatus headed by Gary Saxena, former head of the R&AW, which was set up by the Government of A.B.Vajpayee in 2000, had, inter alia, gone into our cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence capabilities and made a set of recommendations.

6.It had suggested that the Intelligence Bureau (IB) should be given the additional responsibility for cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence. It had also recommended that the IB should be made responsible for all counter-intelligence----whether in the real or virtual world--- and that its capabilities in this regard should be further strengthened,

7.One was given to understand that the NDA Government accepted these recommendations, but gave these new responsibilities for cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence to the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), which was set up as a Techint agency on the pattern of the National Security Agency (NSA) of the US.

8. In the US, the NSA used to have additional responsibility for cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence. Two years ago, it was decided to set up an independent Cyber Command for this purpose, but to place it under the head of the NSA. The NSA and the Cyber Command are separate organisations with separate staff and separate budgets, but they have a common chief.

9. As a result of the NDA Government’s decision to entrust the responsibility for cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence to the NTRO, we now have the IB dealing with intelligence and counter-intelligence in the real world and the NTRO in the virtual world of the Internet and the social media sites that have come up in recent years.

10. The recent incidents relating to Psyjihad sought to be waged against us through the Net and its social media sites and mobile telephones by exploiting Muslim anger over the anti-Muslim violence in the Rakhine State of Myanmar and in our Assam State and our incoherent and ill-coordinated reaction to it bring out two serious deficiencies:

( a).The NTRO has not been systematically monitoring the Net and its Social Media Sites for cyber chatter that could have a bearing on our internal and external security in order to sound a wake-up call to the Govt when the contents of the cyber chatter indicate possible attempts at destabilisation. This is clearly evident from the fact that the large number of websites disseminating exaggerated accounts of the anti-Muslim violence with the help of morphed images seems to have been noticed by the NTRO only after the violent incidents in the Azad Maidan of Mumbai on August 11 and the panic departure  from South India and Pune of many people from the North-East working and living there. Had these web sites and their false and provocative propaganda been noticed in time, the Government might have been able to take pre-emptive action to prevent the violence and contain the panic.

( b ).The NTRO has not yet developed a capability for the identification of suspects who have been misusing the Net and its social media sites for their Psyjihad meant to destabilise us. As a result, one could see over-reaction and an attempt at a disproportionate use of the powers under the existing laws for cyber surveillance. After the surveillance failed initially due to lack of alertness  on the part of our agencies, there has been a disproportionate use of the surveillance powers by way of large-scale blocking of web sites and attempted control over social media sites without applying our mind. Instead of targeting our counter-action on the suspects responsible for the Psyjihad, we have been targeting the instruments used by them for their Psyjihad such as Facebook and Twitter. These instruments have benign and malign uses. Our actions should have been targeted against malign uses, but there is an impression that we have been trying to discourage both benign and malign uses in order to deter the use of these sites and instruments  even for well-intentioned criticism of the Government and its policies. The misuse by ill-wishers of the country has been sought to be  exploited for preventing legitimate uses of the social media networks even by well-wishers of the country.

11. There is a need for a mid-course correction in the follow-up actions initiated after the recent panic in order to introduce an element of finesse in our cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence architecture and techniques. Target the ill-wishers of the country who have been misusing the Net and the social media sites for nefarious purposes, but don’t target the well-wishers. Make the ill-wishers dysfunctional and not the Net and the social media sites.

12. The Naresh Chandra Task Force on national security has in its report submitted to the Prime Minister on May 24 devoted a chapter to cyber security. Its chapter on intelligence revamp also contains some important recommendations on this subject. While vetting them, the lessons drawn from our recent experience in handling our existing  cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence architecture and techniques should also be taken into consideration in order to see whether any modifications in the recommendations during implementation are called for. (23-8-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)

THE JINX AGAINST WOMEN SECRET AGENTS IN R&AW

B.RAMAN

Till 1972, under the long-time Director of the USA’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) J. Edgar Hoover, only men could be FBI agents. After his death in May 1972, partly under the pressure of the equal rights laws, the FBI started recruiting women as Agents. The first two women agents of the FBI joined the FBI in July 1972 and underwent training in the FBI Academy along with men recruits. They and many other women who followed their example have since distinguished themselves as Agents of whom the FBI and the US can be proud .

2. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the Second World War precursor of the Central Intelligence agency (CIA),  had a few legendary women operatives. Well-known amongst them was Virginia Hall, who served behind Nazi lines in France.

3. Despite this, the CIA, which came into existence in 1947, inherited some of the prejudices of the FBI against women as secret Agents. There were many women who were recruited as administrative staff and analysts, but hardly any to serve as secret Agents in the top secret operations division.

4. As Valerie Wilson, a former CIA woman operative wrote: “CIA’s premier spy cadre was carefully recruited from the male, moneyed, white, establishment crowd that went to the Ivies. For the first four decades of the CIA’s existence, the very few females that got into operations were usually drawn from the secretarial or support staffs. These smart, persistent, and gutsy women tired of seeing the men have all the fun and back-doored themselves into case-officer jobs—meeting and recruiting assets, planning ops, and in some rare cases in the 1970s, managing operations overseas. These women were tough as nails—they had to be—and they poured everything into their careers, often at the expense of their personal lives. I met some of these women during my time at the CIA and they could intimidate me like nobody else. My female colleagues and I owe them a deep debt of gratitude for their groundbreaking careers.”

5. Despite the success of these women who managed to gravitate into the Operations Division from the Administrative or analysis divisions, the number of direct women recruits to the Operations Division remained low till Ronald Reagan became the President. During his presidency, under the pressure of the operational requirements for the covert war against the USSR in Afghanistan, the recruitment of women operatives to the CIA increased.

6. To quote Valerie Wilson again: “Under Director Bill Casey, the CIA loosened its recruitment policies, involving schools other than the Ivies. Additionally, they began hiring women specifically to go into operations. Of course, attitudes take a long time to change and many a dinosaur who thought women should really just be at home and not running clandestine agents still roamed the halls at headquarters.”

7. In 1991, 400 women employees of the CIA working in various divisions filed a class action suit alleging discrimination against women in the agency under various pretexts. An enquiry declared their complaints legitimate. Since then,  there has been an improvement in the position of women Agents who have been doing as well as their male counterparts. It took nearly 40 years for the CIA to admit that women Agents could be as daring, as capable and as successful as male Agents. The death in December 2009 of Elizabeth Hanson, an officer of the analysis division posted as the station chief in Kabul, along with seven of her colleagues in a suicide attack by Al Qaeda at Khost brought the much-deserved recognition for the women operatives of the CIA and their bravery.

8. In September 2010, women crossed another landmark in the history of the US intelligence community when Letitia A. Long became the first woman director of a major U.S. intelligence agency  taking over as the chief of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a Techint agency.

9. Reports published in sections of the US media at that time indicated that women represented  38 per cent of the total intelligence work force. In six of the most prominent agencies, 27 per cent of senior intelligence positions were held by women.

10. While women in the US had to wait till 2010 to be accepted as capable of heading an intelligence agency, in the UK, Dame Stella Rimington became the head of the Security Service known as the MI-5 in 1992 and continued in that post till 1996.The MI-5 had the distinction of being headed by another woman chief Dame Eliza Manningham Buller from 2002 to 2007, during the Iraq war in 2003 and the London Metro attacks by some jihadi suicide terrorists in 2005.The MI-5 and the MI-6, the external intelligence agency known as the Secret Intelligence Service, had a longer tradition of accepting women as analysts and operatives on par with men than their US counterparts.

11.Till 1972, the Indian intelligence community had some women serving in administrative posts such as stenographers and ministerial assistants, but no officers serving as either analysts or operatives. The R&AW under R.N.Kao was the first in the Indian intelligence community to induct women as officers to perform analysis as well as operational duties in the headquarters as well as in the field. The first women inductees into the R&AW were taken on deputation from other Government services. Thereafter, three women fresh from the universities were directly recruited into the Research and Analysis Service (R&AS). This was followed by the induction of two women officers of the IPS and one economic expert on deputation. The Intelligence Bureau (IB) emulated the example set up by Kao and started taking women IPS officers on deputation.

12.Unfortunately, while the women intelligence agents of the US and the UK have been doing as well as, if not better than, their male counterparts, this cannot be said of the women operatives of the R&AW. Two of the deputationists of the 1970s created problems because of their alleged inability to maintain a low profile and their alleged habits of dropping names and throwing their weight around.

13. Of the three direct recruits, two got involved in embarrassing controversies due to personal reasons or professional inadequacies. The economic expert and the two IPS deputationists did well, but one of them went back to the State. Of the eight officers taken into the organisation since 1972, four were found to be professionally unsatisfactory.

14.Whereas  in the intelligence agencies of the US and the UK, women analysts and operatives have been doing extremely well, it is perceived to be not so in the case of the R&AW. What is it due to? Careless selection? Inadequate training? Unfair discrimination and prejudices that come in the way of their giving off their best? One does not know the answers to these questions. While women officers  have been doing extremely well in other services and departments of the Government of India, it is said to be not so in the R&AW.

15.It is important to go into this in a professional manner to improve the intake of women officers into the R&AW and their performance. ( 22-8-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)