Surveillance following Snowden: a major challenge in Spain
| Pages | 265-282 |
| Date | 14 August 2017 |
| Published date | 14 August 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-11-2016-0044 |
| Author | Andrew A. Adams,Mario Arias-Oliva,Ana María Lara Palma,Kiyoshi Murata |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information & communications technology |
Surveillance following Snowden:
a major challenge in Spain
Andrew A. Adams
Centre for Business Information, Ethics Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan
Mario Arias-Oliva
Department of Business and Management, Universitat Rovira i Virgili,
Tarragona, Spain
Ana María Lara Palma
Department of Civil Engineering, Universidad de Burgos, Burgos, Spain, and
Kiyoshi Murata
School of Commerce, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan
Abstract
Purpose –This study aims to analyse the impacts of EdwardSnowden’s revelations in Spain focusing on
issues of privacy and state surveillance. This research takes into consideration the Spanish context from a
multidimensionalperspective: social, cultural, legaland political.
Design/methodology/approach –The paper reviews the Spanish privacy and state surveillance
situation. Responses to a questionnairewere collected from 207 university students studying at Universitat
Rovira i Virgili or Burgos University.The quantitative responses to the survey were statistically analysed as
well as qualitativeconsiderations of free-text answers.
Findings –The survey outcomes demonstrate that a majority of respondents are aware of Snowden’s
revelations,but only a few have even considered takingserious actions to improve their onlineprivacy. One of
the most relevant findings is that Spanish citizens findit acceptable to lose privacy and be subject to state
surveillanceif that provides a benefit in security.
Practical implications –The research points out the importance of privacy in a multicultural
environment. A sensitised society is a keystone for the healthy and balanced development of state
surveillancepolicy and practice.
Social implications –Training programmes area critical dimensionto ensure awareness across society
regarding privacy anddigital technologies. Suitable educational policiesand curricula at all levels should be
fostered.
Originality/value –Privacy and statesurveillance based on informationand communication technologies
is an emergingresearch topic with importantconsequences for socialvalues and ethics. This study providesan
overviewof Spanish highereducation students’attitudesin these areas.
Keywords Surveillance, Spain, Privacy, Social impact, Edward Snowden
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
In June 2013, The Guardian in the UK and The Washington Post in the USA began
publishing internal electronic documents from the USA’s signals intelligence (SIGINT)
organisation the National Security Agency (NSA), provided to them by Edward Snowden,
who had obtained the documents whileemployed as a systems administrator at the NSA for
contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.As they have done previously, the NSA and other parts of
Surveillance
following
Snowden
265
Received 30 November 2016
Revised 4 April 2017
Accepted 17 April 2017
Journalof Information,
Communicationand Ethics in
Society
Vol.15 No. 3, 2017
pp. 265-282
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/JICES-11-2016-0044
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1477-996X.htm
the US Government generally will not confirm or deny the validity of the documents;
however, on 21 June 2013, theUS Department of Justice charged Snowden with violating the
Espionage Act. The activitiesdetailed in the documents included activity undertaken by the
NSA and its main SIGINT partner the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters
(GCHQ), and with the SIGINT agencies of three former British colonies (Canada, Australia
and New Zealand), as well as joint activitieswith similar agencies in other countries such as
Germany’s Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND).
In 2014, the Pew Research Center (Madden, 2014) undertook the first of a number of
surveys of US citizens’attitudes to Snowden and the documents he revealed. In particular,
they asked questions such as whetherrespondents believed that Snowden’s revelations had
served or harmed the public good and whether Snowden should be prosecuted or not.
Inspired by these surveys, a group of academics at Meiji University in Tokyo developed a
pilot survey deployed in Japan and Spainusing students as the primary research population
(for reasons of resource constraints) and conducted follow-up interviews.The results of this
pilot survey are presented in Murata et al. (2017).Having revised the survey after analysis, it
was deployed with the cooperation of local academics in Mexico, New Zealand, Spain and
Sweden (in English), and in translation in Japan and Germany. With the aid of graduate
students studying in Tokyo, it was also translated into Chinese and deployed in Taiwan
(using traditional Chinese characters) and the People’s Republic of China (using simplified
Chinese characters). The choice of countries was a combination of deliberation and
pragmatism. The following countries had suitable resources available: New Zealand was
chosen as a Five Eyes member; Germany, Spain and Sweden provide a European Union
(EU) perspective; Mexico provides a US neighbouring perspective as well as a Spanish-
influenced culture outside Spain; and Japan,China and Taiwan provide a South East Asian
viewpoint. This paperpresents the results of the survey in Spain.
1.1 Roadmap
This paper focusses on the local content of Snowden’s revelations in the rest of this
introduction section. In Section2, an overview is given of the general cultural and historical
context of government surveillance. Section 3 gives an overview of the survey and of
respondent’s demographicinformation, while Section 4 provides the detailed survey results.
Section 5 presents the politicaland cultural impacts of Snowden as perceived by the authors,
while the final section gives some conclusionsand identifies avenues for future research.
1.2 Snowden’s revelations and Spain
Spain is one of the NATO nations that has been the target of indiscriminate violence by
extreme Islamists, with the Madrid train bombings on 11 March 2004. The subsequent
investigations, trials and convictions found no significant evidence of direct links to Al
Qaeda or any other group beyond those directly involved (Nash, 2006). Evidence from the
trial (ABC, 2007) shows that some of those convictedof planning the attack had been under
police surveillance before the attacks, although that surveillance had recorded no evidence
of planning or preparations for the attacks.Such issues can be used to argue either for more
state surveillance(the prior surveillance was insufficient to prevent or mitigatethe attack) or
for less (despite being under surveillance, the perpetrators managed to carry outtheir plans,
so efforts should be directed to other mechanisms for mitigating causes of attacks or the
impact of attacks). The Spanish elections immediately following the 2004 attacks were
considered to have been significantly altered by those events (Chari, 2004). In 2016, Spain
has again been in political turmoil, withelections in December 2015 failing to lead to a new
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