The Unaccountable State of Surveillance

The Unaccountable State of Surveillance PDF Author: Clive Norris
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319475738
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 506

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Book Description
This book examines the ability of citizens across ten European countries to exercise their democratic rights to access their personal data. It presents a socio-legal research project, with the researchers acting as citizens, or data subjects, and using ethnographic data collection methods. The research presented here evidences a myriad of strategies and discourses employed by a range of public and private sector organizations as they obstruct and restrict citizens' attempts to exercise their informational rights. The book also provides an up-to-date legal analysis of legal frameworks across Europe concerning access rights and makes several policy recommendations in the area of informational rights. It provides a unique and unparalleled study of the law in action which uncovered the obstacles that citizens encounter if they try to find out what personal data public and private sector organisations collect and store about them, how they process it, and with whom they share it. These are simple questions to ask, and the right to do so is enshrined in law, but getting answers to these questions was met by a raft of strategies which effectively denied citizens their rights. The book documents in rich ethnographic detail the manner in which these discourses of denial played out in the ten countries involved, and explores in depth the implications for policy and regulatory reform.

The Unaccountable State of Surveillance

The Unaccountable State of Surveillance PDF Author: Clive Norris
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319475738
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 506

Get Book

Book Description
This book examines the ability of citizens across ten European countries to exercise their democratic rights to access their personal data. It presents a socio-legal research project, with the researchers acting as citizens, or data subjects, and using ethnographic data collection methods. The research presented here evidences a myriad of strategies and discourses employed by a range of public and private sector organizations as they obstruct and restrict citizens' attempts to exercise their informational rights. The book also provides an up-to-date legal analysis of legal frameworks across Europe concerning access rights and makes several policy recommendations in the area of informational rights. It provides a unique and unparalleled study of the law in action which uncovered the obstacles that citizens encounter if they try to find out what personal data public and private sector organisations collect and store about them, how they process it, and with whom they share it. These are simple questions to ask, and the right to do so is enshrined in law, but getting answers to these questions was met by a raft of strategies which effectively denied citizens their rights. The book documents in rich ethnographic detail the manner in which these discourses of denial played out in the ten countries involved, and explores in depth the implications for policy and regulatory reform.

Does State Spying Make Us Safer?

Does State Spying Make Us Safer? PDF Author: Michael Hayden
Publisher: House of Anansi
ISBN: 1770898425
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
Does government surveillance make us safer? The thirteenth Munk Debate, held in Toronto on Friday, May 2, 2014, pitted Michael Hayden and Alan Dershowitz against Glenn Greenwald and Alexis Ohanian to debate whether state surveillance is a legitimate defence of our freedom — the democratic issue of the moment. In a risk-filled world, democracies are increasingly turning to large-scale state surveillance, at home and abroad, to fight complex and unconventional threats — but is it justified? For some, the threats more than justify the current surveillance system, and the laws and institutions of democracies are more than capable of balancing the needs of individual privacy with collective security. But for others, we are in peril of sacrificing to a vast and unaccountable state surveillance apparatus the civil liberties that guarantee citizens’ basic freedoms and our democratic way of life. In this edition of the Munk Debates, former head of the CIA and NSA Michael Hayden and civil liberties lawyer Alan Dershowitz square off against journalist Glenn Greenwald and reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian to debate the legitimacy of state surveillance. With issues of Internet privacy increasingly gaining prominence, the Munk Debate on the Surveillance State asks: Should government be able to monitor our activities in order to keep us safe?

No Place to Hide

No Place to Hide PDF Author: Glenn Greenwald
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 162779073X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
An investigative reporter for The Guardian and best-selling author of With Liberty and Justice for Some presents an assessment of the NSA surveillance scandal that has triggered debates over national security and information privacy to explore its alliances and consequences. 150,000 first printing.

Dark Mirror

Dark Mirror PDF Author: Barton Gellman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143110470
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
“Engrossing. . . . Gellman [is] a thorough, exacting reporter . . . a marvelous narrator for this particular story, as he nimbly guides us through complex technical arcana and some stubborn ethical questions. . . . Dark Mirror would be simply pleasurable to read if the story it told didn’t also happen to be frighteningly real.” —Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times From the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and author of the New York Times bestseller Angler, the definitive master narrative of Edward Snowden and the modern surveillance state, based on unique access to Snowden and groundbreaking reportage around the world. Edward Snowden touched off a global debate in 2013 when he gave Barton Gellman, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald each a vast and explosive archive of highly classified files revealing the extent of the American government’s access to our every communication. They shared the Pulitzer Prize that year for public service. For Gellman, who never stopped reporting, that was only the beginning. He jumped off from what Snowden gave him to track the reach and methodology of the U.S. surveillance state and bring it to light with astonishing new clarity. Along the way, he interrogated Snowden’s own history and found important ways in which myth and reality do not line up. Gellman treats Snowden with respect, but this is no hagiographic account, and Dark Mirror sets the record straight in ways that are both fascinating and important. Dark Mirror is the story that Gellman could not tell before, a gripping inside narrative of investigative reporting as it happened and a deep dive into the machinery of the surveillance state. Gellman recounts the puzzles, dilemmas and tumultuous events behind the scenes of his work – in top secret intelligence facilities, in Moscow hotel rooms, in huddles with Post lawyers and editors, in Silicon Valley executive suites, and in encrypted messages from anonymous accounts. Within the book is a compelling portrait of national security journalism under pressure from legal threats, government investigations, and foreign intelligence agencies intent on stealing Gellman’s files. Throughout Dark Mirror, Gellman wages an escalating battle against unknown adversaries who force him to mimic their tradecraft in self-defense. With the vivid and insightful style that is the author’s trademark, Dark Mirror is a true-life spy tale about the surveillance-industrial revolution and its discontents. Along the way, with the benefit of fresh reporting, it tells the full story of a government leak unrivaled in drama since All the President’s Men.

The Watchers

The Watchers PDF Author: Shane Harris
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143118900
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
An explosive look at the domestic agencies charged with spying on all of us Given recent terrorist events in the U.S. and the document leaks by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, The Watchers is more timely than ever, drawing on access to political and operational insiders to create a brilliant exposé of why and how the American government spies on its own citizens. Born in the wake of the 1983 massacre of 241 Marines in Beirut, the domestic surveillance program introduced by Ronald Reagan's national security advisor, John Poindexter, to coordinate intelligence on terrorists has claimed billions of government dollars. Despite the cost, it has failed in its mission to identify new threats. But as Harris shows, it has provided the government with a tool for the electronic surveillance of Americans that has ushered in an age of constitutionally questionable intrusion into the lives of every citizen.

Stopping the Spies

Stopping the Spies PDF Author: Jane Duncan
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1776142160
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description


Unaccountable

Unaccountable PDF Author: Janine Wedel
Publisher: Pegasus Books
ISBN: 9781681772639
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
From the Tea Party to Occupy Wall Street, however divergent their political views, these groups seem united by one thing: outrage over a system of power and influence that they feel has stolen their livelihoods and liberties. Increasingly, protesters on both ends of the political spectrum and the media are using the word “corrupt” to describe an elusory system of power that has shed any accountability to those it was meant to help and govern.But what does corruption and unaccountability mean in today’s world? It is far more toxic and deeply rooted than bribery. Foreign governments with a history of human rights violations, military coups, and more, hire American public relation firms to suppress reports and search results for their crimes. Investigative journalism has been replaced by "truthiness." From Super PACs pouring secret money into our election system, to companies buying better ratings from Standard & Poors, or the extreme influence of lobbyists in congress, all are embody a “new corruption” and remain unaccountable to our society’s supposed watchdogs, which sit idly alongside the same groups that have brought the government, business and much of the military in to their pocket.

The Snowden Files

The Snowden Files PDF Author: Luke Harding
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0804173532
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Now a major motion picture, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Edward Snowden was a 29-year-old computer genius working for the National Security Agency when he shocked the world by exposing the near-universal mass surveillance programs of the United States government. His whistleblowing has shaken the leaders of nations worldwide, and generated a passionate public debate on the dangers of global monitoring and the threat to individual privacy. In a tour de force of investigative journalism that reads like a spy novel, award-winning Guardian reporter Luke Harding tells Snowden’s astonishing story—from the day he left his glamorous girlfriend in Honolulu carrying a hard drive full of secrets, to the weeks of his secret-spilling in Hong Kong, to his battle for asylum and his exile in Moscow. For the first time, Harding brings together the many sources and strands of the story—touching on everything from concerns about domestic spying to the complicity of the tech sector—while also placing us in the room with Edward Snowden himself. The result is a gripping insider narrative—and a necessary and timely account of what is at stake for all of us in the new digital age.

Towards a Surveillant Society

Towards a Surveillant Society PDF Author: Thomas Mathiesen
Publisher: Waterside Press
ISBN: 1904380972
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
Tracking the Surveillance Monster... Thomas Mathiesen describes how the major databases of Europe have become interlinked and accessible not just to participating countries but diverse organizations and third States; meaning that, largely unchallenged, a 'Surveillance Monster' now threatens rights, freedoms, democracy and the Rule of Law. As information is logged on citizens' every move, data flows across borders via systems soon to be under central, global or even non-State control. Secret plans are hatched behind closed doors and 'systems functionaries' become defensive of their own roles. Goals expand and entire processes are shrouded in mystery. Alongside the integration of automated systems sits a weakening of State ties as Prum, Schengen, Verizon, Prism and similar ventures lead to a lack of transparency, restraint or effective if any Parliamentary scrutiny. As Mathiesen points out in this penetrating account, the intention may have been fighting terrorism or organized crime, but the means have become disproportionate, unaccountable, over-expensive and lacking the verifiable results which ordinary vigilance, alertness and sound intelligence in communities should inherently provide. 'Brings into the light the hidden effects of [surveillance and warns] of the need for vigilance': Tony Bunyan, Director, Statewatch. 'A timely and highly troubling analysis [which] reinforces alarm regarding a panoptical globe': Andrew Rutherford.

The Unelected

The Unelected PDF Author: James R. Copland
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1641771216
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
America is highly polarized around elections, but unelected actors make many of the decisions that affect our lives. In this lucid history, James R. Copland explains how unaccountable agents have taken over much of the U.S. government apparatus. Congress has largely abdicated its authority. “Independent” administrative agencies churn out thousands of new regulations every year. Courts have enabled these rulemakers to expand their powers beyond those authorized by law—and have constrained executive efforts to rein in the bureaucratic behemoth. No ordinary citizen can know what is legal and what is not. There are some 300,000 federal crimes, 98 percent of which were created by administrative action. The proliferation of rules gives enormous discretion to unelected enforcers, and the severity of sanctions can be ruinous to citizens who unwittingly violate a regulation. Outside the bureaucracy, private attorneys regulate our conduct through lawsuits. Most of the legal theories underlying these suits were never voted upon by our elected representatives. A combination of historical accident, decisions by judges and law professors, and self-interested advocacy by litigators has built an onerous and expensive legal regime. Finally, state and local officials may be accountable to their own voters, but some reach further afield, pursuing agendas to dictate the terms of national commerce. These new antifederalists are subjecting the citizens of Wyoming and Mississippi to the whims of the electorates of New York and San Francisco—contrary to the constitutional design. In these ways, the unelected have assumed substantial control of the American republic, upended the rule of law, given the United States the world’s costliest legal system, and inverted the Constitution’s federalism. Copland caps off his account with ideas for charting a corrective course back to democratic accountability.