It is important that one clearly understands the denotation and connotation of the three terms - Right to Information, National Security and Foreign Relations. Without this, the inter-active engagement that exists between them will not be very clear.
The process of freedom of information is universally understood as an extension of freedom of speech, a fundamental human right recognised in international law. Today, it is usually understood as freedom of expression in any medium, be it orally, in writing, print, through the Internet or through art forms. This means that the protection of freedom of speech is a right that includes not only the content, but also the manner in which the content finds expression.
There is also the flip side whereby freedom of information connotes responsibility not only in its usage but also to the right to privacy of an individual in the context of the Internet and information technology. As with the right to freedom of expression, the right to privacy is also recognised as a human right. Freedom of information is construed to act as an extension to this right.
The United Nations not only declared Freedom of Information as a fundamental human right but also later, on through Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, re-affirmed that the right to freedom of opinion and expression includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.
It is this matrix of access to information that has made the evolution of this process that much more significant. Right to information has emerged as a basic tool for building robust democratic systems through the informed participation of politically active and conscious citizens interested in matters of public interest. Today there is a general agreement that public information is meant not only to protect rights but also to prevent abuses by the State. There is also consensus, since the recent upsurge of terrorism, fundamentalism and extremism that this path is not easy and success depends not only on the tools that we have at our disposal but also in our ability to use them effectively.
The Right to Information Act (RTI Act), 2009 in Bangladesh stresses on freedom of thought, conscience and speech and also underlines that right to information is necessary for the empowerment of the people and for ensuring transparency in governance and accountability of all public, autonomous and statutory organisations and of other private institutions constituted or run by the government or foreign financing. This has been stressed to create a matrix that will discourage corruption and facilitate good governance. Section 3 of the RTI Act also specifies that it shall override any other existing law in case of any conflict with that law. This widens the spectrum of the Act.
Section 7 of this Act, however, incorporates certain limitations. They include, inter alia, information that may, if disclosed, cause a threat to the security, integrity and sovereignty of Bangladesh; information relating to foreign policy that may affect the existing relationship with any foreign country or international organisation and any secret information received from a foreign government. Such aspects have obviously been included for the sake of national security and in the context of foreign relations.
Such exemptions are not singular or unique and just for Bangladesh. They exist through different versions within the structure of the Freedom of Information Acts in all the countries that subscribe to this process. In certain countries, unlike Bangladesh, such exemptions have continued to grow within their Act. One such example has been the USA. Some States have also increased restrictions because of the premise of national security and the need to avoid difficulties in the existing friendly relations with other countries. In the United Kingdom they have gone one step further and introduced principles like 'Neither Confirm or Deny' within the response process related to queries for information. This has been interpreted by many analysts as unacceptable.
There is no single universally accepted definition of national security. It would be pertinent to try and understand elements of national security and the way this feature is understood in most countries of the world. National security initially focused just on military might but now it is supposed to encompass a broad range of facets, all of which impinge on the non-military or economic security of the nation and the values espoused by the national society. In this context, it is felt that a nation needs to possess economic security, energy security, environmental security, etc. There is also consensus that security threats involve not only conventional foes such as other nation-states but also non-state actors such as violent non-state actors, narcotic cartels, multinational corporations and non-governmental organisations.
It is also generally agreed that certain measures need to be taken to ensure national security. Such pro-active steps are expected to include - using diplomacy to rally allies and isolate threats, marshalling economic power to facilitate or compel cooperation, maintaining effective armed forces, implementing civil defence and emergency preparedness measures (including anti-terrorism legislation), ensuring the resilience and redundancy of critical infrastructure, using intelligence services to detect and defeat or avoid threats and espionage, protecting classified information and using counter-intelligence services or secret police to protect the nation from internal threats.
We now come to the third element. A country's foreign policy consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve goals within its international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries. The study of such strategies is called foreign policy analysis. In recent times, due to the deepening level of globalisation and transnational activities, the states will also have to interact with non-state actors. The aforementioned interaction is evaluated and monitored in attempts to maximise benefits of multilateral international cooperation.
Since national interests are paramount, foreign policies are usually designed by the government through a high-level decision making processes which includes the Head of Government, the Foreign Minister and the Parliament. Efforts are also made in this context to protect national interests through peaceful cooperation with other nations. However, while taking necessary measures towards the advancement of a country's interest and safeguards are placed on the board so that the process does not suffer from factors that might later change the perceived national interests or even affect the stability of the country itself. This safeguard is undertaken so that the foreign policy of one country does not have a profound and lasting impact on other countries and on the conduct of international relations as a whole, both bilateral and multilateral.
Nevertheless, the maintenance of friendly relations with other countries as a process can become quite ambiguous. This can sometimes lead to a debate where availability of information and the absence of details pertaining to certain agreements entered upon with foreign institutions and other countries could be found wanting. Inability to obtain information about the activities of certain State security and intelligence agencies could also be interpreted as discriminatory in the media. In such situations, absence of true democratic institutions, transparency and lack of accountability could lead to sophisticated forms of political coercion through the exercise of state power. This needs to be avoided at all times.
We need to understand that in the case of national power, the military aspect of security is an important, but not the sole, component of national security. I believe that the protection or the safety of a country's secrets and its citizens and the overall security of a nation and a nation state is best guaranteed through principles of good governance, freedom of information and making all State institutions culpable. Such a matrix along with cyber security can and will eventually contribute towards an appropriate and aggressive blend of political resilience and maturity, human resources, economic structure and capacity, technological competence, industrial base and availability of natural resources and finally, the military might. This, in turn, will enable a nation to overcome the multi-dimensional threats to the apparent well-being of its people and its survival as a nation-state at any given time. It will facilitate the balancing all instruments of state policy through governance, that can be indexed by computation, empirically or otherwise. This will then facilitate societal security.
National security and rights and freedoms are closely intertwined and also an ongoing dialectic struggle, particularly in liberal democracies, between government authority and civil and human rights. It is a mutually inverse situation that suggests that where the exercise of national security laws and powers is not subject to good governance, the rule of law, and strict checks and balances, there is a risk that national security may simply serve as a pretext for suppressing unfavourable political and social views and ultimately lead to an Orwellian dystopia.
(Muhammad Zamir, a former Ambassador and Chief Information Commissioner, is an analyst specialised in foreign affairs and good governance.
mzamir@dhaka.net)