The Globalization of SurveillanceISBN: 978-0-7456-4511-7
Paperback
248 pages
October 2010, Polity
Other Available Formats: Hardcover
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Video surveillance, public records, fingerprints, hidden
microphones, RFID chips: in contemporary societies the intrusive
techniques of surveillance used in daily life have increased
dramatically. The “war against terror” has only
exacerbated this trend, creating a world that is closer than one
might have imagined to that envisaged by George Orwell in
1984.
How have we reached this situation? Why have democratic societies accepted that their rights and freedoms should be taken away, a little at a time, by increasingly sophisticated mechanisms of surveillance?
From the anthropometry of the 19th Century to the Patriot Act, through an analysis of military theory and the Echelon Project, Armand Mattelart constructs a genealogy of this new power of control and examines its globalising dynamic.
This book provides an essential wake-up call at a time when democratic societies are becoming less and less vigilant against the dangers of proliferating systems of surveillance.
How have we reached this situation? Why have democratic societies accepted that their rights and freedoms should be taken away, a little at a time, by increasingly sophisticated mechanisms of surveillance?
From the anthropometry of the 19th Century to the Patriot Act, through an analysis of military theory and the Echelon Project, Armand Mattelart constructs a genealogy of this new power of control and examines its globalising dynamic.
This book provides an essential wake-up call at a time when democratic societies are becoming less and less vigilant against the dangers of proliferating systems of surveillance.