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Gros et al. 2017 – The Snowden Files Made Public

In brief

The article analyses the public hearings on mass surveillance held by the European Parliament's LIBE Committee in 2013–2014 after the Snowden revelations (p. 73) [U]. Drawing on Noortje Marres' concept of ‘material publics’, the authors argue that the material setting of the hearings was crucial to how the Snowden files were made public in Europe (p. 73) [U]. Through the hearings, valid evidence was produced, legal issues identified, technological solutions fostered, and responsibilities enacted and denied (p. 73) [U]. They also show how some participants ‘descaled’ the debate away from fundamental political questions (pp. 79, 86) [U].

Research question and main claim

  • The article asks how the LIBE Hearings made public particular understandings of the issues in the Snowden files, what solutions were put forward, and how political responsibilities were enacted and denied (p. 74) [U].
  • Main claim: the hearings were an important platform through which the Snowden files were publicly mediated and, at least partially, rendered into valid evidence (p. 74) [U].
  • Discursive struggle is not purely linguistic, but inscribed in material practices through which European institutions claim competence and create platforms for debate (p. 75) [U].
  • The broad debate on freedom and democracy was quickly narrowed by a focus on concrete, limited legal and technical solutions (p. 86) [U].

Theoretical perspective

  • Marres' concept of ‘material publics’ and Marres and Lezaun on the materials and devices of the public (pp. 73, 75–77) [U].
  • Callon, Lascoumes and Barthe on socio-technical controversies (p. 76) [U].
  • The ‘material turn’ in international studies (p. 75) [U].
  • Diez on discursive battles (pp. 74–75), Gitelman on the Pentagon papers as documents (p. 78), Schuppli on evidence (p. 74) [U].
  • Literature on exceptionalism and security beyond the law (Agamben, Schmitt) is mentioned but not discussed fully (p. 81) [U].
  • They position themselves against a primarily normative literature on Snowden, including Bauman et al. 2014 (p. 75) [U].

Empirical material and context

  • The LIBE Committee hearings, September 2013 to January 2014: fifteen sessions, sixty-eight participants, fifty-one hours of video testimony, and associated documents and working papers (pp. 74, 78–79) [U].
  • The European Parliament's final report (the ‘Moraes report’) (pp. 80, 86) [U].
  • Context: EU–US relations, including Safe Harbour, the Schrems judgment (2015), Privacy Shield (2016) and the TFTP agreement (pp. 77, 80–81, 86–87) [U].

Method

  • Analysis of all fifteen hearing sessions from the online video archive: transcription, mapping of arguments, participants, documents and silences, and comparison across sessions (pp. 78–79) [U].
  • The authors were not present at the hearings (p. 78) [U].

Key concepts

Concept How the source defines or uses it Page U/T
material publics (Marres) Publics do not exist before they are materialised through a forum or technology and a matter of concern 75 U
experimental forum LIBE as a forum where the meaning and validity of the Snowden files were debated and affirmed 76 U
validity How the Snowden files were made into valid evidence 78–80 U
a-legality Practices outside the law rather than strictly illegal 81 U
technicality / theatre of proof Where concrete techno-legal solutions were demonstrated 82 U
responsibility How competence and responsibility were enacted, claimed and denied 84–85 U
descaling Moving the debate below the level of political questions, for example to whether reports are accurate 79 U

How privacy and private data are understood

  • Privacy appears mainly as a right at stake in the hearings (pp. 73–74) [U].
  • IT specialists and civil society rejected the opposition between security and privacy, arguing that privacy is a necessary condition for security (p. 82) [U].
  • ‘Privacy by design’ and encryption were proposed as technical solutions (pp. 82, 86) [U].
  • The EU Data Protection Supervisor called for a ‘European data protection culture’; privacy was presented as part of European identity and values, in contrast to the US (pp. 85–86) [U].
  • Some participants stressed that the debate was political or legal, not technical (pp. 82–83) [U].

Arguments and findings

  • LIBE had to work hard to be accepted as a competent forum, since intelligence oversight is formally a national, not EU, competence (p. 77) [U].
  • Journalists played a key role in making the files into public evidence (p. 79) [U].
  • Representatives of EUROPOL and Facebook, among others, contested the accuracy of reports – a strategy the authors call ‘descaling’ (p. 79) [U].
  • Some argued the programmes were not illegal but a-legal, outside the law; this opens a broader debate than illegality (pp. 81–82) [U].
  • Seven invitees, including US authorities and French, German, Dutch and Polish ministers, refused to participate (p. 84) [U].
  • Companies said they only complied with legal orders; EU agencies said they lacked competence (p. 85) [U].
  • The absence of national officials gave the European Parliament room to present itself as competent and responsible (pp. 85–86) [U].

Limitations the source itself mentions

  • The Snowden files are to some extent fundamentally unknowable, because they have been released piecemeal and via journalists (p. 76) [U].
  • They do not have space to engage fully with debates on exceptionalism (p. 81) [U].
  • They do not claim that enactments and denials of responsibility were fully successful (p. 84) [U].

What the source does not cover

  • Norway [T].
  • Data use outside security and intelligence [T].
  • The content of the Snowden files in detail [T].

Possible relevance for the thesis

  • A methodological parallel: the authors analyse how an official forum (parliamentary hearings and their documents) makes an issue public and enacts responsibility. This is close to analysing how government documents enact privacy [T].
  • The concept of ‘descaling’ may help identify how documents move privacy questions from political to technical levels [T].
  • The use of Marres connects this article to the cluster on documents and issues [T].
  • The point that privacy was presented as part of European identity (pp. 85–86) can be compared with how Norwegian documents present Norway's values [T].

Connections to other sources

  • Bauman et al. 2014 – cited as part of the normative literature on Snowden, focusing on transnational guilds of professionals (pp. 74–75) [U].
  • Marres 2005, Marres 2007 – the article builds on Marres, but cites Marres 2010 and Marres and Lezaun 2011, not these texts (p. 88) [U]. The connection to the issue concept is thematic [T].
  • Asdal 2015 – thematic: both analyse how official documents and forums shape and close issues [T].
  • Fairfield & Engel 2015 – thematic: Snowden and PRISM [T].

Key quotes

“This article suggests that the LIBE Hearings were an important platform that rendered the contested Snowden files into public evidence of contemporary surveillance practices.” (p. 73)

“Valid evidence was produced, legal issues were identified, technological solutions were fostered, and responsibilities were enacted and denied.” (p. 73)

“Descaling restricts the scope of discussions as they relate to mass surveillance and its implications for democracy, the rule of law, and privacy.” (p. 79)

“an EU cloud will not solve the […] problem, the debate is political or legal, but not technical” (pp. 82–83)

“With regard to secret security issues, a lot of the work of politics is in drawing together a public platform in the first place.” (p. 86)

Open questions for Rebekka

  • Is the method – analysing an official forum and its documents as a platform – a model for your own analysis?
  • Can you see ‘descaling’ in your documents, where political questions about privacy are turned into technical or legal details?
  • Who claims and who denies responsibility for privacy in the Norwegian documents?
  • Do the documents present privacy as part of Norwegian or European identity?