ubisurv

Rio gets the Olympics – and now the poor will suffer

Most people will probably have heard the announcement that Rio de Janeiro has been awarded the 2016 Olympic Games. While I am pleased that Brazil has beaten the USA in particular in this race in the sense that it shows a slight shift in global power balances towards the global south, I am very concerned as to how the current right-wing administration of both the city and region of Rio will deal with the ‘security’ issues around this mega-event. The Pan-American Games, which Rio hosted in 2007 led to the violent occupation by military police of several particularly troubled favelas (informal settlements), and the new administration has already shown its authoritarian tendencies with the Giuliani- wannabe ‘choque de ordem’ (shock of order) policies that involve building demolition, crackdowns on illegal street vendors (i.e. the poor) and more recently, the building of walls around certain favelas, and most recently the unwelcome imposition of CCTV cameras on favelas that were just starting to enjoy improvements in trust between police and community. The favelas that line the main highways into the city from the international airport were already slated for such ghettoization, and the Olympics will only make this more likely to happen and more quickly – just as has happened in South Africa, similarly afflicted by race and class-based social conflict, during the various international meetings and summits there in recent years. Foreign delegates and tourists don’t like to see all that nasty poverty, do they?

I will write more on this later (I am on the road right now…).

Call for Papers: 4th Surveillance & Society Conference, 2010

A GLOBAL SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY?

THE FOURTH BIANNUAL SURVEILLANCE & SOCIETY CONFERENCE

Supported by the LIVING IN SURVEILLANCE SOCIETIES (LISS) COST Action, and the SURVEILLANCE STUDIES NETWORK

City University London, UK

April 13 – 15, 2010

CALL FOR PAPERS

OVERVIEW

Surveillance has become a ubiquitous feature of living in the global north, with citizens routinely monitored by a range of sophisticated technologies. Increasing levels of surveillance are typically justified and legitimated by threats of terrorism, fear of crime and disorder, as info/entertainment tools for the curious and through discourses emphasizing public and private service improvement. In spite of this, little is known about the effect of surveillance on individuals, society, the democratic polity, nation states in the developed and developing world, and the evolving nature of humanity.

THEMES

This conference calls for papers which examine the many facets of surveillance and globality. In particular, we welcome papers which address:

Living in the surveillance age
Surveillance, difference and discrimination
Attitudes and experiences of the watcher and watched
The development and diffusion of surveillance technologies
Surveillance technology in practice
The political economy of surveillance
The business of surveillance
The surveillance of consumers and workers
Public policy, regulation and surveillance
The philosophy of surveillance and philosophical perspectives on surveillance
Surveillance, intelligence and war
Surveillance, sovereignty and the nation state
Surveillance and the production of space

FEES AND GENERAL INFORMATION

This is a non-residential conference and participants will need to make their own arrangements for accommodation (we will provide advice for this in due course). The Conference will be held in and around the Oliver Thompson Lecture Theatre and Foyer, City University London, UK. London is a powerful, global city at the sharp end of surveillance processes, protocols and debates and thus provides delegates with an apt cultural context for the exploration of the above themes.

The conference web site will be up and running from early October 2009 providing full details of the emerging conference programme (i.e. schedule, plenary speakers etc.), maps, accommodation advice, evening dinner information, payment details and an electronic registration form.

The Conference Fee is £200 per person, which includes attendance, refreshments, lunch and an optional £25 two year membership of the Surveillance Studies Network. The membership fee will be used to promote the charitable activities of the Surveillance Studies Network, support the continued publication of the Journal of Surveillance and Society and give other benefits to members.

There will be a formal conference dinner on the evening of April 14th at an additional charge of £50.

SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS AND NOTIFICATION OF ATTENDANCE

If you wish to present a paper, please submit your 300-word abstract and an accompanying set of three keywords to Lisa, the conference administrator, by November 7th 2009 (email: surveillance_conference@live.co.uk) and please also include the following information so that we can contact you:

• Name

• Country of residence

• Institutional affiliation

• Institutional address

• Telephone number

• Email address

• 300-word abstract and list of three keywords

If you are thinking of attending but do not wish to give a paper, please send us the above information clearly stating that you do not wish to present a paper.

There will be two special issues of Surveillance and Society following this conference. The issues will be spaced to allow time for papers in different states of completion at the conference itself, to be submitted – please see the ‘Event Timetable’ section below. When you submit your abstract, please specify whether you intend to submit your paper to one of these issues.

POSTGRADUATE INFO

We are hoping to offer ten reduced fee places for postgraduate students wishing to give a paper or present a poster display of their research. If you wish to apply for this, please register our interest as soon a possible and send a 300 word abstract to Lisa (or indicate that you wish to present a poster), the conference administrator by 7th November 2009 (email: surveillance_conference@live.co.uk). Allocation of these strictly limited places will be based on the quality of the abstract/research description submitted and not on a first-come-first-served basis.

If you wish to attend, but do not wish to deliver a paper, please indicate this by the November 7th 2009.

EVENT TIMETABLE

2009

September 3rd – Statement of intent issued

September 28th – Full call for papers issued

October 7th – Website goes live

November 7th – Deadline for the submission of abstracts

November 23rd – Second Call issued – with list of key speakers. Electronic booking form available and formal registration and payment begins

December 18th – Final deadline for the submission of abstracts

2010

March 15th – Deadline for the electronic submission of full papers

March 15th – Final deadline for registration and payment for all conference attendees without late booking surcharge

March 24th – Papers published on Web available to all registered conference delegates

April 13th – 15th – Conference

June 30th – Deadline for submission to Surveillance and Society Conference Special Issue 1

Sept 30th – Deadline for submission to Surveillance and Society Conference Special Issue 2

Dec – Publication of Surveillance and Society Conference Special Issue 1

2011

Feb/March 2011 – Publication of Surveillance and Society Conference Special Issue 2

Please register your interest NOW!

We look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

Dr Gavin Smith

Professor Clive Norris

Dr Kirstie Ball

Dr David Murakami Wood

Dr Will Webster

Racial profiling hits a new low

Just when you think that state surveillance in supposedly free countries could not sink any lower, it has been revealed that UK Border Agency is finding a pilot project into using DNA and isotope analysis to determine the origin of asylum-seekers. This is not a joke or a scare-story. It is a real project. Science Insider has the details here. The Agency is refusing to say who is doing this research for them, nor has it provided any references to studies that show that what they are proposing will work. It appears that most scientists working in the area think it is based on entirely faulty premises and there is no reason to believe it will work. That’s only a minor objection compared to the political and ethical ones of course. As the story in Science Insider points out the Border Agency seem to be making a fundamental (and totally racist) error in assuming that ethnicity and nationality are synonymous. And this research would probably not got past any university ethics committee, which makes one wonder what kind of screening or ethical procedures the Border Agency used, and indeed who would carry out such an obviously unsound piece of research. It’s another example of increasingly unaccountable arms-length agencies (which have proliferated in recent years) using the ‘technical’ as an excuse to bypass what should be a matter of high-level policy, and indeed something that so obviously harks back to the bad days of Europe’s racist and genocidal past that it beggars belief that any sane official would have let this get further than a suggestion in a meeting.

(thanks to Andy Gates for pointing me to the story)

Gordon Brown stalls on UK ID cards issue

Despite the news stories saying that he had made a significant announcement on ID cards, the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said absolutely nothing new interesting on the subject in his speech on future Labour policy yesterday. As Henry Porter comments on The Guardian website, whilst his announcement that ID cards would not be compulsory in the (increasingly unlikely) event of another Labour term was greeted with enthusiasm by the party faithful, this is not any kind of change in policy and nothing concrete was said about the National Identity Register (i.e.: the database, the important bit!). While the Conservative Party may be limited and rather disingenuous in their apparent opposition to the ‘surveillance state’, Labour appears to be merely self-congratulatory and complacent.

Reclaim your data!

A new campaign launches on the 1st October in Europe to reclaim your data from the European police authorities.

Now in Europe, national police databases systems, the Schengen Information System (SIS) on immigration and border control, the files of Europol and more, are planned to be integrated following the Prüm Treaty and the so-called ‘Stockholm Programme’ (now in preparation for European Council vote in December this year).

As the organisers make clear, this does not just concern people convicted of any crime, but all immigrants, political protestors arrested at demonstrations, all the many entirely innocent people included on the UK’s National DNA Database – or any other national police database that includes data on the innocent, etc. What’s more, as a result of pre-existing (and originally secretly negotiated) agreements with the USA, the data will also be shared with the FBI and other US intelligence agencies.

So – first of all, protest! In what ever way you can. And secondly, as the campaign suggests:

“to anyone who would like to know what the police (think they) know about you, or simply to register your dissent, we recommend exercising your right to access your own data by sending a request for information to the relevant police authority in your country. The digest received in response will help to give us an idea of the full extent of police access to citizen data, as well as serving as a starting point for getting your data out of the computer systems, by legal or political means.”

Further details here (in English and German).

German-language document generator for data requests.

New Issue of S&S out now…

Surveillance & Society
The international, interdisciplinary, open access, peer-reviewed journal of Surveillance Studies.

Vol 6, No 4 (2009): Gender, Sexuality and Surveillance
Edited by Kirstie S Ball, David J Phillips, Nicola Green, and Hille Koskela

Featuring articles by…

Toby Beauchamp – Artful Concealment and Strategic Visibility: Transgender Bodies and U.S. State Surveillance After 9/11
Kevin Walby – Ottawa’s National Capital Commission Conservation Officers and the Policing of Public Park Sex
Kathryn Conrad – Surveillance, Gender, and the Virtual Body in the Information Age
Anthony Corones & Susan Hardy – En-Gendered Surveillance: Women on the Edge of a Watched Cervix

a piece of experimental writing by Brian Beaton – Random Digit Darling: The Telephone Turn in the American Social and Behavioral Sciences

a response to the review section in issue 6(3) on the UK House of Lords surveillance report by Charles D. Raab, Benjamin J. Goold – Putting Surveillance on the Political Agenda: A Short Defence of Surveillance, Citizens and the State

and our usual reviews of all the books that matter in surveillance studies.

Coming soon: New calls for papers: Surveillance & Empowerment; Consumer Surveillance; and the first call for our 2010 Conference in London.

Hoist by their own petard…

I always enjoy stories where those who advocate surveillance and say things like ‘nothing to hide, nothing to fear’ are then caught by surveillance (see for example, this story). In the first place, it shows how bogus and hypocritical that insidious argument is, but in the second place, it can be just really funny. So this week’s amusing surveillance story is provided by a local TV story posted on YouTube, which supposedly shows a team of Lakehead, Florida, cops who were supposed to be raiding the house of suspected drug-dealer, indulging in a nine-hour Nintendo Wii bowlathon… all caught on the householder’s home CCTV system – and now spreading virally all over the world. Ooops…

There are serious issues here though. Of course there is the whole question of 4th Ammendment violation (if you are in the USA), but more generally it raises the question of whether the use of surveillance can itself become a method of resistance to surveillance and of holding the state, private corporations, and indeed other citizens, to account, or whether a society of mutual and reciprocal surveillance (or a ‘transparent society’, as David Brin called it) is one in which we want to live. As surveillance becomes more and more ubiquitous, and in the absense of mass citizen movements to tear down the cameras, it sometimes seems like the only option we have left.

India plans ‘world class’ electronic surveillance for Commonwealth Games

The Times of India reports on the Indian government’s plans to implement comprehensive surveillance for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. One aim seems to be to create the kind of ‘island security’ with which we have become so familiar at these kinds of mega-events: vehicle check-points with automatic license-plate recording and recognition; x-ray machines and other scanners for vehicles (and perhaps people too). They will also massively expand CCTV systems and not just in the actual Games area, but throughout the city of Delhi.There are also, as usual plans to use more experimental surveillance and control techniques (as with the use of sub-lethal sonic weapons in Pittsburgh the other day), in this case a drone surveillance airship,” capable of taking and transmitting high-density visual images of the entire city.”

However, this is not just about the temporary security of the games. As with many other such mega-events, the Indian government appears to be planning to use the Delhi games as a kind of Trojan Horse for the rolling out of similar and more permanent measures in big cities across the country. The Times article claims that the Ministry of Home Affairs intends to expand the measures and “soon the same model is planned to be replicated across the country,” and in particular on use of airships, “similar airships would be launched in other big and vulnerable cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai.” And there will be an infrastructure too, apparently “the IB [Intelligence Bureau] is silently working to create a command center to monitor all-India intelligence and surveillance.”

Of course the threat of ‘terror groups’ is the justification, and there’s no doubt there is a threat to Indian cities from such groups, particularly those based in Pakistan. However, the Indian public shouldn’t assume that anything done in the name of ‘anti-terrorism’ will: 1. actually work (in the sense of preventing terrorism); or 2. be used for those purposes anyway. This same trend happened in the UK during the early 1990s, when the threat of the Provisional IRA was the justification, and before most people in Britain had even noticed, a massive (and it seems ever-expanding) patchwork of CCTV camera systems had been created, which were joined by further repressive measures even before 9/11. And did this massive number of cameras stop London being attacked by terrorists? No, it didn’t. 7/7 still happened. But of course we had lots of good pictures after the event for the media… and they are very expensive and don’t even do much to stop regular crime, as a recent meta-study has shown. What would be more effective would be peace and co-operation with Pakistan, a move away from both chauvinistic Hindu and Muslim nationalisms and extremisms which only generate resentment and hatred, and old-fashioned targeted intelligence work on those very few people who are actually planning terrorism – not mass surveillance and the gradual erosion of civil liberties of the entire population based on state fears that some of them might be guilty.

Finally, this is about globalization. The whole way this is promoted by the Indian government is as if there is some international competition to install as much CCTV and security as possible. But the global spread of the surveillance standards and expectations of the rich western elite is a self-fulfilling logic that benefits only the massive global security-industrial complex.

Pittsburgh police use sub-lethal weapons against protestors

Mega-events are often the time for some surveillance / control / security innovation and experimentation by states. In what seems to be a rather unwelcome first, the Pittsburgh police have used a military sonic canon to clear protestors off the streets at the G20 summit. These devices are among many so-called ‘sub-lethal weapons’ (see the article by Steve Wright here) that have been gradually migrating from military to civilian use for a number of years – see for example the ongoing debate over the use in the UK of the ultrasonic ‘Mosquito’ device, which is supposed to target young people; its makers rather cynically advertise it as ‘so effective that they tried to ban it’.

The particular weapon used by the Pittsburgh police is the Long Range Accoustic Device (LRAD) made by the American Technology Corporation, which generates a piercing noise that is not only extremely unpleasant, it can damage eardrums and cause heart problems. It was rather eeriely appropriate to see them being used (as you can on The Guardian‘s website) on the same day that TNI / Statewatch released their report on the security-industrial complex and a reminder that this is a global phenomenon.

Oh, look…

I’m in the local paper here in Kingston today because the Canada Research Chairs program released the official news of the new appointments yesterday. They clearly don’t do proof-reading at The Whig-Standard (what a wonderfully historically and politically-redolent name that is!) and the photo makes me look like I am wearing a hair-piece(!), but apart from that… it’s all fine. And both the reporter, Peter Hendra, and the photogrpaher, Michael Lea, were a pleasure to deal with. Thanks, guys.