Obituary: Caspar Bowden, privacy campaigner
Fired from Microsoft for revealing collusion with the NSA, Bowden was a tireless and forthright campaigner for digital privacy
The cause of online privacy lost one of its most passionate and persuasive campaigners today with the death of Caspar Bowden.
In 2011, two years before Snowden made the world aware of the connivance of the tech giants in government surveillance, Bowden was fired from his position of chief privacy adviser at Microsoft after revealing that any non-US citizen using the services of a US firm was legally subject to US government surveillance.
Describing US law as "exceptionally exceptionalist" in the way that it differentiates between the personal data of US and non-US citizens, following his dismissal from Microsoft he turned his considerable energies to campaigning against legislation such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702, which underpins the NSA's Prism surveillance programme, and the presidential Executive Order 12333 which grants surveillance powers to US intelligence agencies.
Unusual in his abilities to grasp the minutiae and complexities of both technology and the law, he was also a natural communicator and walked the corridors, lecture halls and meeting rooms of the European Parliament explaining what the combination of US legislation and cloud computing meant to anyone who would listen. In the early days, however, few people were interested in his message.
"To me it seemed we were the only two people in Europe trying to make the European Commission aware of the hypocrisy of Safe Harbour in a legal arena," said fellow privacy campaigner Alexander Hanff.
When details of what the intelligence agencies have been up to were made public thanks to Edward Snowden, Bowden felt personally vindicated. "Caspar, It's all true!", he mocked the reaction of EU data protection officials as the secret NSA documents started to appear in the newspapers.
Initially enthusiastic that the up-coming EU General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) would patch the gaping holes in legal protections, and also lead to a renaissance in the European technology sector, when Computing interviewed him earlier this year he said he believed that lobbying efforts by the tech giants had successfully "de-fanged" the legislation and that he no longer had much faith in the process.
"Caspar was renowned - even infamous - for his incisive and forthright position on questions of individual freedoms." said friend Simon Davies, associate director of LSE Enterprise at the London School of Economics.
"During the early months of the anti-RIPA law campaign, for example, he would often work around the clock, several days a week. I've rarely encountered anyone with such boundless energy and dedication. His energy would both inspire and exhaust his friends!"
Bowden was "someone who fought his entire life for privacy, security and a zone of personal freedom from which surveillance infrastructures could just sod off," said Malavika Jayaram, fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, who praised his "bloodymindedness when it came to the truth about surveillance".
Latterly, in part because of his experiences with the EU lawmakers, Bowden had started to doubt whether the law would ever come down on the side of personal privacy and had turned his attention to technology as a means by which individuals and companies could protect themselves from the attentions of governments and corporations. He promoted the idea of differential privacy, sat on the board of directors of the Tor anonymising service and was also a supporter of the Qubes OS secure desktop project, a task to which he brought his familiar campaigning zeal.
"Caspar was to me, a great friend and a mentor but more than that he was a beacon in what is a very lonely sea. Caspar was more interested in fighting the issues than who he might upset along the way - it made him a controversial figure but his intelligence, commitment and knowledge were without question," said Hanff.
"I will miss him, civil society will miss him and his passing is a grave loss to the global fight against mass surveillance."
Computing understands Caspar Bowden had been suffering from cancer.
Recent articles to which Caspar Bowden contributed:
Privacy campaigner: Why I hope Microsoft loses court case against the NSA