Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

INFORMATION, REFLEXIVITY AND SURVEILLANCE
to ensure security from the enemy. Thus is constructed an anonymous and unexaminable,
national and worldwide web of surveillance and transmission of messages
between defence agencies (Burrows, 1986). The security services assume
themselves to be continually under attack from enemies and malcontents.
Constantly wary, they come easily to be pervaded by suspicion and fear of disclosure,
characteristics which reinforce their impenetrability and distance them
further from public accountability (Knightley, 1986).
The surveillance machine is not only directed against external enemies.
Given the nation state’s susceptibility to internal assault (imagine the ease
with which a nation might fall if, say, power stations were occupied by fifth
columnists), there is a powerful impulse towards searching out ‘subversives’
(Campbell and Connor, 1986, p. 274). In the UK, leaks and occasional exposés
have revealed that surveillance can be exercised on trade unionists, Labour MPs,
CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) activists, educationalists and media
personnel, environmental campaigners, animal rights activists, as well as on those
who might be thought to be more obvious candidates (Leigh, 1980; Massiter,
1985; Hollingsworth and Norton-Taylor, 1988). MI5 works in association with the
Special Branch of the police force, thereby extending its information-gathering
network nationwide. The security services also have access on request to an array
of databanks, including the Police National Computer, Inland Revenue records,
British Telecom files, and data held by the Department of Health.
Terrorist assaults on democracies, from New York and Washington in
September 2001, to Bali and Madrid shortly afterwards, to London in July 2005,
have accelerated and legitimated this search for ‘enemies within’ (Ball and
Webster, 2003). They contribute an important rationale for the introduction of
identity cards in the United Kingdom that will feature the latest computer technologies
and incorporate biometric data that will make individuals more easily
identified and tracked when necessary.
In sum, what we witness is a powerful force impelling the growth of surveillance
systems that emanates from the nation state’s duty to safeguard its
frontiers. In a world divided by national frontiers there is, unavoidably, a built-in
pressure towards the construction of effective defence machines. And, because
nations are often in situations of at least potential conflict, what ‘effective’ means
is always subject to change. However, what remains constant is the impulse to
garner, adapt and act upon the best-possible information about real and putative
enemies within and without. This impels the spread of what David Lyon (2001)
terms a major form of surveillance, categorical suspicion, whereby threats to order,
real and potential, are placed under scrutiny.
Human rights regimes
The development of information war, and the centrality to it of ‘perception
management’, has paradoxical effects. On the one hand, it has led to more sophisticated
techniques of propaganda. On the other hand, however, this is strikingly
difficult to achieve satisfactorily because media and means of communication
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