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Search Results
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Democratic Oversight of Government Hacking by Intelligence Agencies: A Critical Analysis of Brazil and Germany
Regulating intelligence services is a challenge for modern societies worldwide. Their very modus operandi relies on tight secrecy protocols for the information gathered, internationally and domestically. Evolving surveillance techniques include exploiting the vulnerabilities of digital services, dealing on unregulated surveillance markets, and developing tailored tools. Theoretically, these actions aim at the public interest by, for instance, anticipating terrorist attacks or dismantling pedophilia networks. Nevertheless, they are increasingly used to surveil civil society without proper and demonstrated necessity or proportionality. Given the demand for increased transparency and accountability for intelligence agencies, especially when using hacking technologies, what institutional design and civic participation avenues for oversight may be proposed? How can (existing and yet-to-exist) institutions improve democratic external oversight activities in this realm? Through a comparison of Germany’s and Brazil’s legal frameworks and institutional ecosystems, the paper critically explores the meaning of “democratic oversight” of intelligence agencies, specifically observing oversight models for hacking operations. Looking at previous contributions by intelligence studies scholars in these countries and globally, the paper offers a critical-comparative analysis of institutional and political architectures to assess the levels of democratic participation. On this basis, it makes recommendations for both countries, which can be appropriated by external intelligence oversight bodies.
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The Emergence of Platform Regulation in the UK: An Empirical-Legal Study
Online platforms have emerged as a new kind of regulatory object. In this article, we empirically map the emergence of the field of platform regulation in one country: the United Kingdom (UK). We focus on the 18-month period between September 2018 and February 2020 when an upsurge of regulatory activism reflected increasing sensitivity to national sovereignty in the context of Brexit. Through an empirical–legal content analysis of eight official reports issued by the UK government, parliamentary committees, and regulatory agencies, we code the online harms to which regulation is being asked to respond; identify relevant subject domains of law (such as data protection and privacy, competition, education, media and broadcasting, consumer protection, tax law and financial regulation, intellectual property law, security law); and analyze the agencies referred in the reports for their centrality in the regulatory network and their regulatory powers. Drawing on Bourdieu’s notion of “field,” we observe the emergence of regulators with investigatory and enforcement powers that stand in mutually unstable power relations to each other as well as vis-à-vis shifting executive and legislative interventions. Online platforms appear to acquire authority to exercise state powers.
