Anti-surveillance
resistance in a Snowden era
One of the key questions for me, for discussions on
surveillance in a Snowden era is what anti-surveillance resistance does and
should look like. In this debate, Steve Mann has highlighted different
trajectories of resistance that include both sousveillance and counter-surveillance
as mechanisms for highlighting and circumventing the architecture of
contemporary forms of surveillance. Sousveillance makes use of technologies
that form part of the broader ecology of ‘veillance’ but uses these
technologies to monitor and observe powerful surveillance actors and
infrastructures ‘from below’. The notion here is that, as a form of
anti-surveillance resistance, such practice will shed light on the prevalence
and abuse of surveillance by institutions of power to maintain social control.
However, apart from questions regarding the inequality of power in the struggle
over the direction and impact of the gaze, what the Snowden leaks have
highlighted, is that these sousveillance technologies are themselves
incorporated into an even broader form of surveillance, what Mann calls
‘gooveillance’ or ‘uberveillance’ in which all communications, from both above
and below, is collected and monitored within a state-corporate regime of
governance. In such circumstances, how appropriate is the practice of
sousveillance as a form of resistance?
In the months following the Snowden leaks,
we have instead seen a steady rise in interest in cryptography and the use of
encryption tools as a form of anti-surveillance resistance. These practices might
be considered practices of counter-surveillance where the aim of resistance
lies in circumventing and bypassing surveillance infrastructures altogether,
particularly with regards to online communication. Such forms of
anti-surveillance resistance have become prominent and are increasingly part of
debates on contemporary forms of control and counter-control. However, crucial
questions remain regarding the remit and effectiveness of technological
responses to surveillance. Even amongst cryptographers and hackers, there is an
increasing awareness regarding the limitations of foregrounding technology in
anti-surveillance resistance. Rather, such resistance needs to form part of a
broader political movement that challenges the nature and extent of state and corporate
powers in authoritarian and liberal democracies alike. Much of this movement
has so far concerned itself with individual rights, and in particular, the
right to privacy. This holds some promise for challenging surveillance powers
outside the technological realm, but the problem with such discourse is that it lacks consideration for the ways in which there
has been a fundamental shift in understandings and practices of privacy, not
just politically, but in social and cultural terms, that means that many people
do not connect with the terms of such debate. More broadly, however, framing
anti-surveillance resistance around the issue of individual rights does little
to illuminate the ways in which surveillance architectures form part of a set
of power relations that advance certain interests over others. The challenge,
therefore, may lie in integrating anti-surveillance resistance into broader
ecologies of political activism that seek to highlight and challenge
contemporary forms of exploitation and domination, making anti-surveillance
resistance part of a broader social justice agenda.
Making such connections and building such
broader movements is, of course, an enormous challenge, but it may be the most
appropriate and relevant way of approaching anti-surveillance resistance in a
Snowden era.
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