File:Bigbrother.pdf

Arming Big Brother

Ben Hayes - Statewatch - April 2006

The EU's Security Research Programme

Overview

This Statewatch-TNI report examines the development of the security-industrial complex in Europe and in particular the development of the EU Security Research Programme (ESRP). Spawned by the military-industrial complex, the security-industrial complex has developed as the traditional boundaries between external security (military) and internal security (security services) and law enforcement (policing) have eroded. With the global market for technologies of repression more lucrative than ever in the wake of 11 September 2001, it is on a healthy expansion course.

The story of the EU Security Research Programme is one of “Big Brother” meets market fundamentalism. It was personified by the establishment in 2003 of a “Group of Personalities” (GoP) comprised of EU officials and Europe’s biggest arms and IT companies. The GoP’s concern was a simple one: European multinationals are losing out to their US competitors because the US government is providing them with a billion dollars a year for security research – it recommended the EU match this level of funding to ensure a “level playing field”. The European Commission has obliged with a “preparatory” budget for security research 2004-6, with the full ESRP to begin in 2007, and appointed an EU Security Research Advisory Board to oversee the programme. This makes permanent the GoP and gives profit-making corporations an official status in the EU, shaping not just security research but security policy.

Myriad local and global surveillance systems; the introduction of biometric identifiers; RFID, electronic tagging and satellite monitoring; “less-lethal weapons”; paramilitary equipment for public order and crisis management; and the militarization of border controls – technological advances in law enforcement are often welcomed uncritically but rarely are these technologies neutral, in either application or effect. Military organisations dominate research and development in these areas under the banner of “dual-use” technology, avoiding both the constraints and controversies of the arms trade. Tomorrow’s technologies of control quickly become today’s political imperative; contentious policies appear increasingly irresistible. There are strong arguments for regulating, limiting and resisting the development of the security-industrial complex but as yet there has been precious little debate.

Introduction: beware the security-industrial complex?

On 17 January 1961, outgoing US President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower made his famous “military-industrial complex” speech.1 “America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world”, he began, conferring upon the US a global responsibility “to keep the peace… and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations”. But the US then faced “a hostile ideology – global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method”. “Our military establishment is a vital element in keeping the peace”, said Eisenhower, “Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction”.

With the recent declaration of “war on terror” by the US and other governments the rhetoric is all too familiar. However, at this point in his speech Eisenhower changed tack, warning that the US had been “compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions” in which “three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defence establishment”. The annual expenditure on military security, he said, was “more than the net income of all United States corporations”! It was then that he famously warned “against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex” and its potential to “endanger our liberties or democratic processes”:

“Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government… In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity… [I]n holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite”.

An “engaged citizenry”, said Eisenhower, offered the only effective defence against the “misplaced power” of the military-industrial lobby. It must be remembered that Eisenhower was a Republican, a staunch anti-communist and a zealous Cold War warrior, contradicting his concern about liberty and democracy. But 45 years on, his fears are more relevant than ever.

The idea of a “security-industrial complex” has gained currency for a number of reasons. First, state police and security forces in Europe have been equipped with more and more military equipment, providing arms companies with a growing sideline. More broadly, the traditional barriers between internal and external security, and policing and military operations, have been eroded. Second, arms companies are joined in the emerging “security-industrial complex” by the burgeoning IT sector and its large multinationals, the IT revolution having thrown-up novel possibilities for the surveillance of public and private places, of communications, and of groups and individuals. Third, security-centric government responses to terrorism and the “war on terrorism” have accelerated all these trends.