SurveillanceAfter September 11, 2001 -DAVID LYON

Surveil-lance

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Jeong Goeun Seo Yeonjeong Lee Younhong

Surveillance after September 11 (2003)

: emphasized the geo-political frame in which a ma-jor event

: it was used as a pretext for expanding surveillance and the diminution of human rights for exceptional circumstances.

: exposes some deeper issues raised by surveillance today, that capitalize on fear, suspicion and se-crecy.

Surveil-lance

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After September 11 2001 'terrorist'

-enhance surveillance opera-

tions

-public money is being used into

security systems

-high-tech companies are falling

over themselves to offer techni-

cal fixes

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the Aftermath(후유증 ) of September 11

-a worthwhile reminder

-a portentous outcome

-a transformation device between past and

future

-it has eventuated from the past and signi-

fies for the future

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Surveillance is not inherently harmful, but that we call

surveillance is never innocent. The events of Sep-

tember 11 acted as a 'wake-up' call. Heightened sur-

veillance is not in itself questionable in terms of jus-

tice or freedom.

But, under some circumstances, intensified surveil-

lance may have socially negative effects.

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-The visible signs of putative changed in surveil-

lance have both legal and technical aspects.

-many countries have passed legislation intended

①to tighten security

②to give police and intelligence services greater

power

③to permit faster political responses to 'terrorist'

attacks.

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Several countries have proposed new national identi-

fication card systems, some involving biometric de-

vices or programmable chips.

-the new Canadian immigration card

-the 'smart ID' for asylum seekers in

the UKSurveil-lance

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The technical responses to September 11 have diffused.

High tech companies saw September 11 providing just the platformThey needed. Not surprisingly, almost all the ‘experts’ on whom theMedia call for comment are representatives of companies.

Other technical surveillance-related responses to Septem-ber 11 include iris-scans at airports.

CCTV cameras in public places, enhanced if possiblewith facial recognition capacities such as the Mandrake system

DNA databanks to store genetic information capable of identifying known ‘terrorists’.

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Iris scanner

Human Iris

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Closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras

In the assemblage, surveillance works by abstracting bod-ies from places, splitting them into flows to be reassem-bled as virtual data-doubles, calling in question once again hierarchies and centralised power.

One important aspect of this is that the flows of personal and group data percolate through systems that once were much less porous; much more discrete and water-tight.

Thus, following September 11, surveillance data from a myriad ofsources - supermarkets, motels, traffic control points, credit card transaction records and so on - were used to trace the activities of the ‘terrorists’ in the days and hours before their attacks.

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- Draconian measures are appearing worldwide as country instates laws and practices purportedly to counter ‘terrorism’.

- American senators permit extraordinary measures, which include appropriating data on everyday com-municationsand transactions.

- Surveillance is often viewed in individualistic terms as a potential threat to privacy, an intrusion on an in-timate life, an invasion of the sacrosanct home and so on.

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- However, the increasingly automated discrimina-tory mechanisms for risk-profiling and social cate-gorizing represent a key means of reproducing and reinforcing social, economic, and cultural divisions in informational societies.

- New anti-terror measures enacted after Septem-ber 11. It is already clear in several countries that ‘Arab’ and ‘Muslim’ minorities are disproportionately and unfairly targeted by these measures.

- Surveillance is not merely a matter of the gaze of the powerful, any more than it is technologically determined.

- Data-subjects interact with surveillance systems.

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- Over the past few years an important debate has centred on the apparent switch in time from past-oriented to future-oriented surveillance.

- Gary T. Marx predicted in the late 1980s that sur-veillance would become more pre-emptive and in many respects he has been vindicated.

- This idea has been picked up in a more Baudrillar-dian vein by William Bogard who argues that surveil-lance is increasingly simulated, such that seeing-in-advance is its goal.

Undercover: Police Surveillance in America by Gary T. Marx

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- The attraction of new technologies that will be able to prevent future ‘terrorist’ acts is strong in policy circles.Internal surveillance of citizens by the state will in-crease.

- Surveillance responses to September 11 are in-deed a prism through which aspects of social struc-ture and process may be observed.

- The prism helps to make visible the already exist-ing vast range of surveillance practices and pro-cesses that touch everyday life in so-called informa-tional societies.

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- For all its apparent weaknesses in a globalizing world, the nation-state is capable of quickly tightening its grip on internal control, using means that include the very items of commercial surveillance that appear ‘soft’ and scarcely worthy of inclusion as ‘surveillance’.

- Democratic accountability starts with a willingness to lis-ten to the voice of the other. And ethical scrutiny begins with care for the other, to relieve and to prevent suffering.

- The sociology of surveillance discussed above sees ne-glect of these as a serious mistake, with ramifications we may all live to regret.

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Thank you for listening