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26 J. Democracy 64 (2015)
Cyberspace under Siege

handle is hein.journals/jnlodmcy26 and id is 455 raw text is: Authoritarianism Goes Global CYBERSPACE UNDER SIEGE Ron Deibert Ron Deibert is director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. He is the author of Black Code: Surveil- lance, Privacy, and the Dark Side of the Internet (2013). He was a co- founder and principal investigator of the OpenNet Initiative (2003-14). December 2014 marked the fourth anniversary of the Arab Spring. Beginning in December 2010, Arab peoples seized the attention of the world by taking to the Internet and the streets to press for change. They toppled regimes once thought immovable, including that of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. Four years later, not only is Cairo's Tahrir Square empty of protesters, but the Egyptian army is back in charge. In- voking the familiar mantras of antiterrorism and cybersecurity, Egypt's new president, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has imposed a suite of in- formation controls.1 Bloggers have been arrested and websites blocked; suspicions of mass surveillance cluster around an ominous-sounding new High Council of Cyber Crime. The very technologies that many heralded as tools of liberation four years ago are now being used to stifle dissent and squeeze civil society. The aftermath of the Arab Spring is looking more like a cold winter, and a potent example of resurgent authoritarianism in cyberspace. Authoritarianism means state constraints on legitimate democratic political participation, rule by emotion and fear, repression of civil so- ciety, and the concentration of executive power in the hands of an unac- countable elite. At its most extreme, it encompasses totalitarian states such as North Korea, but it also includes a large number of weak states and competitive authoritarian regimes.2 Once assumed to be incompat- ible with today's fast-paced media environment, authoritarian systems of rule are showing not only resilience, but a capacity for resurgence. Far from being made obsolete by the Internet, authoritarian regimes are now actively shaping cyberspace to their own strategic advantage. This shaping includes technological, legal, extralegal, and other targeted in- Journal of Democracy Volume 26, Number 3 July 2015 © 2015 National Endowment for Democracy and Johns Hopkins University Press

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