Argument: It is a means of vocalizing support for uprisings and liberty at a remove, preventing the backlash of direct intervention

By enacting this subsidy, the West makes a tacit public statement in favour of those involved in uprisings without coming out and publicly taking a side. This is a shrewd position to take as it blunts many of the fall-backs opposed regimes rely upon, such as blaming Western provocateurs for instigating the uprising. Rather than making a judgment call involving force or sanction, the simple provision of anonymity means the people involved in the uprisings can do it themselves while knowing they have some protections to fall back on that the West alone could provide. This is a purely enabling policy, giving activists on the group access to the freedom of information and expression, which aids not only in their aim to free themselves from tyranny, but also abets the West’s efforts to portray itself publicly as a proponent of justice for all, not just those it happens to favour as a geopolitical ally. In essence, the policy is a public statement of support for the ideas behind uprisings absent the specific taking of sides in a particular conflict. It throws some advantages to those seeking to rise up without undermining their cause through overbearing Western intervention. And that statement is a valuable one for Western states to make, because democracies tend to be more stable, more able to grow economically and socially in the long term, and are more amenable to trade and discourse with the West. By enacting this policy the West can succeed in this geopolitical aim without making the risers seem to be Western pawns.

Candidate 1: "All software can be hacked, even with cruder hardware and software. The ability of Chinese hackers to undermine businesses’ advanced firewalls in the United States, having demonstrated a potent ability to penetrate several major media companies. 1 Products made in the West with government subsidy will just have a bloated price tag thanks to the extra costs of production in the West, and the tendency to overrun costs that tends to occur when government is involved. The incentive may not even be enough to persuade many software companies to work on such a project, as they will wish to maintain their markets in authorotarian states such as China which such an innitiative would annoy. China in particular has a history of blacklisting and retaliating against companies that are involved in activities that it sees as being against its national interests.

1 Pakzad, X. “Depth of Cyber Attacks from Chinese Hackers on American News Outlets”. IVN. 9 February 2013. http://ivn.us/2013/02/09/depth-of-cyber-attacks-from-chinese-hackers-on-american-news-outlets/"
Candidate 2: "Western states, like all states, owe their primary responsibility to their own citizens, not those in a distant land claiming to be striving for common notions of rights. It is difficult for Western states to ascertain the actual motivations of the body of risers in any given scenario, let alone the motivations of specific individuals utilizing the technology. The West is not necessarily aiding seekers after freedom by providing this technology, but may rather be abetting crimes and violence worse than the regime being challenged. The nature of the technology is that it would have to be indiscriminate, making it unsuited to the task of aiding in the liberation of oppressed peoples."
Candidate 3: "Whether the West thinks it is being clever by hiding behind the intermediary of private companies and acting as if the software they are creating is not for use in destabilizing undemocratic, or perhaps just unfriendly, regimes, that story will not fly on the ground. If the west wants to support uprisings then it is better for it to do so in the open. Without open western support authoritarian regimes will feel they are enabled to crack down on uprisings when they occur. When such crackdowns occur democratic states can either stay silent and so tacitly endorse the regime or condemn it so supporting the uprising."
Candidate 4: "Engagement will still occur. The software exists to aid in uprisings, which is the endpoint of the regime, or at least a signal of its imminent change. It is a play that Western governments should back on a human as well as political level. The subsidies and incentives, furthermore, can be sufficient to compensate companies if things do indeed go sour. This would be expected, in fact, since the companies, acting rationally will have to be coaxed into producing and supplying this technology."
Candidate 5: "First it is wrong to simply assume that this will guarantee protection for people involved in uprisings. Previous attempts at providing software to help dissenters have had security vulnerabilities that could have allowed the regime to expose its users identities. This was the case with Haystack a tool that was meant to keep users anonymous during the failed green revolution in Iran. 1

Second providing anonymity and thus snubbing the regimes that survive uprisings means those states will be less willing to envision working with the West toward reforms. When an uprising occurs clearly something needs to change. But when the West is putting such undue pressure on a government, it will not react in a way that would benefit the civil rights of the people. Operating from a position of weakness, it will seek to retrench its strength, through force if necessary. Anonymity means little in this scenario, as governments can simply round up all participants in protests and enact harsh punishments to deter future acts.

1 Zetter, K., “Privacy Tool for Iranian Activists Disabled After Security Holes Exposed”, WIRED, 14 September 2010. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/haystack/"
Candidate 6: "In an uprising the government is going to try to level lots of accusations. Some will stick, some will not. In this case the government has a touch more ammunition on the anti-Western front, but this is entirely overwhelmed by the boon of protecting the leaders and organizers, who are at greatest risk using the social media needed to coordinate the uprising, and are the most essential to a successful outcome. The benefits of providing anonymity clearly outweigh the tangential costs of giving a bit more mud to the government to sling."
Candidate 7: "Regimes will paint everyone as looters and disturbers of order irrespective of anonymity. This software changes that status quo by offering the political dissidents, the real people regimes will be trying to root out during and in the aftermath of uprisings, a means of not falling immediately foul of the state security forces. They are the people that need protection in this scenario because it is on them that the success of the uprising and its ideals rest."
Candidate 8: "It is often not enough simply to encourage gradual change, many states when given such encouragement simply take what the west offers and ignores what the west asks. This indeed was the case with Mubarak's Egypt for three decades, it took billions in aid from the United States yet did not reform, the U.S. even strengthened the regime by respecting restrictions on which NGOs could get funding. 1 If people are able to act and organize with more limited government reprisal, their chance of success is significantly increased. The incentive of the West should be to bet on the dissidents when they rise up and to take the gamble so that they can welcome a new, freer regime into the congress of nations.

1 Bery, S., “Roots of Discontent: Egypt's Call for Freedom”, Harvard Kennedy School Review, 2011. http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k74756&amp;tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup124714"

Whether the West thinks it is being clever by hiding behind the intermediary of private companies and acting as if the software they are creating is not for use in destabilizing undemocratic, or perhaps just unfriendly, regimes, that story will not fly on the ground. If the west wants to support uprisings then it is better for it to do so in the open. Without open western support authoritarian regimes will feel they are enabled to crack down on uprisings when they occur. When such crackdowns occur democratic states can either stay silent and so tacitly endorse the regime or condemn it so supporting the uprising.
