How We Learned to Love Surveillance
When the NSA domestic wiretapping scandal broke, there was the sense that the Administration could be facing serious political fallout. Yet, culminating with the State of the Union Address Bush has regained the offensive by emphasizing the threat of terrorism and the need for extraordinary action. Some Democrats are now reduced to arguing that we should revise FISA so that the Administration's action aren't technically illegal. A large part of why Bush has transformed a political liability into a rousing defense of security is because critics refuse to challenge directly claims about the terrorist threat. It is simply not the case that we live under extreme circumstances that warrant the kinds of powers the Administration asserts.
But, this is only part of the story. Even if politicians are too timid to state the obvious, more and more Americans realize that terrorism is not the all-encompassing threat it's made out to be. Such recognition would make it all the more surprising that the Administration hasn't faced sustained public backlash. Yet, the general indifference to wiretapped phonecalls is at root a reflection of how routinized surveillance has become. A 1998 article by the Village Voice remarked that in one eight block radius in New York over 300 hundred street level cameras could be detected. Today, we take for granted that our phone calls and emails are monitored at work, that cameras cover much of our public movements -- all supposedly for our own good. Such surveillance is so commplace that NSA wiretapping seems to invoke the response, "what else is new."
The problem with monitoring is not that the U.S. will devolve into a military dictatorship -- East Germany 2006. It's that we've become so acclimated to the state caring for our every need, that its paternalism is taken for granted. We accept ourselves as children of the state, and presume that their surveillance merely comes with the territory. But, this relationship undermines any sense of popular control over government, or that the state is solely an instrument for articulating our collective interests and projects. Such self-determination rests on a politics of adulthood -- a condition fundamentally negated by the ubiquity of monitoring and our general ease with it.
But, this is only part of the story. Even if politicians are too timid to state the obvious, more and more Americans realize that terrorism is not the all-encompassing threat it's made out to be. Such recognition would make it all the more surprising that the Administration hasn't faced sustained public backlash. Yet, the general indifference to wiretapped phonecalls is at root a reflection of how routinized surveillance has become. A 1998 article by the Village Voice remarked that in one eight block radius in New York over 300 hundred street level cameras could be detected. Today, we take for granted that our phone calls and emails are monitored at work, that cameras cover much of our public movements -- all supposedly for our own good. Such surveillance is so commplace that NSA wiretapping seems to invoke the response, "what else is new."
The problem with monitoring is not that the U.S. will devolve into a military dictatorship -- East Germany 2006. It's that we've become so acclimated to the state caring for our every need, that its paternalism is taken for granted. We accept ourselves as children of the state, and presume that their surveillance merely comes with the territory. But, this relationship undermines any sense of popular control over government, or that the state is solely an instrument for articulating our collective interests and projects. Such self-determination rests on a politics of adulthood -- a condition fundamentally negated by the ubiquity of monitoring and our general ease with it.
3 Comments:
"It's that we've become so acclimated to the state caring for our every need, that its paternalism is taken for granted."
Editors, I was sort of goign along with what you were saying until this riduculous line! Are we sure we are talking about the U.S. government? I don't seem to recall the government paying for my education nor my doctors bills...! I could dream for such paternalism, but for now I just have my father!
The line anonymous quotes was surprising to me too, but I do agree with the larger point of the post. Maybe the line should be re-phrased: the state is not paternalistic because it cares for our every need. Rather, the issue is that many of us allow the state to decide -what- it is we actually do need (surveillance, fewer student loans, health savings accounts). It is this abdication of critical reflection and serious political choice that makes us 'children of the state' (cute turn of phrase, by the way).
As an aside, would it be possible to choose to monitor ourselves in an adult manner? The post seems to suggest that this would necessarily be a contradiction, but I think it is less clear. It seems that at least in principle it is possible. In any case, this question is very academic right now, as no one really seems to be 'choosing' anything.
(Incidentally, I'd be interested to hear a more fully fleshed out theory of the state in future posts. I agree that it is not a true instrument of our collective choice, but it is hard to know what it actually -is- then. I know, I know, maybe this is an unreasonable question for a blog, but it's just something to think about....)
Pace your argument, Americans probably care more about surveillance than ever, thanks to the Internet, etc. So it seems overbroad to automatically think of surveillance in terms of state power. NSA spying probably hurt Bush more than Abu Graeb, because Americans can conflate computerized phone-tapping with identity theft. Privacy has become an intrinsic good, because of corporate invasions of privacy, rather than something we want for specific reasons (i.e. "X stealing my credit card is bad b/c he's invaded my privacy" vs. "X stealing my credit card is bad b/c he's stealing my friggin money!")
Post a Comment
<< Home