The Intensification of Surveillance

Contents

Acknowledgements vi

1 The Intensification of Surveillance 1Kirstie Ball and Frank Webster

2 Surveillance after September 11, 2001 16David Lyon

3 Data Mining and Surveillance in the Post-9/11 Environment 26Oscar H. Gandy

4 Joined-up Surveillance: The Challenge to Privacy 42Charles D. Raab

5 ‘They Don’t Even Know We’re There’: The ElectronicMonitoring of Offenders in England and Wales 62Mike Nellis

6 Information Warfare, Surveillance and Human Rights 90Frank Webster

7 Mapping out Cybercrimes in a Cyberspatial Surveillant Assemblage 112David S. Wall

8 The Constant State of Emergency?: Surveillance after 9/11 137David Wood, Eli Konvitz and Kirstie Ball

Notes on Contributors 151Bibliography 154Index 169

1The Intensification

of SurveillanceKirstie Ball and Frank Webster

Surveillance involves the observation, recording and categoriza-tion of information about people, processes and institutions. Itcalls for the collection of information, its storage, examinationand – as a rule – its transmission. It is a distinguishing feature ofmodernity, though until the 1980s the centrality of surveillanceto the making of our world had been underestimated in socialanalysis. Over the years surveillance has become increasinglysystematic and embedded in everyday life, particularly as state(and, latterly, supra-state) agencies and corporations havestrengthened and consolidated their positions. More and morewe are surveilled in quite routine activities, as we make telephonecalls, pay by debit card, walk into a store and into the path ofsecurity cameras, or enter a library through electronic turnstiles.It is important that this routine character of much surveillanceis registered, since commentators so often focus exclusively onthe dramatic manifestations of surveillance such as communi-cations interceptions and spy satellites in pursuit of putative anddeadly enemies.

In recent decades, aided by innovations in information andcommunications technologies (ICTs), surveillance has expandedand deepened its reach enormously. Indeed, it is now conductedat unprecedented intensive and extensive levels while it is vastlymore organized and technology-based than hitherto. Surveil-lance is a matter of such routine that generally it escapes ournotice – who, for instance, reflects much on the traces they leaveon the supermarkets’ checkout, and who worries about thetracking their credit card transactions allow? Most of the time wedo not even bother to notice the surveillance made possible bythe generation of what has been called transactional information(Burnham, 1983) – the records we create incidentally in everyday

1

activities such as using the telephone, logging on to the Internet,or signing a debit card bill. Furthermore, different sorts of sur-veillance are increasingly melded such that records collected forone purpose may be accessed and analysed for quite another: thegolf club’s membership list may be an attractive database for theinsurance agent, address lists of subscribers to particularmagazines may be especially revealing when combined withother information on consumer preferences. Such personal dataare now routinely abstracted from individuals through economictransactions, and our interaction with communicationsnetworks, and the data are circulated, as data flows, betweenvarious databases via ‘information superhighways’. Categoriza-tions of these data according to lifestyle, shopping habits,viewing habits and travel preferences are made in what has beentermed the ‘phenetic fix’ (Phillips & Curry, 2002; Lyon, 2002b),which then informs how the economic risk associated with thesecategories of people is managed. More generally, the globe isincreasingly engulfed in media which report, expose and inflectissues from around the world, these surveillance activities havingimportant yet paradoxical consequences on actions and ourstates of mind. Visibility has become a social, economic andpolitical issue, and an indelible feature of advanced societies(Lyon, 2002b; Haggerty & Ericson, 2000).

It is this intensification of surveillance that is the subject ofthis book. We concentrate our attention on the aligned surveil-lance surrounding crime, terrorism and information warfare, notleast because, as Thomas and Loader observe, ‘the transformingcapabilities of ICTs make it increasingly difficult to distinguishbetween warfare, terrorism and criminal activities’ (2000, p. 3).There are vital differences between these realms, but develop-ments have led to a decided blurring at the edges, which lendsurgency to the analyses and discriminations our contributorsprovide here. Moreover, the compass of these ostensibly discreteareas, something that extends all the way from suspicion andprevention to pursuit and punishment, is so enormous that theycompel attention. Surveillance of crime can involve anythingfrom observation of rowdy behaviour in the street to searchingbank accounts for traces of illicit financial movements; fromchecking the rectitude of credit card holders to tagging prisonersreleased from gaol; from monitoring the speeds of motor cars to

2 The Intensification of Surveillance

tracking Internet usage of suspected paedophiles. Meanwhile thepursuit of terrorists may call for anything from assiduous exam-ination of airline bookings, identification of hackers, to satellitemonitoring of shipping thought to be ferrying weaponry. Andinformation warfare calls for nothing less than continuous andall-seeing observation of real and putative enemies – whereterrorists are major targets and where criminal activity readilybecomes pertinent – using the most sophisticated technologiesavailable.

A particular concern here, perhaps inevitably, is with theperiod since September 11, 2001. The destruction by terrorists ofthe Twin Towers in New York city has stimulated, and perhapseven more importantly, legitimated, the acceleration andexpansion of surveillance trends. Moreover, it has helpedpromote especially acute disciplinary forms of surveillance andit has blurred still more already fuzzy boundaries between crime,terrorism and contemporary warfare. To be sure, crime andterrorism have long been of major interest to surveillanceagencies, but today we are witnessing a step change wherebythere is a massive increase in surveillance, an expansion of thosedeemed deserving of scrutiny, and an integration of this withwarfare itself. In this light consider the Pentagon’s TerrorismInformation Awareness (TIA) project, announced late in 2002.TIA has been developed as a response to September 11 and theconsequent American priority of targeting terrorist threats(Goldenberg, 2002), which are now regarded as the majorconcern of the advanced societies’ military. The TIA initiativeaims to sift every electronic trail left behind in the US by terroristsuspects. The presumption is that terrorists exhibit patterns ofbehaviour that can be identified by ‘data mining’ many diverseand apparently mundane activities which are subject to surveil-lance of one sort or another. Accordingly, records of airlinetickets, rental payments, traffic violations, bank statements, e-mails, immigration control, credit card receipts, parking tickets,telephone calls, ATM usage and the rest will all be accessed – andthese through time so patterns may be discerned and evaluated.Similarly, video camera records from key locations (airports,monuments, public buildings etc.) and film from closed-circuittelevision cameras at freeway tollbooths, will be examined usingfacial recognition techniques to pinpoint suspicious people.

The Intensification of Surveillance 3

At the heart of Terrorism Information Awareness is theconviction that, by searching a vast range of databases, it will bepossible to identify terrorists, even before they can strike. TIA willdraw together the results of already prodigious surveillanceactivities in hopes that defence agencies will prove capable ofspotting enemies before they cause mayhem. The premise is that,if everything can be seen, all obstacles and threats might be extin-guished, and stability thereby assured. As its Mission Statement(DARPA, 2002) inelegantly puts it, the project ‘will imagine,develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition informa-tion technologies, components and proto-type, closed-loop,information systems that will counter asymmetric threats byachieving total information awareness useful for pre-emption;national security warning; and national security decision making’.

And who, post-9/11, might there be to object to this? Thereare undeniably serious terrorist threats posed to citizens, and itis surely right that all measures possible are taken against thosewho would perpetrate such crimes. Our main concern herewould not be to resist TIA outright, but rather to draw attentionto the mammoth amount of surveillance that already takes placeand which is the foundation on which TIA builds. Focusing onthe ordinariness of closed circuit television cameras in so manyspheres of society, the ubiquity of the telephone system, theinescapability of credit card institutions, we want to emphasizethe ongoing intensification of surveillance in everyday life. Thereare major consequences of this, to which we shall draw attentionlater in this introduction and to which our contributors payheed, but at this stage we want to insist on the need to appreciatethe spread of what might be thought of as ordinary and everydaysurveillance.

Nevertheless, it is worth observing that, if the scale and scopeof Total Information Awareness is awesome, it is neither unprece-dented nor is its motivating spirit new (Bamford, 2001). Indeed,we believe that TIA is driven by a conviction that is familiar. Thishas it that order will be assured if all is known. If only everythingcan be observed, then, goes the reasoning, everything may becontrolled. In this view, if surveillance can be thorough enough,then disturbances – anything from terrorist outrages to economiccrisis, from late night fracas to the break-up of families – can beanticipated and appropriate action taken to remove (or at least


mitigate) them. We would go even further: the thinking behindTIA expresses what might be conceived of as a compulsion tosurveille, which is endemic in the modern world, where order andcontrol are the requisites of all else.

For instance, in the early 1980s an alliance of military high-ups, elder statesmen (notably former UK prime minister EdwardHeath and one-time head of the World Bank, Ford Motors, andthe Department of Defence Robert McNamara), entrepreneursand technological innovators came together to create IRIS (Inter-national Reporting Information Systems). The aim of IRIS was tosift and sort, in real time, vast information flows gathered fromacross the globe on matters such as commodity prices,insurgency, political machinations, and investment trends (StJorre, 1983). The ambition of IRIS was to provide corporate andgovernment clients with timely information, which would beaccurate, immediately accessible and customized. The premisewas that, to maximize effect and appeal to those who would paythe subscriptions, it was necessary to know everything, fromanywhere, at any time, that might impinge upon the interests ofthose footing the bill.

Much the same compulsion to surveille was also evident inH.G. Wells’s advocacy during the 1930s of a ‘World Brain’. Thescience fiction enthusiast conceived this as a ‘new world organfor the collection, indexing, summarising and release ofknowledge’ (1938, p. 159). This ‘mental clearing house’, theWorld Brain, was to Wells something to be wholeheartedlywelcomed since the ‘creation … of a complete planetarymemory’ (p. 60) promised order and prosperity, the twins ofprogress. One must observe the consonance here with both theTIA and IRIS projects: surveillance is the prerequisite of effectivecontrol, and the better the surveillance, the more adequate willbe the control and command that delivers progress.1

From instances such as these it is not such a big step to themetaphor that is most commonly evoked when commentatorsthink about surveillance – Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. Thiswas an early nineteenth-century architectural design, applicableto prisons, schools and factories especially, by which peoplecould be inspected from central points, though the inspectorsthemselves might not be seen by those whom they watched,while the inspected could not easily communicate one with


another. The design was deliberate in its ambition to have thesubjects watched, the watchers capable of seeing everythingalways, and the watchers unaware when the watchers might notbe watching. Michel Foucault, in his enormously influentialstudy, Discipline and Punish (1979), took the Panopticon as acentral motif of modernity itself, adding that self-monitoringaccompanies panopticism, with the inspected continuouslyfeeling that they are subject to surveillance. Moreover, toFoucault the Panopticon is more than a physical place, since italso entails new ‘disciplines’ of order such as carefully timetabledevents for each day and scrutiny of the behaviour of theinspected over time. In the Foucauldian view, when surveillanceis accompanied by technologies such as computerized tills andvideo cameras, then we have entered an era of the Panopticonwithout walls (Lyon, 1994). Hence the ‘carceral texture’ persistsand deepens in a ‘disciplinary’ society, though the actual wallsof the prison may have been removed. Contemporary surveil-lance becomes here a noticeably intense and intrusive form ofdiscipline, which depends on observation, assessment andanalysis as matters of routine (Whitaker, 1999).

It might be noted that recent Foucaultian accounts of thepanopticon tend to resist the suggestion that panoptictechniques have become homogenized and centralized (thoughit is hard to avoid precisely this conclusion from readingDiscipline and Punish itself) in the hands of, say, linked transac-tional corporations or integrated government agencies (e.g.Bogard, 1996). Gandy (1998), for instance, asserts that it wouldbe a mistake to assume that surveillance in practice is as completeand totalizing as the panoptic ideal type would have us believe.For instance, it may be that educational institutions and retailcorporations operate as huge panoptic machines in themselves,but these are both internally differentiated and externally hardto access by others, while the surveillers within education andthe retail industry are themselves surveilled by many otherpanoptic-like organizations such as insurance companies and taxagencies. In this sense, today’s surveillance may more accuratelybe seen as at once more pervasive and less centralized than mighthave been imagined by earlier proponents of panopticism.

Another critic, James Rule (1998, p. 68), reminds us that thePanopticon may offer ‘little help’ in understanding new forms of


electronic surveillance if the issue is whether people are subjectto more or more severe forms of control. It might be emphasizedhere that more intensive surveillance can readily accompany aneasing of direct control since careful watching may allowsuccessful pre-emptive actions or even improved self-controlfrom those who are aware they are being watched (Boyne, 2000).Thus contemporary panopticism may be more a question of howrather disparate individuals, organizations, state bodies and themedia relate to surveillance technologies and how these influencewhat data is collected, where this goes, and what happens in con-sequence. Thereby surveillance may be increasingly intense, yetlead to less overtly punitive controls than hitherto, while it mayalso be more differentiated, complex and textured than earlierproponents of the Panopticon feared (or hoped).

Moreover, in electronically mediated worlds, our identities aredigitally authenticated by what Lyon (2001b) calls ‘tokens oftrust’ (e.g. an ID number), which identify individuals in theabsence of face-to-face interaction. In providing these mandatorytokens of trust, the corollaries are, first, that we collude in ourown surveillance, second, in doing so, we contribute to theoverall movement towards greater intensification of personal sur-veillance, and third, we erode privacy because our autonomy indisclosing personal data is decreased.

SURVEILLANCE STUDIES

Given the raft of issues and controversies that pervade the inten-sification of surveillance, it is no coincidence that, over the lastten years, the sub-field of Surveillance Studies has developed. Thisbrings together scholars from a variety of backgrounds: urbanists,sociologists, computer scientists, political scientists, and evenorganization theorists contribute. One of its leading lights, DavidLyon, surveys the scene following September 11 in Chapter 2here. Lyon (2002b) observes that surveillance is crucial to theidentification and sorting of people and things. He helpfully dis-tinguishes two major categories of surveillance, namelycategorical suspicion and categorical seduction. We propose afurther two types: categorical care and categorical exposure.

Categorical Suspicion involves surveillance that is concernedwith identification of threats to law and order – with malcon-


tents, dissidents and, at the extreme, terrorists. It reaches fromdisaffected and troublesome young men to organized criminals,and it extends, when it enters the realms of ‘information war’, toclose observation and assessment of enemies within and without,using an array of advanced technologies from communicationsintervention devices to satellite cameras. Categorical suspicionencompasses all the policing dimensions of surveillance, and fewdispute its necessity, though many are concerned about itsboundaries and intrusions into the civil liberties of citizens.

Categorical Seduction points especially to the range of modernmarketing which endeavours to identify behaviour of customersthat they might be more effectively persuaded to continue asconsumers. Consumer society is distinguished by its means ofpersuasion – design, fashion, branding, promotion, display,celebrity, product placement … . Surveillance also plays a key rolein the perpetuation of this system, since accurate information isa sine qua non of successful marketing. For instance, retailers haveintroduced ‘loyalty cards’ primarily to track the patterns of con-sumption (Where do they buy? What do they purchase? In whatquantities and with what regularity?), in order that customers bemore precisely targeted by advertisements, special offers, andsimilar enticing offers.

Categorical Care draws attention to the surveillance directedlargely at health and welfare services (though undoubtedly thismerges, in some cases, with categorical suspicion). For instance,the development of medical records may be a requisite of moreappropriate and timely interventions, while the identification of‘at risk’ groups in particular locations demands close monitoringof phenomena such as morbidity, income and housing circum-stances. It is difficult to imagine an effective welfare service thatdoes not amass extensive records on its clients and, indeed,health, education and pensions have been enormous stimulantsto the growth of surveillance.

Categorical Exposure is signalled in the major development ofmedia and its increasingly intrusive character in the present era.Most commonly witnessed with regard to coverage of ‘celebrities’of one sort or another (and ‘celebrity’ is a fluid term, capable ofincluding pretty well any public figure such as politicians andcivil servants should circumstances allow), exposure is nowadayscharacteristic of the tabloid press especially (though the


tabloidization of media means that it extends far beyond). It isintrusive and persistent, as a host of cases in recent years hasdemonstrated (Mathieson, 1997). Anyone targeted for suchexposure is sure to have their friends and family closely scruti-nized, their biographies closely examined for any signs ofsuspiciousness, and their day-to-day activities given the closestinspection. Bill Clinton’s pursuit by the media, apparently moreconcerned with his sex life than his presidential responsibilitiesin the mid- to late 1990s, provides an especially vivid example ofsuch exposure. The pursuit of Cherie Booth, the wife of theBritish prime minister, first by the Daily Mail and later by mostof the media, late in 2002, provides another.

WHY INTENSIFY SURVEILLANCE?

Given that new surveillance-based practices emerge at regularintervals, various explanations for the spread of surveillance havebeen offered. None of them, it might be emphasized, give muchdue to particular events, however cataclysmic these might be.Accordingly, we ought to be suspicious of those who point to9/11 as the springboard for a ‘new’ surveillance. Whilst we wouldargue that 9/11 precipitated an application of surveillancetechniques the magnitude of which we have not hithertowitnessed, this is not our primary contention. Our centralcontention would be that 9/11 encouraged an alignment ofactors, organizations, debates and viewpoints, from differentpolicy and academic spheres, all of which featured surveillanceas a germane issue. Accordingly, national security was con-structed as relevant to public and private sector positions onCCTV and crime control, Internet security, and consumermonitoring, with privacy issues temporarily taking a back seat.Indeed, Dennis (1999) reports that 70 per cent of Britons arehappy to let companies use their personal data, on the conditionthat they receive something back, such as a personal service orother benefits. The attack on the Twin Towers has acceleratedsurveillance, but its steady progress was well developed beforethen. Indeed, the more persuasive accounts of surveillance tracea lengthy history. It may be helpful to review some of these here.

From the Marxian camp has come the argument that surveil-lance emerges from the imperatives of class struggle. Harry


Braverman’s (1974) classic text, Labour and Monopoly Capital,contended that corporate capitalism devised modernmanagement to oversee and monitor the labour process so thatit might be in a position to organize better and simplify whatgets done at the workplace in ways advantageous to itself. Theunderlying premiss of management’s systems of scrutiny of thelabour process was that the workers were not to be trusted andthat what was involved was a struggle to control the shop floor,which, in its own interests, management had to win. Bravermanbelieved that Frederick Taylor articulated this creed in his classicbook, Scientific Management (1964), and drew heavily on this textto support his case. Later commentators have argued, drawingon the Marxian tradition, that workplace surveillance has inten-sified and that management has extended its reach to consumerswho are nowadays closely surveilled so they may be the moreeffectively persuaded, cajoled and directed by corporate capital(Webster & Robins, 1986). Throughout there is the prioritizationof power and interest, which motivates the spread of surveillancethat one group may better control others.

Though there is surely a good deal in the Marxian approach,major problems for it are, one, the adoption of a crude classmodel of society that appears blind to graduations of inequalityand position, and, two, how to account for the considerablymore direct forms of surveillance endured by non-marketsocieties. This latter point conjures the image of former Sovietsocieties, as well as the present-day People’s China, in which spiesand surveillance were and are routine. In comparison, the sur-veillance regimes of the capitalist West appear positively benign.But evocation of non-market societies leads us to the perspectiveon surveillance that is now described as Orwellian, after GeorgeOrwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. This approachwarns of the omniscience of the modern state (and superstate),and the attendant risks it carries of totalitarianism. Intellectually,Orwellianism stands in the tradition of the neo-Machiavellianscholars such as Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca, whoconcluded that power is the basis of all relationships and thatthose exercising power do so ruthlessly and calculatingly, andwho held a poor opinion of their fellow men’s capabilities andcapacity for harmony and goodwill. Orwell did not share thiscynicism, though his dystopian novel expresses it forcefully.


The great sociologist Max Weber had a distinct, if underelabo-rated, view of surveillance and its relation to modernity. Heregarded surveillance as a necessary accompaniment to theincreased rationalization of the world, something most manifestin the inexorable process of bureaucratization, which was accom-panied by inescapable inequalities and, moreover, trapped peoplein an ‘iron cage’ of rules and procedures that destroyed initiativeand individuality (Dandeker, 1990). The image is conjured hereof the lowly bureaucrat who is but a cog in the wheel of hierar-chical organizations that cold-heartedly maximize achievementof their targets, be they more production of ball-bearings orprocessing of welfare benefits.

These then are the great themes of social theory as regards sur-veillance: it stems from class relationships, the pursuit of power,or the spread of what Weber termed ‘instrumental rationality’.There is, however, another explanation of surveillance, one thataccounts for its spread in terms of it being essential to living theway that we do. From this point of view pretty well everythingthat we do entails an element of surveillance. To gain leveragewe must observe closely in order to make effective decisions.Such surveillance is at once personal (we look around ourselves,as well as inside at our own biographies, to ascertain what it isthat we will respond to) and involves the garnering of informa-tion from others’ surveillance (for example, we look more or lessinterestedly at reports of family breakdowns studied by experts tounderstand better our own circumstances and how we mightmost appropriately act). In this way, surveillance is an essentialingredient of what has been called the ‘reflexive self’, one con-siderably more self-conscious and capable of creating itself thanits predecessors (Giddens, 1991).

Moreover, surveillance is now a requisite of our participatingin today’s world, since it is surveillance that enables individualchoices and a genuine sense of self-volition. For instance,telephone networks routinely track every call that is made as anessential element of their operations. But it is precisely thisintricate and all-seeing surveillance of users of the phonenetwork (every call is registered exactly, in terms of time,duration and contact) that allows users to enjoy the extraordi-nary freedoms that modern telephony bring (with mobilephones one can contact pretty well anyone, anytime, provided


one switches on the mobile). Much the same case may be madefor credit and debit cards: they simultaneously surveille andthereby intrude into the individual’s private life and allow thosewith access remarkable advantages in terms of day-to-day actions(no need for cash, foreign currencies, and so on).

It is important to recognize this paradoxical character of sur-veillance: it intrudes and enables at one and the same time. Thereis a similar ambivalence about surveillance when it is seen fromthe perspective of social inclusion and exclusion. To be includedas a citizen in our society one must submit to being surveilled(to provide an address to the authorities, to enter a tax returnwhen required, to submit to the recording of one’s health details… ), but in return one gets access to a range of desirable services(the vote, welfare rights, medical benefits … ). Against this, onemight endeavour to escape surveillance, but this is to invite bothhardship and the attention of disciplinary agencies. Indeed, tobe excluded in today’s world means, at least for the majority, thatsurveillance will be directed at them as ‘outsiders’, as probable‘deviants’, ‘threats’ or, more kindly, ‘in need of help’. Bluntly, tobe included one must submit to surveillance, while the excludedwill be watched willy-nilly.

There are many well-rehearsed objections to the growth of sur-veillance. Prominent amongst these is a perceived threat to civilliberties. Many commentators are understandably concernedthat information may be accumulated for nebulous ends, or bythe wrong people, or that files will remain active when they arelong outdated. There is a substantial literature, and associatedsocial movements as well as legislation, concerned with the civilliberties aspects of surveillance (e.g. Campbell and Connor, 1986;Davies, 1996), and several of our contributors to this book raisesimilar fears and suggest safeguards. This is entirely proper sincethe surge of surveillance in recent years poses sharper threats toliberty than before.

There is also a well-established tradition of thought, in both theUnited States and Britain, that objects to surveillance on groundsof intrusions on privacy (e.g. Rosen, 2000; Garfinkel, 2000;Thompson, 1980). The issue of privacy always – and rightly –looms large in consideration of surveillance. Fischer-Hubner(2001), drawing on Westin (1967), helpfully distinguishes threemain areas of privacy – territorial, personal (of the body) and infor-


mational (of information about oneself). In Europe, privacy rightshave been enshrined in the Human Rights Act (1998), the detailof which has been left to member states to implement. A gooddeal of the debate surrounding the right to informational privacyemploys arguments concerning relative amount of cost andbenefit of the disclosure of personal information, and the point atwhich one’s right to privacy ends (Moore, 2000). The argumentproceeds thus: if technology is applied to find information for aworthwhile end that outweighs the costs to privacy, then the useof the technology for this purpose might be permitted (Friedman,2000). This can be a deeply problematic judgement.

Tunick (2000) raises the question whether expectations ofprivacy are reasonable in the face of the new technologies of sur-veillance that appear in our everyday lives. He suggests thatprivacy can be violated if our right to disclose autonomouslyinformation about ourselves is removed. The same applies to apersonal e-mail and a personal diary if both were read withoutauthorization. So Tunick argues that our expectation of privacyhinges upon whether exposure can occur by ‘mischance’. Privacyis thus violated when somebody happens to be passing, and takesthe opportunity to snoop. This principle is as much applicablein the electronic, as it is in the physical realm, by the viewing ofindividual records, as opposed to an aggregated whole.

From what we have already argued in this introduction, it willbe clear that a position of opposition to surveillance tout court is,in our view, infeasible. The fact is that some degree of surveillanceis a requirement of contemporary ways of life. In consequence,the key issues revolve around the character and motivation of thesurveillance (what categories of surveillance are being mobilized,and to what end?) and the point at which proper boundaries areto be drawn. These are questions properly asked and addressedby citizens as well as by politicians and lawyers.

What we would like to contribute to the discussion concernsthe matter of identity and the difficulties and dangers surveil-lance raises for the self. We would do so by drawing on theinsights of social psychology. First, we would note that the con-struction of files on persons does not mean that one ‘knows’them in any conventional sense. It does mean that we have datarecorded on them – about their buying preferences, about theirphysical location at a particular time of day, about their library


book issues, their train journeys and so forth. But this is to tracksomeone’s actions, not to get inside their motivations and men-talities. As such, it is at best an approximation to who they reallyare. Further, the recorded data is but a snapshot in time, easilytaken out of context, and devoid of the essential meanings withwhich humans accord their behaviours. Faced with an expansionof surveillance, it is as well to remember that it does not straight-forwardly give access to the inner workings of the mind.

Second, surveillance does strive to illuminate the observed, toshine a bright light on subjects whom it would make transparent.In addition, those who surveille are frequently not known to thesubject. Indeed, the surveillance can be a secondary product of aparticular action, which sets the surveiller still further apart fromthe surveilled (for example, the payment of the meal may berecorded as a measure of a lifestyle pattern by the marketresearcher who melds it with other information, not simply as thetransaction concerning the dinner imagined by the restaurantuser (cf. Monmonier, 2002)). But this ambition and this secondaryand unstated purpose are affronts to the self, both because thereis something essential to one’s identity that calls for limits onwhat may be known about oneself to others, and because togarner information for disguised purposes is morally dubious.

We would emphasize the importance to the self of there beinglimits to surveillance. The reason for this is that a transparentself is a non-self, one that can have no control over what isrevealed to others, something surely essential to one’s sense ofbeing. To be sure, one does reveal oneself to one’s intimatefriends, but note that this takes place over time and in intimatecircumstances, and typically involves reciprocity. That is, onereveals oneself to others by choice in terms of mutuality, trustand openness, in situations in which control is more or lessequal. Surveillance takes away this control from the self, andendeavours to reveal its identity without discussion or reciproc-ity, thereby being an invasive force that strips the self of itsindependence and autonomy.

It is striking that tabloid media especially refuse to acknowl-edge or allow such differences. The justification of exposure ofprivate matters (an affair, a financial arrangement, an old rela-tionship) is that the public and the private should be at one,entirely consistent. Secrets have no place in such an outlook andare regarded as unconscionable by a media dedicated to exposure


of hypocrisy, scandal and sleaze. But a moment’s reflection surelyreveals this to be a gross and potentially damaging simplifica-tion. Furthermore, without a delineation of borders betweenprivate and public (though it will not be a hard and fast line, itwill be a real one), one risks driving away from public matters allbut the most hardened and/or naive as well as assaulting theprivacy of individuals (cf. Sennett, 1978). Who does notrecognize the need for a private life, for the security of theopinion given in the intimacy of the home, for the differencebetween an off-the-cuff comment over a drink and one presentedin an official setting? Erving Goffman (1959) probablyoverplayed the theatrical metaphors in his detailed explorationsof the self, but his insistence that, to be human, we need‘backstages’ where we can take refuge from ‘performances’elsewhere, is telling. Secrets, in this sense, are an intrinsic part ofbeing human – and, as with all secrets, the key issue is how andto whom they are to be revealed (Bok, 1984). This is not to positthat there is a realm of the public in which one deceives anddistorts, while the private one is open and honest. It is rather torecognize that things are much more complex, context-dependent and layered than this. And it is also to stress that asearch to have all revealed to the surveillance gaze is a threaten-ing prospect for one’s very soul.

Put like this, the stakes involved with surveillance can scarcelybe higher. It is something that will not go away, and there isunambiguous evidence of an enormous extension of surveil-lance. In the post-9/11 context concerns about civil liberties andprivacy have appeared to be of marginal significance, while therealms of crime, terrorism and information warfare risk becomingfused. The chapters in this volume are presented as ways ofreaching a better understanding of contemporary surveillance soappropriate measures of resistance, and acceptable limits, maybe put in place and secured.

NOTE

1. It is worth adding here that such examples undermine assertions that sur-veillance is a recent outcome of the application of sophisticated ICTs.While advanced technologies do facilitate and speed surveillance, the factthat Stalinist Russia and the entire Soviet regime were infected by secretpolice and spies is testimony to the efficacy of non-technological surveil-lance (Conquest, 1971).


Abrams, P. 16–17Accrue 33ACLU 148advertising, and data mining

techniques 30, 34, 38–9Afghanistan 94, 102, 103, 104, 105,

106, 108airport security 16, 18, 142–3al-Qaeda 99Amnesty International 107Amoco 40–1Amsterdam airport 18Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security

Act 2001 60anti-terrorist legislation 16, 17–18,

21–2, 35, 60APACS (Association for Payment

Clearing Services) 133Arendt, Hannah 17arms manufacturers, and civilian

market 145–6ARPANET 145Association of Chief Officers of

Probation (ACOP) 65asylum seekers, ID cards 18, 142Automated Socio-Technical

Environments (ASTEs) 142aviation accidents, analysis of 31AWACS aircraft 90, 104

Balkans War (1999) 94, 102, 103,107–8

Baudrillard, J. 23, 105Bauman, Z. 17, 72, 144Bentham, Jeremy 5, 112bin Laden, Osama 16, 99biometric ID 59, 142Blair, Tony 108Bloomfield, B. 78–9, 81Bogard, W. 23Booth, Cherie 9Boothby, Robert 97Bosnia 107Brain Fingerprinting 143

Braverman, H. 9–10Brenner, S. 113Bulger, Jamie, murder of 141

C3I (command, control, communi-cations and intelligence)technologies 101

Cambodia 94Cameron, James 94Canada 17–18Canadian Immigration Card 18CARNIVORE 18Castells, M. 102categorical care 7, 8categorical exposure 7, 8–9categorical seduction 7, 8categorical suspicion 7–8, 22CCTV 9, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 77, 144,

148Cherkasky, M.G. 18Cherry, Claire 40Chile 94, 109China 10, 108Chubb 70CIA 143civil liberties 15, 61, 72Clementine Service 33Clinton, Bill 9, 107Committee on Women’s

Imprisonment 69–70Communications Security

Establishment, Canada 17–18Communism, collapse of 92, 97,

102, 107Communities of Practice 149community penalties 67, 69–70,

73–6, 79change in emphasis 73–4, 81, 83and civic disqualification 74and managerialism 74, 81see also electronic monitoring

(EM) of offendersComputer Assisted Passenger Pre-

Screening (CAPPS) 143

169

IndexCompiled by Sue Carlton

computer crime see cybercrimes2002 Computer Crime and Security

Survey 131Computer Emergency Response

Team (CERT) 131Computer Misuse Act 1990 131Conservative government, and

electronic monitoring ofoffenders 62, 64, 65

Convict.Net 129credit card transactions 1–2, 28, 30crime 2–3

and impact of Internet 114–16,117–18

organized 8, 114traditional 118–19see also cybercrimes; law enforce-

mentCrime and Disorder Act 1998 49,

50, 51Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 66–7Criminal Justice Act 1991 65Criminal Justice and Court Services

Act 2000 67–8Criminal Justice and Police Act

2002 67cross-selling 33Crovitz, L. 36curfew orders 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 74Custodial Care National Training

Organisation 71customer relationship management

(CRM) 33–4cyber-terrorism 115, 116, 117, 120,

121cybercrimes 112–13, 140–1

analysis of behaviours 114–16characteristics of offenders 120computer security breaches

131–2corporate victims 121, 132definitions of 113–14, 134matrix of 115media sensitization 132–4and multi-directional informa-

tion flow 119–30, 135and multiple information flows

130–2, 135policing 46–8, 121–2, 130–2and prosecution 121, 131, 132

public perceptions of 123, 132–3and reliable data about 132–3,

135reporting of 131–2and traditional crimes 118–19and trans-jurisdictionality 119,

122–3, 126types of 117–18victimization 120–1, 135

Daily Mail 9data see personal datadata mining 26–41, 138

associative rules 29–31of celebrities’ tax returns 135customer segmentation 33,

38–40and discrimination 31–2, 36–9,

40–1, 138goals of 29–32increased demand for applica-

tions 34–6and prevention of terrorism 3–4,

34–5, 41, 138and privacy 27, 28, 40, 41, 138risk minimization 30–1, 138social implications of 36–41software 27, 33–4technology of 32–3

Data Protection Act 1998 49–50, 51data-sharing

in criminal justice system 45–52,58

and privacy 42–3, 44–5De Landa, M. 145Dectel 147, 148Defence Evaluation and Research

Agency (DERA) 145Deleuze, G. 20Dennis, S. 9Detention and Training Orders 67,

75digiMine 33Digital Silhouettes 38disease registers, and informed

consent 58DNA databanks 19DoubleClick 27, 38–9Douglas, M. 142drivers, data on 31–2


e-mailaddress lists 124–5classification of text 29interception 17see also unsolicited bulk e-mails

(UBEs)Echelon 90Economist 101Electronic Communication Act

2000 54electronic monitoring (EM) of

offenders 62–84, 139–40acceptance of 69–70administering companies 70–1,

139of bailees 64, 67, 72, 79and civil liberties 72and community penalties 67,

69–70, 73–6, 79, 81–2creation of digital personae 78curfew orders 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 74dream of omniperception 76–7,

80–1, 83–4and early release 66, 139and exclusion orders 67–8, 74failures of 82introduction into Britain 64–6and managerialism 79–80, 84monitoring staff 71, 76, 139opposition to 64–5, 72–3, 79, 139and post-release supervision 68press reaction to 72, 79, 81public debate 68–73as punishment 72–3, 79, 83, 139and seamless sentences 75–6and sex offenders 68as solution to prison overcrowd-

ing 66, 69, 72and tracking technology 68and women 69–70

Elegant, R. 95Ellison, L. 18Ellul, J. 19encryption 59Ericson, R.V. 77, 122European Union

and computer crime 48Human Rights Act 1998 13ID cards 142regulation of UBEs 126

Europol 48exclusion orders 67–8, 74Experian 131, 133

FaceIT 147, 148facial recognition technologies 19,

147–8Falklands War 1982 95FBI 20, 34, 35, 41, 143Federal Probation 83Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

39Feeley, M. 82Fionda, J. 80Fischer-Hubner, S. 12–13Fisk, Robert 94Fletcher, H. 68Foreign Intelligence Surveillance

Court 41Foucault, M. 6, 20, 22, 112fundamentalism 98–9

Gandy, O. 6Garland, D. 81Geografix 70Giddens, A. 98, 99globalization 91–2

and democracy and humanrights 97, 107

effect of economic matters 97–8and growth of fundamentalism

98–9and inequalities 98of media 2, 92–6, 106and military surveillance 145and nation state 91–2, 96–9, 107and peace and conflict 98–9

Gnutella 134Goffman, E. 15Goldenberg, S. 94governments, and data mining

applications 34–6GPS 68Greek, C. 83Group 4 Falke 70–1GSSC Europe 71Guardian 94Guattari, F. 20Gulf War (1991) 101, 102–3, 105Gulf War (2003) 102, 103

Index 171

hacking/cracking 115, 117, 120,132

Haggerty, K. 77, 122Halliday, J. 75–6, 79Hardy, Bert 94Havel, Václav 108, 109health and welfare services 8, 28–9,

58Heath, Edward 5Hersh, Seymour 94Home Detention Curfew Scheme

(HDC) 66, 69, 76, 82Howard League 64, 139Huber, P. 137Hughes, T.P. 143human rights

and facial recognition technology148

and intervention 107–9and media 106–7see also privacy protection

Human Rights Watch 107

ID cards 18, 58, 141–2ID numbers 7, 59identity 13–15Identix 147industrial warfare 99, 100information and communications

technologies (ICTs) 1, 55and data-sharing 42–3and globalization 92and meticulous control 77, 79

Information Security Breaches Survey2002 131

information warfare 2, 3, 8, 101–10,116, 120, 145

and human rights 106, 108–9and media 105–9see also warfare

information-age government (IAG)and joined-up thinking 42–8and privacy protection 44–5,

53–60, 139Inland Revenue 135Innes, J. 141Institute of Criminology 62–3insurance companies, fraud

detection 32

Intensive Supervision andSurveillance Programmes(ISSPs) 67

International Criminal Court 109Internet

click stream monitoring 17, 26–7,36, 38

impact on criminal activities114–16, 117–18

and military surveillance 145multi-directional information

flow 112, 113, 119–30, 135online fraud 133–4and pornography/obscenity 115,

117–18security breaches 131–2and theft/deception 115, 117,

120, 122–3, 133and trespass 115, 117and violence/hate 115, 118, 121

Internet service providers (ISPs)legal requirements 122and spamming 124

Interpol 48Iraq 101, 102–3, 105, 106IRIS (International Reporting

Information Systems) 5iris scans 16, 18, 142Israel 94

journalism, and ethics 94–6Justice for All 75

Knightley, P. 94Knowledge Discovery in Databases

see data miningknowledge warriors 102, 104, 145Korea, treatment of prisoners from

94Kosovo 96, 103, 105, 106, 107–8

law enforcement 45–52acceleration through ICT 77computer crime 46–8, 121–2,

130–2crime and disorder 49, 51–2, 57,

58and humanitarian approach

73–4, 76–7, 79, 83


and privacy protection 48–52,54–5, 57, 58

social security fraud 51, 58Lebanon 94Lessig, L. 26Lianos, M. 142Loader, B. 2Luttwak, E. 102Lyon, D. 7, 63, 80

Macmillan, Harold 97Macmillan, Sarah 97McNamara, Robert 5Mai Lai massacre 94managerialism 74, 79–81, 142Mandrake system 19Marconi 70Marx, G.T. 23, 63, 141, 149Marxism 9–10Médecins sans Frontières 107media

and active audience 93and cybercrimes 132–4and ethics of journalism 94–5, 97globalization of 2, 92–6, 106and human rights 106–7intrusion 8–9pervasiveness of 93, 96as surveillance organization 91,

99, 106, 140and warfare 93–6, 99, 104–9, 140Western domination of 92, 93

Meek, J. 147Melossi, D. 134Milgram, Stanley 143military

and managerial 144–6see also information warfare;

warfareMilles, M.P. 137Milosevic, Slobodan 108, 109Mitnick, K. 120MITRE Corporation 30–1modernity

and surveillance 1, 6, 11, 17and violence 144–5

Mosca, Gaetano 10MP3 music files 134multiple information flows 130–2

lack of cross-flow 130–2, 135

Napster 134NASA, security technologies 143Nash, M. 73nation state

and globalization 91–2, 96–9, 107and human rights intervention

108–9National Association for the Care

and Rehabilitation ofOffenders (Nacro) 64, 69

National Association of ProbationOfficers (Napo) 65–6, 68, 69

National Criminal IntelligenceService (NCIS), and computercrime 46–8, 139

national security 30, 34–5, 90and privacy 60–1

NATO 103, 107–8NetGenesis 33neural networks 32–3New Labour

and electronic monitoring ofoffenders 62, 63, 65–7, 82

and single correctional agency 75Newham, facial recognition

technology 19, 147, 148Norris, C. 142Northern Ireland 94, 95

Offender Tag Association 64O’Kane, Maggie 94omniperception, dream of 76–7,

80–1, 83–4, 112Online Preference Marketing (OPM)

34OODA (observation, orientation,

decision and action) 101Operation Horseshoe 103Orwell, George 10, 19, 20

Panopticon 5–7, 20, 112Panspectron 145, 147Pareto, Vilfredo 10Penal Affairs Consortium 64personal data

access to 40circulation of 2, 21, 26efficient processing of 57–8, 59inappropriate transfer of 55and informed consent 58

Index 173

personal data continuedand mistaken identity 55and privacy 42–3, 44–5, 53–4,

135–6storage cost 27see also transactional information

Personify 33Peters, A. 79Pilger, John 94Pinochet, Augusto 94, 109Plavsic, Biljana 109police, and information-sharing 50,

51Police Information Technology

Organisation (PITO), UK 148Ponting, C. 144pornography/obscenity, Internet

and 115, 117–18Predictive Networks 38Premier 70Prison Inspectorate 66Prison Reform Trust 64, 69privacy 12–13, 15, 22, 26, 40privacy protection 41, 43, 44–5,

52–60, 138–9and anti-terrorism measures 60–1electronic commerce and 54–5,

57electronic government and 53–5,

57–8law enforcement and 48–52,

54–5, 57levels of 55–6and public trust 52, 54, 56, 58–9

privacy-enhancing technologies(PETs) 59

Probation Inspectorate 66probation service 63

changing role of 74–5, 76–7, 83see also electronic monitoring

(EM) of offendersProject Trawler 46–8

QinetiQ 145Quaker Penal Affairs Committee 64

racial profiling 18, 20Red Cross 107Regulation of Investigatory Power

Act 2000 60

Reliance 70, 71restorative justice 73Revolution in Military Affairs

(RMA) 101risk profiling 22Rule, J. 6–7Russia, attempted coup (1991) 97

Sagem 145Saudi Arabia 104Scheerer, S. 80, 81Schengen Agreement 48Schengen Information System, UK

48Schipol airport 18Securicor 70September 11 2001 attacks

data mining 27, 34–5and privacy protection 15, 60–1responses to 16, 27security failures 143surveillance after 3, 9, 16–24,

113, 137–8, 141–2Serbia, NATO bombardment 103,

107–8Shawcross, William 94Sierra Leone 108Simon, J. 82SIRENE Bureau 48Smart Dust 143Smith, D. 69social security fraud 51, 58Social Worlds Theory 149Soviet Union

collapse of 92, 97, 102, 107surveillance 10

spamming see unsolicited bulk e-mails (UBEs)

Sparks, R. 79SPSS (Statistical Package for the

Social Sciences) 33Srebrenica massacre 107Stacey, T. 64Starbucks 30Steiner, Peter 136Stepanek, M. 36Sunstein, C. 39surveillance

and aftermath of 9/11 3, 9,16–24, 113, 137–8, 141–2


categories of 7–9and class struggle 9–10, 19–20collusion of subjects 7, 9, 22, 23,

135and control 5–7, 10, 19–20, 77,

79, 80–1‘creep’ and ‘surge’ tendencies

137, 141–4, 146democratic accountability 24essential to modern living 11–12,

13and identity 13–15and inclusion and exclusion 12,

19, 142intensification of 9–12, 137–41,

150intrusiveness 6, 12legal changes 17–18and military innovation 144–5and modernity 1, 6, 11, 17and panopticism 5–7, 20, 149as pre-emptive measure 23–4, 148and reverse salient 143–4scale and complexity of 146–50and social sorting 22–3surveillant assemblage 20–2, 77,

83, 112, 122technical developments 18–19,

23–4see also data mining; privacy

protectionSurveillance Studies 7–9

tagging see electronic monitoring(EM) of offenders

Taliban 103, 108Taylor, F.W. 10terrorism 2

cyber-terrorism 115, 116, 117,120, 121

prevention 3–4, 16, 17–19, 21–2,34–5, 41, 60, 138

Terrorism Information Awareness(TIA) 3–5, 137, 150

theft/deception, Internet and 115,117, 120, 122–3

Thomas, D. 2totalitarianism 10transactional information 1–2, 28,

57

and data mining 3–4, 26–41see also personal data

Transportation SecurityAdministration (TSA), US142–3

trespass, Internet and 115, 117Trojans 124TRW 145Tunick, M. 13

UK–USA agreement 18UN War Crimes Tribunal 109UNICEF 107United Kingdom

Government CommunicationsHeadquarters (GCHQ) 101

intervention in Sierra Leone 108smart ID for asylum seekers 18state benefits entitlement card

141–2United States

electronic monitoring ofoffenders 63

extended data gathering 41National Security Agency (NSA)

101universal product codes (UPCs) 28unsolicited bulk e-mails (UBEs) 116,

123–30, 141advertisements 128chain letters 129donation invitations 129EU regulation of 126free offers 127–8gambling opportunities 129health cures 128hoaxes/urban legends 129impact on recipients 125–6income-generating claims 126information on Internet surveil-

lance 128–9loan offers 128and multi-directional informa-

tion flow 124–6sexual content 127viruses/worms 129

USA PATRIOT Act 2001 35–6USA Today 34

Vietnam War 94, 95

Index 175

violence/hate, Internet and 115,118, 121

viruses/worms 124Visionics 147

Wackenhut CorrectionsCorporation 70

Wal-Mart 28warfare

in globalized world 99industrial 100and media surveillance 91, 140news coverage of 93–5, 104–9,

140peace dividend 146perception management 95–6,

105–6

and surveillance technologies 90,101

see also information warfareWeber, Max 11, 19, 20Weblining 36–7Wedderburn Committee 69–70Wells, H.G. 5Westin, A.F. 12wire-tapping 17women, and electronic monitoring

of offenders 69–70workplace surveillance 10, 19www.spiderbots 124

Yeltsin, Boris 97

zip codes 40–1


Documents

The Intensification of Surveillance