Surveillance---Preventive Intent---Limits

Surveillance---Preventive Intent---Limits

They blow the lid off the topic---without preventive intent, dozens of Affs and entirely new categories of policy become topical because any information gathering, including benign forms like weather monitoring and disaster warning, would meet

Normalization of surveillance

CONCLUSION

The task of this paper was to argue that it is important to deal with the theoretical question of how surveillance can be defined. My view is that it will be impossible to find one universal, generally accepted definition of surveillance and that it is rather importance to stress different approaches of how surveillance can be defined, to work out the commonalities and differences of these concepts, and to foster constructive dialogue about these questions. A homogenous state of the art of defining surveillance is nowhere in sight and maybe is not even desirable. Constructive controversy about theoretical foundations is in my opinion not a characteristic of the weakness or of a field, but an indication that it is developing and in a good state. It is not my goal to establish one specific definition of surveillance, although I of course have my own view of what is surveillance and what is not surveillance, which I try to ground by finding and communicating arguments. Theorizing surveillance has to take into account the boundary between surveillance and information and it has to reflect the desirability or undesirability of normative and critical meanings of the term. No matter how one defines surveillance, each surveillance concept positions itself towards theoretical questions such as the relation of abstractness and concreteness, generality and specificity, normative philosophy and analytical theorizing, etc.

My personal view is that information is a more general concept than surveillance and that surveillance is a specific kind of information gathering, storage, processing, assessment, and use that involves potential or actual harm, coercion, violence, asymmetric power relations, control, manipulation, domination, disciplinary power. It is instrumental and a means for trying to derive and accumulate benefits for certain groups or individuals at the expense of other groups or individuals. Surveillance is based on a logic of competition. It tries to bring about or prevent certain behaviours of groups or individuals by gathering, storing, processing, diffusing, assessing, and using data about humans so that potential or actual physical, ideological, or structural violence can be directed against humans in order to influence their behaviour. This influence is brought about by coercive means and brings benefits to certain groups at the expense of others. Surveillance is in my view therefore never co-operative and solidary – it never benefits all. Nonetheless, there are certainly information processes that aim at benefiting all humans. I term such information processes monitoring, it involves information processing that aims at care, benefits, solidarity, aid, and co-operation, benefits all, and is opposed to surveillance.

Here are some examples of what I consider to be forms of surveillance:

* teachers watching private activities of pupils via webcams at Harriton High School, Pennsylvania;

* the scanning of the fingerprints of visitors entering the United States;

* the use of speed cameras for identifying speeders (involves state power);

* electronic monitoring bracelets for prisoners in an open prison system;

* the scanning of Internet and phone data by secret services with the help of the Echelon system and the Carnivore software;

* the usage of full body scanners at airports;

* biometrical passports containing digital fingerprints;

* the use of the DoubleClick advertising system by Internet corporations for collecting data about users’ online browsing behaviour and providing them with targeted advertising;

* CCTV cameras in public means of transportation for the prevention of terrorism;

* the assessment of customer shopping behaviour with the help of loyalty cards;

* the data collection in marketing research;

* the publication of sexual paparazzi photos of celebrities in a tabloid;

* the assessment of personal images and videos of applicants on Facebook by employers prior to a job interview;

* the collection of data about potential or actual terrorists in the TIDE database (Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment) by the US National Counterterrorism Center;

* Passenger Name Record (PNR) data transfer from Europe to the United States in aviation;

* Telekomgate: spying on employees, trade unionists, journalists, and members of the board of directors by the German Telekom;

* the video filming of employees in Lidl supermarkets and assessment of the data by managers in Germany;

* watching the watchers: corporate watch systems, filming of the police beating of Rodney King (LA 1992), YouTube video of the police killing of Neda Soltan (Iran, 2009).

The point about these examples is that they all involve asymmetrical power relations, some form of violence, and that systematic information processing inflicts some form of harm.

We live in heteronomous societies, therefore surveillance processes can be encountered very frequently. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to argue that domination is a universal characteristic of all societies and all social systems. Just think of the situations in our lives that involve altruism, love, friendship, and mutual care. These are examples that show that nondominative spheres are possible and actual. My argument is that it is possible to think about alternative modes of society, where co-operation, solidarity, and care are the guiding principles (Fuchs, 2008). If information processes are central in such a society, then I would not want to term it surveillance society, but solidary information society or participatory, co-operative, sustainable information society (Fuchs, 2008, 2010).

Here are some examples of monitoring that are not forms of surveillance:

* consensual online video sex chat of adults;

* parents observing their sleeping sick baby with a camera or babyphone in order to see if it needs their help;

* the permanent electrocardiogram of a cardiac infarction patient;

* the seismographic early detection of earthquakes;

* the employment of the DART system (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis) in the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Caribbean Sea for detecting tsunamis;

* the usage of a GPS-based car navigation system for driving to an unknown destination;

* the usage of a fire detector and alarm system and a fire sprinkling system in a public school;

* drinking water quality measurement systems;

* the usage of smog and air pollution warning systems;

* the activities of radioactivity measuring stations for detecting nuclear power plant disasters;

* systems for detecting and measuring temperature, humidity, and smoke in forest areas that are prone to wildfires;

* measurement of meteorological data for weather forecasts.

The point about these examples is that there are systematic information processes in our societies that do not involve systematic violence, competition, and domination, but aim at benefits for all. One can certainly discuss if these are particularly good examples and if the boundaries between the first and the second list can be clearly drawn, but the central point I want to make is that there are political choices between advancing and regulating systematic information processing that has repressive or solidary effects and that this difference counts normatively. Certainly, forms of monitoring can easily turn into forms of surveillance, and surveillance technologies might be refined in ways that serve solidary purposes. The more crucial point that I want to make is that normative theories, critical thinking, and critical political practices matter in our society and that they need a clear understanding of concepts. I question postmodern and constructivist approaches that want to tell us that it has become completely impossible to distinguish what is desirable and undesirable or that all normative ideas and political projects are inherently prone to producing new forms of violence and domination. I am convinced that a non-violent, dominationless society is possible and that it is especially in times of global crisis important to have clearly defined concepts at hand that help criticizing violence and domination and points towards a different world. I therefore see a need for a realist, critical concept of surveillance.

“Surveillance” should be interpreted narrowly based on intent---broad definitions undermine meaningful scholarship that differentiates surveillance based on purpose and makes all bureaucratic data collection topical---this outweighs the benefits of a bigger topic

There is no contention among surveillance scholars that the number of systems used to gather, store, and share personal information in its individual and aggregate forms is growing. But not all observers agree that every information- gathering and data storage practice is tantamount to surveillance. Bennett (2005), for example, contends that much of the literature on information gathering and data storage lends itself to hyperbole when it comes to new technologies and associated privacy implications. He observes a growing tendency among surveillance scholars to make exaggerated claims about the dangers of contemporary information-gathering and data storage and sharing practices based on highly abnormal or exceptional cases (and see Haggerty’s foreword to this volume). An example of exaggeration is the common tendency for surveillance scholars to lay claim to the inevitable abuses of CCTV cameras in the absence of comprehensive and comparative empirical data (e.g., Norris and Armstrong 1999).

In their efforts to explain how data circulate in interconnected or networked societies, scholars have defined surveillance in broad terms as the routine collection and storage of personal information for myriad reasons. Among the reasons for routine information gathering are law enforcement and border security as well as consumption, health care, education, and entertainment. For Bennett (2005, 132), however, “there is a fundamental difference between the routine capture, collection, and storage of this kind of personal information [primarily for the purposes of consumer convenience and bureaucratic expediency], and any subsequent analysis of that information from which decisions (benign or otherwise) might be made.”

Although Bennett (2005) does not offer an alternative conceptual perspective to stipulate what actually counts as surveillance, his point about the differential applications of surveillance systems is important. In an attempt to characterize the dynamics of contemporary information- and data-gathering techniques, surveillance scholars have conceptualized surveillance in such a way that they are unable to discriminate analytically among unequal applications or differential effects of information-gathering and data-sharing techniques without falling back on broad judgments about the “caring” and “controlling” aspects of contemporary surveillance systems (see, e.g., Lyon 2001). There is merit in conceptualizing surveillance in broad terms: it helps us to move beyond the view that surveillance only involves asymmetrical monitoring, where the few watch the many. It also helps us to appreciate the extent to which surveillance data, regardless of their applications, are gleaned from the routine activities of everyday life – as potential resources in a wide range of programs, policies, campaigns, and projects. Yet conceptualizing surveillance broadly runs the risk of underestimating and, as Bennett (2005) would suggest, trivializing the asymmetrical material applications of surveillance systems – particularly the ways in which new surveillance technologies are integrated into existing institutional relations of power. As we argue below, however, analytically inflating the concept of surveillance to encompass a wide range of undifferentiated practices and applications, with only secondary interest in intention or legitimating ideology, has as much to do with how the community of surveillance scholars is organized and how knowledge about surveillance is produced as it does with the fundamental characteristics of contemporary surveillance practices.

Their interpretation makes restrictions on any information gathering topical---an explicit focus on intentionality is key to keep the topic manageable

Q37 Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. You are very welcome and we arc most grateful to you for coming. I said to the Committee that we have a large area to cover and I have asked that questions be brief and so. out of fairness, perhaps I could ask that replies should be fairly concise too. Gentlemen, your expertise is in the field of surveillance. Are you able to say how easy it is to define "surveillance" and to what extent it is possible, if at all, to break the concept into subcategories?

Dr Murakami Wood: There are a large number of definitions of surveillance, some of which would seem to cast almost all information gathering as surveillance and some of which would seem to only argue that "bad" forms of information gathering are surveillance. I think we would regard neither of these extremes as being useful definitions. We would argue that the intentionality is the important aspect. I think that information gathering with the intent to influence and control aspects of behaviour or activities of individuals or groups would be our working definition. So, it is the intention that we regard as important. However, we also argue that not all data that is gathered with no surveillance intention cannot become useful for surveillance in future and also there is the question of unintentional consequences of information gathering that are not thought of when the information is gathered.