This paper was written in 1999 as part of the Master of Arts in International Management program at the University of Texas at Dallas. It was later substantiated with real-world evidence from LEO satellite and embedded-reporter communications usage during the 2003 Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. It is presented here in that form. The reader is invited to consider how remarkably the predictions and concerns raised in this paper have materialized over the subsequent quarter-century — from satellite internet (Starlink), to cryptocurrency bypassing national currencies, to social media reshaping political sovereignty, to the ongoing global struggle over data governance, AI regulation, and cross-border digital commerce. What was speculative in 1999 is now the daily reality of international business.
Introduction
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have once again highlighted the latest in both military and communication technologies. The major U.S. Networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, and CNN were very hesitant to discuss their “in-the-field” communication capabilities and technologies prior to the start of the conflicts. In early February 2003, Marcy McGinnis, CBS News senior vice president for news coverage, said broadly that “the technology is enabling us to transmit video and audio from remote locations in ways that weren’t possible before.” But added that she “can’t talk about certain things we may have put together to give us a competitive edge.”
For the first time in history, military forces had “embedded reporters” integrated into their front line units. But even more significant was the ability of these embedded reporters to show the world television audience in real-time what was happening on the battlefield.
On April 2, 2003, Mark Jurkowitz of the Boston Globe wrote, “In nearly two weeks of combat coverage, roughly 600 embedded reporters have transmitted many powerful and extraordinary stories back to America’s living rooms and kitchen tables, illuminating everything from scenes of combat to the personal tales of the men and women on the front lines.”
This “openness” sends a chill through some politicians, as well as top military officials. From the military’s perspective, the embedded reporters can be a two-edged sword, showing the best of what good people and good technology can accomplish in a war; while on the other side, potentially disclosing to the enemy strategic or tactical battle information that could jeopardize lives and mission success. And yes, the potential to show the world a mistake or blunder in the heat of battle.
However, for politicians, the concern may go deeper. The embedded reporters are one more step toward government openness and disclosure, something many don’t like or want. For politicians, being in a position of power means having more information than others, and most like this. The ability for people to instantly communicate to each other, one-on-one or in mass, anywhere, anytime in the world is both a technological breakthrough, but also a radical new concept that not everyone appreciates the impact of.
In this article we focus on one major sector of this new technology, the Internet, and discover where it may lead — the technology, e-commerce, and politics.
As dramatic as this statement is, John Barlow may not be far off the mark in his prediction for the future of the Internet.
For the first time in the history of mankind, technology is at the threshold to allow virtually all individuals on earth to communicate directly and instantaneously with each other, and to share information of all kinds through transmission and reception of binary data.
The impact of this may not be fully appreciated without a clear understanding of the emerging technological capabilities, as well as the political, economic, and strategic implications that this technology delivers. Heading the list of questions regarding the new information age is what the impact of unlimited open global information sharing will have on the sovereignty of nations.
As this article will present, technology now allows direct point-to-point communication from any location in the world to any other location in the world via GMPCS satellites, thus bypassing traditional land-based telephone systems and the government controls of those systems. There are currently a number of world organizations and governments focusing on the issues that lie ahead.
Background
Sir Donald Maitland in his keynote address for the World Telecommunication Development Conference at Valletta, Malta stated, “The importance of the information society raises questions about the international division of labor, about the structure of corporations, the future of work, the nature of human society, the individual’s sense of identity, systems of governance and the meaning of sovereignty in an independent, interconnected world.”2
Since its inception, the International Telecommunications Union (and its precursor organizations) has been at the forefront of coordinating and controlling electrical and electronic communication, starting in Europe in 1865. In a video presentation to the Third International Seminar on New Technologies and Telecommunications Services at Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil in November 1995, the Secretary-General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Dr. Pekka Tarjanne stated, “At issue here are the very principles of national sovereignty and national regulation . . .”3
In a 1996 speech in Beijing, China, he said, “But the new global networks raise many more fundamental concerns about the regulation of international commerce — whether it involves trade in goods, services, currencies, information or ideas — and the impact of these changes on national sovereignty, political institutions, and way of life.”4 And in another early 1996 speech in Denmark, Dr. Tarjanne shared that, “For centuries the world has been ordered on the concept of autonomous nation states; but that, too, is changing. . . The fact that telecommunications is now seen as a tradable commodity — rather than a state-provided service — has led to even greater erosion of sovereignty.”5
Stephen Kobrin frames the issue of sovereignty in an article in Foreign Policy magazine by stating, “The geographical rooting of political and economic authority is relatively recent. Territorial sovereignty, borders, and a clear distinction between domestic and international spheres are modern concepts associated with the rise of the nation-state. Territorial sovereignty implies a world divided into clearly demarcated and mutually exclusive geographic jurisdictions. It implies a world where economic and political control arise from control over territory.”6
In his keynote address at the Computer Policy and Law Conference held at Cornell University, David Post compares the American Revolution with the cyberspace revolution. In that context he stated, “We are again facing a fundamental challenge to notions of how laws are legitimately made, at the same time as the structure of the society within which law has been made and applied is changing dramatically. The net is forcing us to ask the most basic question of all in law: Who is the law maker?”7
Technology
To appreciate the revolutionary potential of the Internet, it is essential to develop an understanding of its unique technological characteristics. The Internet and its constituent parts, designated as cyberspace, is comprised of tens of thousands of server computers connected together through telephone lines that stretch around the world. Some of these server computers are designated Internet Service Providers (ISP) that act as an Internet connection point for millions of additional computers in homes and offices.
What makes this network, or web, of millions of computers unusual is that no single computer is necessary. If one server becomes inoperable, data is automatically routed through another unit. There is no “master switch” that allows control of the Internet, no government that can stop it, no jurisdiction can control it.
As a total worldwide system, the Internet’s vulnerability is in the lines that connect the individual computers. These telecommunication lines are controlled both by government and private international telephone companies, depending on where in the world the lines are located.
With today’s technology, a country that desires to limit its citizens’ access to the Internet can block data transfers over the telecommunication lines at the border, transborder data flow (TDF), or at individual telephone central offices. In essence, under current technology, a country can maintain its territorial sovereignty by “cutting” the lines of communication, if it so desires.
However, now implemented is a new technology that may be the catalyst for fundamental global socioeconomic, political, and financial shifts that cannot yet be imagined.
The Global Mobile Personal Communications Services (GMPCS) are comprised of (1) a constellation of non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) Ka band satellites that are constantly traversing the earth at either medium earth orbit (MEO) or relatively low earth orbit (LEO) altitudes and (2) low power earth terminals, similar to a cell phone, that communicate directly with the LEO.
Currently deployed GMPCS systems are Iridium, ICO, Globalstar, and Odyssey. Each offers services that include voice, video, FAX, and data. These early entrants only hint at the potential, not only for data access from virtually anywhere in the world, but also for supplying telephone service in developing countries where the cost of land-based systems is prohibitive.
As these new GMPCS systems continue to evolve, and terrestrial technology such as fiber optic, microwave, and copper wire improves, the ability to connect the world via the Internet moves technically closer to fruition. In a lecture at the UC Berkeley Law School, Dr. Pekka Tarjanne said, “We are witnessing the end of the old regime of ‘inter-national’ telecommunications based on national sovereignty and correspondent relations. As we enter the global information society, the question is: what will replace it?”10
Capabilities
Synonymous descriptors for the Internet are information or digital highway, which from an historic perspective overlays nicely with past methods of moving products of commerce between sellers and buyers around the world.
Early civilization used causeways, then waterways, railways, highways, and eventually airways to respond to the timely needs of world markets; and now the evolution, some say revolution, is moving to the digital way. As information becomes the product, just as agriculture and machines were in their age, its value relies on life cycle. Farmers were controlled by the four seasons and time to spoilage; industrial plants and equipment manufacturers work with life cycles from weeks to years. However, in the digital age, life cycles may be as short as a few seconds.11
Although binary bits and bytes are technically the means of sending information via the Internet, it is what that data represents that is significant. An image of anything visible can be converted to binary code data; a recording of any sound can be converted to binary code data; the physical movements of any machine can be programmed or sensed and converted to binary code data; a myriad of specialized sensors can output binary code data; and programs that manipulate all these data sources use binary code.
For example: a designer in the United States can create a three-dimensional object on a computer and send the digital representation of that design to a computer-controlled milling machine in China. The machine operator in China doesn’t even know what the finished object will look like, until the machine completes its operations. Another example: as sensor transception12 technology improves, the ability to recreate tactile feeling over the Internet will become viable. This has potential application in the medical field for long-distance diagnosis capabilities.
It is difficult to appreciate the magnitude of change that the Internet and data transfer technology will create in the world. It is safe to say that a significant portion of the world’s population will be impacted by the expanded growth of the Internet and e-commerce over the next 20 years.
e-Commerce
Perhaps a more appropriate metaphor than e-commerce is i-commerce for instant-commerce, for that is what cyberspace and the Internet represent. It gives a person or company the ability to instantly access information and services, acquire merchandise, and transfer funds around the globe at the speed of light. It has the power to inundate and educate the masses with information not previously available to much of the world’s population.
By the origin of the Internet being U.S., the predominant e-language is English. As world populations gain access to cyberspace via the Internet, they will become more knowledgeable about the United States, reinforcing America’s role of world leadership, particularly in the field of business.
With the advent of the Internet and e-commerce, the need for multilateral regulations is becoming clear, as stated by Renato Ruggiero, Director-General of the World Trade Organization in a speech at the Third Conference of Transatlantic Business Dialogue in Rome, Italy, November 7, 1997:
“The problem is not globalization as some think; the problem is governance. . . . the globalization process itself underscores the logic of global rules for global firms operating in a global marketplace. As firms increasingly internationalize their production and distribution systems, and as economies become increasingly integrated, it is in no one’s economic interest to have a fragmented system with fragmented rules and even perhaps a fragmented dispute settlement system. This is even more true in the world of borderless technologies we are now entering — a world where economic activity in areas like telecommunications, financial services, and electronic commerce will more and more take place in a single, global economic space, one which is basically indifferent to distance, time and geography.”14
Legal Issues
Legal issues abound in cyberspace, however progress to resolve and clarify them appears to be more harmonious than past international business transitions. This is due to several unique characteristics.
First, the Internet, cyberspace, and electronic commerce are still a relatively new phenomenon; therefore, many countries do not have established laws and regulations that must ultimately be harmonized. Each governing body is starting anew. In this regard, Christopher Caine, Government Programs Vice President for IBM, indicates that governments want private industry to take the lead with the Internet.17
Second, the technology does not reside in a single building under the control and power of a single entity. It is spread among millions of independent computers and peripheral devices making it relatively difficult for oversight or control; therefore, any management of cyberspace must be developed cooperatively.
Thomas Smedinghoff, Chair of the Electronic Commerce Division of the ABA Section of Science and Technology, stated at the Aspen Summit in June 1998, “But I think much more so than at any other time or in any other area of the law are we seeing more of a community effort going on here. And I think, given that electronic commerce is by its very nature international, that’s going to be where the primary focus is going to have to be.”18
Third, although significant attention is being addressed toward the Internet and cyberspace, most world politicians and business leaders have not yet comprehended the direction this technology is headed, and more importantly, the impact that it will have.
In describing the coming global information infrastructure (GII), Joel Reidenberg states that, “Laws, regulations, and standards can, do, and will affect infrastructure development and the behavior of GII participants. Rules and rule-making do exist. However, the identities of the rule makers and the instruments used to establish rules will not conform to classic patterns of regulation.”19
One suggestion for the territorial complexities facing cyberspace and governments is offered by David Johnson and David Post in their paper Law And Borders — The Rise of Law in Cyberspace. The suggestion is the application and balance of the doctrine of “comity” with “delegation” to cyberspace:
“Despite the seeming contradiction of a sovereign deferring to the authority of those who are not its own subjects, such a policy makes sense, especially in light of the underlying purposes of both doctrines. Comity and delegation represent the wise conservation of governmental resources and allocate decisions to those who most fully understand the special needs and characteristics of a particular ‘sphere’ of being. Although Cyberspace represents a new sphere that cuts across national boundaries, the fundamental principle remains.”20
For those who can appreciate what is on the horizon, the questions currently being asked are of crucial importance. And the answers will shape the world of tomorrow.
Summary
There appears to be two threats to the sovereignty of nations that arise from the Internet, cyberspace, and e-commerce. First, through their desire to participate in the new world economy via the Internet and international telecommunications systems, nations must agree to and adopt international laws and regulations that in essence usurp their individual control and sovereignty. In this case, they have decided and agreed to negotiate away some degree of their sovereignty.
Second, governments are concerned about the loss of their “informational sovereignty”, as the technology of worldwide interconnection becomes prolific, the ability to monitor, control, or stop any individual communication becomes exceedingly difficult.21
There appears little doubt that sovereignty, as we know it today, will be diminished, and with it the centralized control and power of governments.
This article opened with John Barlow’s astonishing statement about the significance of the Internet and cyberspace, comparing its impact to that of the harnessing of fire by early man.
It appears that Donald J. Johnston, Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) goes even further in his preface to the OECD-commissioned Sacher Report:
Postscript
Technology continues to offer peoples of the world an opportunity to improve their ability for person-to-person communication. In addition to all the capabilities highlighted in this article, other significant world change will be brought about in the next ten to twenty years by items like the personal audio translators. These devices will “listen” to a person talk, immediately translate, and then play it in a voice very similar to the original speaking voice of the talker. They will be small in size, eventually integrated into communication devices like phones.
Satellite phones will also get smaller and less expensive, and eventually will be as common as today’s cell-based technology — including the video capabilities.
What will all this technology accomplish? We all agree that it will create changes around the world, but specifically where will those changes lead us? That’s anyone’s guess, as no one has the definitive answers today. They always appear tomorrow.
Notes
1 Comments made by John Barlow, founder and vice president of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as a panelist on the Politics, Government, and Digital Technology forum, Aspen Summit, June 26, 1998, sponsored by the Progress and Freedom Foundation.
2 Speech by Sir Donald Maitland, author of the “Missing Link” published in 1985 as a report of the Independent Commission for World-Wide Telecommunications Development, keynote address at Valletta, Malta.
3 Video presentation by Dr. Pekka Tarjanne, Secretary-General, ITU, Third International Seminar on New Technologies and Telecommunications Services, Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, November 1995.
4 Speech by Dr. Pekka Tarjanne, Secretary-General, ITU, “Telecommunications in the Era of Global Electronic Commerce,” Beijing, China, March 20, 1996.
5 Speech by Dr. Pekka Tarjanne, Secretary-General, ITU, “The Changing Relationship Between National and International Regulations,” Helsingør, Denmark, January 28, 1996.
6 Kobrin, Stephen, “Electronic Cash and the End of National Markets,” Foreign Policy, Summer 1997, Number 107, pp. 74–5.
7 Keynote address by David Post, “The Cyberspace Revolution,” Computer Policy & Law Conference, Cornell University, July 9, 1997.
8 Lecture by Dr. Pekka Tarjanne, Secretary-General, ITU, “The Limits of National Sovereignty: Issues for the Governance of International Telecommunications,” UC Berkeley Law School, September 28, 1995.
9 Market study conducted by Pyramid Research, reported in “Policy Challenges and Opportunities for Global Mobile Personal Communications by Satellite: The Globalstar Viewpoint” by Douglas Dwyer, President, Globalstar.
10 Lecture by Dr. Pekka Tarjanne, Secretary-General, ITU, UC Berkeley Law School, September 28, 1995.
11 Concept presented by Michael Maibach, Government Affairs Vice President, Intel, Aspen Summit, June 26, 1998.
12 Transception is the ability to receive an exact representation of what was sent, without distortion or modification. In the case of touch, the recipient tactilely “feels” the object that is being remotely sensed as if being physically at the remote site. — Author
13 Taylor, Richard J.D., Ed.D. and Jussawalla, Ph.D., “The WTO Basic Telecommunications Agreement: Evolving Multilateral Regulatory Paradigms and the Developing World,” Pennsylvania State University.
14 Ruggiero, Renato, “Regional Initiatives, Global Impact, and the Multilateral System,” reprinted in I-Ways, Fourth Quarter 1997, pp. 16–19.
15 American Bar Association Section of Business Law, Cyberspace Law Committee.
16 “Dismantling the Barriers to Global Electronic Commerce,” OECD, distributed July 6, 1998.
17 Comments made by Christopher Caine, Government Programs Vice President, IBM Corporation, Aspen Summit, June 26, 1998.
18 Comments made by Thomas J. Smedinghoff, Chair, Electronic Commerce Division, ABA Section of Science and Technology, Aspen Summit, June 26, 1998.
19 Reidenberg, Joel, Governing Networks and Rule-Making in Cyberspace.
20 Johnson, David R. and Post, David G., “Law And Borders — The Rise of Law in Cyberspace,” May 1996.
21 Quote from lecture by Dr. Pekka Tarjanne, UC Berkeley Law School, September 28, 1995: “It is currently considered impossible to distinguish between bitstreams carrying socially acceptable messages and those carrying illegal or undesirable messages. The notion of ‘bitstream policemen’, even if possible, does not seem desirable.”
22 Sacher Report commissioned by the OECD, “Electronic Commerce — Opportunities and Challenges for Government,” June 12, 1997.
© 1999 Stephen Taylor — All rights reserved