Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

INFORMATION, REFLEXIVITY AND SURVEILLANCE
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September of that year. The invasion quickly came to a close when the US
brought down the Taliban regime after little soldier-to-soldier combat and
unmatchable air attacks from the Americans. In 2003 the US bombing campaign
of Iraq, appositely titled ‘Shock and Awe’, and the lack of an Iraqi air force
capable of offering resistance, led to US victory within four weeks. There were
but a few score allied casualties (most from ‘friendly fire’); Iraqi deaths were not
counted, not least since many soldiers were pulverised before they could mount
any response, though estimates put Iraqi military deaths in excess of 30,000. 1
Media coverage was assiduously controlled during these campaigns by
tactics ranging from special briefings to accredited ‘embeds’, though it should be
emphasised that, while efforts to manage the media were extensive, such was the
complexity and variation within the information environment enveloping the Iraq
War – thousands of journalists from around the world, diverse world opinion
on the legitimacy of the invasion, versatile technologies, notably video phones
with satellite transmission that allowed reportage direct from journalists from
pretty well any location, professional ethics of especially the more experienced
reporters, the Al Jazeera news network, e-mail and the Internet, etc. – that all
endeavours to channel media in a straightforward manner were often undermined.
Nothing more vividly illustrates the frustrations of attempts at media
management by the military forces than the images that emerged in April 2004
from digital cameras of prisoners being abused and even tortured by American
guards at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad. These images undermined efforts to present
the invasion as a liberation and did incalculable damage to the allied forces
as the images were reproduced, amplified and commented upon around the
world (Tumber and Webster, 2006).
Surveillance and national defence
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There may be some who, pointing to the end of the Cold War that cast such a
pall across the post-1945 world, believe that the imperatives that drive defence
institutions have been removed. Against this, it is crucial to realise that, while the
Cold War did provide a powerful raison d’être for surveillance, the ‘preconditions
for intelligence as a permanent government function lie in the modern state
system’ (Whitaker, 1992, p. 121). Because it is the first duty of any government
to protect its frontiers, there is an insatiable hunger for information about
anything affecting national interests, and sight of the communist monster is not
essential to stimulate this appetite. ‘Rogue’ states and terrorists especially, but
even anti-capitalist protest, legitimise continued surveillance. The consequence
has been the construction of a massive system of interlinked technologies to
monitor routinely and continuously and inspect events and activities – military
and civilian – around the globe (Richelson and Ball, 1986). For instance, Echelon,
a US-led electronic spying network, has capacity to store 5 trillion pages of text
gleaned from monitored e-mail and fax messages (Bamford, 2001).
Alongside computers, satellites are a linchpin of surveillance activities.
Necessarily, these systems are hidden from public view, secrecy being essential
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