Surveillance and the Vanishing Individual: Power and Privacy in the Digital Age

by Juan D. Lindau

Overview

Surveillance and the Vanishing Individual is an investigation into the impact of the spread of digital technologies and practices, and especially the wide-spread practice of mass surveillance, on privacy and personhood. The book argues that the quest for prediction, certainty, and control lying at the heart of the state’s security apparatus destroys an essential component of human dignity and fundamentally undermines liberalism.

The book begins with a discussion of the rise of the digital age and the historical import of this development. Subsequent chapters of the book examine different cultural understandings of privacy, the philosophical discussion of its centrality to human existence, and the form and extent of its legal protection. Lindau explores the reasons behind the rise of mass state surveillance, the modest legal restraints governing its use, and its deployment against activists, protestors, and dissidents and its impact on individuals and on privacy. The book then turns to a discussion of the rise of “surveillance capitalism” and, because this is not just—or even primarily—a U.S. phenomenon, examines the political, social, and other impacts of social media around the world. The book includes a case study discussing the global use of surveillance during the Covid-19 pandemic and the implications of this development before concluding with reflections on the relationship between mass surveillance and liberalism.

The book will appeal equally to readers across the social sciences and philosophy, and to students in courses on privacy, surveillance, and democracy. Lindau expertly explores the social, political, and economic consequences of digitization and one of its essential features – the appropriation and “mining” of ever large troves of personal information. The book primarily focuses on the experience of the United States but includes a comparative cross-national and cross-regional analysis and a discussion of the link between different regime types and state surveillance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538173510
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	12/16/2022
Pages:	330
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 8.97(h) x 0.71(d)

About the Author

Juan D. Lindau is professor of Political Science at Colorado College. He primarily teaches courses on Comparative Politics and Latin American Politics and actively participates, outside the department, in the History/Political Science major and the International Political Economy major. His primary scholarly interests are the drug war, migration, and the impact of the internet and digital technology on politics. He has written articles and essays for Political Science Quarterly and for Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, Foro Internacional, and for the International Political Science Review as well as for a number of edited collections.

He is the author of La elite gobernante mexicana (Mexico D.F.: Joaquin Mortiz, 1993) and co-editor, with Timothy Cheek, of Market Economics and Political Change: Comparing China and Mexico (Boulder: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998). In addition, with Curtis Cook, he edited Aboriginal Right and Self-Government: The Canadian Experience in North American Perspective (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2000).

He has received the Lloyd E. Worner Teacher of the Year award and the A.E. and Ethel Irene Carlton Professorship.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Transition from the Industrial to the Digital Age

Additional Reasons for the Failure to Confront the Consequences of the Digital Age

New Configurations of Power in the Digital Age

The Emergence of New Digital Economic Identities

The Impact of the Internet on Political and Associational Activity

Conclusion

Chapter 2: Interdisciplinary Discussions of Privacy and its Loss

Socio-cultural Understandings of Privacy

Rationalization for the Loss of Privacy in the Digital Age

The “I Have Nothing to Hide Rationalization”

The “I Am Irrelevant” Rationalization

The Trump Rationalization

Public Defenders of Mass Surveillance

Conclusion

Chapter 3: Philosophical Debates About Privacy

Arguments About Privacy’s Subsidiarity to Other Rights and Interests

Conclusion

Chapter 4: Privacy as a Legal and Constitutional Right

The Fourth Amendment and Privacy

The Legal and Constitutional Protection of Privacy in Other Countries

International Law and Privacy

Conclusion

Chapter 5: National Security and the Expansion of Digital Surveillance

National Security and State Surveillance

State Constituencies Favoring Surveillance in the United States

The Left and the Right and Mass Surveillance

Conclusion

Chapter 6: The Legal Architecture Governing Mass State Surveillance

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)

EO 12333

Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act

The Snowden Revelations and the USA FREEDOM Act

Additional Legal Decisions Restricting Surveillance in the United States

Conclusion

Chapter 7: Features of State Surveillance in the United States

The U.S. Government’s Policing of the World Wide Web and the Growth of the Surveillance Industrial Complex

A Typical Example of the Fruits of the Surveillance Industrial Complex: Facial Recognition

Another Example of a Flourishing Surveillance Industrial Complex Project: Cloud Surveillance

The Role of Higher Education in State Surveillance

Conclusion

Chapter 8: Surveilling the Most Vulnerable: The State and Refugees, Migrants, Dissidents and Minorities

State Surveillance of African Americans Other Ethnic Minorities and a Variety of Dissidents

Contemporary FBI Surveillance of Other Non-Violent Dissidents

Conclusion

Chapter 9: Global Digital Mass Surveillance Practices

Nationalism, Militarism and State Surveillance

The Understandings Embedded in Smart Cities/Safe Cities Initiatives

A Case Study: The Drug War and State Surveillance in Latin America

Conclusion

Chapter 10: Representative Examples of State Surveillance Around the World

China

Russia

India

Israel

The United Kingdom

France

Germany

Brazil

Mexico

Nigeria

South Africa

Thailand

Vietnam

Conclusion

Chapter 11: The Rise of “Surveillance Capitalism”

Google/Alphabet

Facebook/Meta

Amazon

Terms and Conditions and the Exploitation of an Obsolete Regulatory Environment

Corporate Surveillance and Workers

Conclusion

Chapter 12: Conspiracy Theories and Other Impacts of the Social Media Platforms

Social Media, the QAnon Conspiracy Theory and the Spread of Misinformation about the COVID-19 Pandemic

Social Media, Conspiracy Theories, and the January 6, 2021 Riot in the U.S. Capitol

Facebook’s Impact on Politics in the Global South

The Rise of Objections to the Social Media Companies

Conclusion

Chapter 13: Surveillance Tools and the Coronavirus Pandemic: A Case Study

Concerns about Pandemic Surveillance

The Bio-Surveillance Approach to COVID-19 in the West

Other Western Democracies

The East Asian and Chinese Approaches to Bio-Surveillance During the Pandemic

Other Examples

Limits on the Efficacy of Tracking and Tracing Apps on Cell Phones

Conclusion

Chapter 14: Conclusion and Epilogue

The Continued Expansion of State Surveillance

Surveillance and Politics

The Continuing Acceptance of Corporate Surveillance Despite the Growth of Criticism

Regulatory Remedies to “Surveillance Capitalism” at the End of the Second Decade of the Digital Age

The Technology Companies and Antitrust Measures

Epilogue

Editorial Reviews

'Digital technologies, ' Juan Lindau convincingly writes, 'turn people inside out, making their inner selves increasingly legible while erasing...their right to be let alone, undisturbed, and unrecognized.' If you want to understand why and how that is happening--and why it's so hard to do anything about it--this deeply-researched book is the place to start.

Professor Lindau's Surveillance and the Vanishing Individual is a welcome addition to the technology and surveillance literature. Rich with both theory and applications the book provides a timely analysis and critique of corporate and state surveillance. Clearly the result of much scholarly labor, the product is a rare synthesis of political, legal, and ethical theory that will be of enduring interest to scholars and practitioners alike.

From the Publisher

Professor Lindau’s Surveillance and the Vanishing Individual is a welcome addition to the technology and surveillance literature. Rich with both theory and applications the book provides a timely analysis and critique of corporate and state surveillance. Clearly the result of much scholarly labor, the product is a rare synthesis of political, legal, and ethical theory that will be of enduring interest to scholars and practitioners alike.

Adam D. Moore

‘Digital technologies,’ Juan Lindau convincingly writes, ‘turn people inside out, making their inner selves increasingly legible while erasing…their right to be let alone, undisturbed, and unrecognized.’ If you want to understand why and how that is happening—and why it’s so hard to do anything about it—this deeply-researched book is the place to start.

Michael J. Glennon