Illusions of security : global surveillance and democracy in the post-9/11 world / Maureen Webb.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Webb, Maureen.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Civil rights--United States.

Civil rights.

United States.

Electronic surveillance--United States.

Electronic surveillance.

Intelligence service--United States.

Intelligence service.

Terrorism--United States--Prevention.

Terrorism.

September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001--Influence.

September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001.

Physical Description:

xiii, 305 pages ; 21 cm

Edition:

City Lights Books first edition.

Place of Publication:

San Francisco, USA : City Lights Books, [2007]

Summary:

With the United States in the lead, governments around the world are constructing a global surveillance system to monitor their populations. A new "risk management" paradigm is replacing pre-9/11 models: Now all levels of risk are intolerable, and global surveillance is the tactic to eliminate threats before they have a chance to strike. In this disturbing new model, everyone is a suspect, and our everyday lives are continually monitored and assessed for the risk we present to the State. An invaluable primer for everyone concerned with the future of their privacy and the limits of government control. B Maureen Webb is a human rights lawyer and activist.

Contents:

Prologue: Monia's children

The cautionary tale of Maher Arar

The tip of an iceberg: the President's secret spying

The new mantra: pre-emption of risk

The new mantra and the agenda for mass, globalized registration and surveillance

Biometric registration of alien populations

Mass detentions of Muslim immigrants and registration through NSEERS US VISIT and the E.U. Visa Information System

Biometric visas

Linkage of biometric information to a global web of databases

U.S. acquisition of domestic and foreign databases

The template for the global system of mass registration and surveillance

Biometric registration of citizens and the creation of a global identification system

Biometric passports

Policy laundering; referral to ICAO

The model: carte blanche

RFID chips

Biometric passports and the democratic deficit

Flawed technology and assumptions

Expansion to other transportation systems

Institutionalizing "non-personhood"

The creation of an infrastructure for the global surveillance of movement

U.S. demands for sharing passenger name records

The deals made

PNR and the democratic deficit; another referral to ICAO

The creation of an infrastructure for the surveillance of electronic communications and financial transactions globally and domestically

"Building in surveillance" and the convention on cybercrime

Mandatory data retention

Expansion of Echelon

Mandatory information-gathering and reporting for financial transactions

Deep integration and the loss of sovereign checks and balances

The corporate security complex

The expropriation of the democratic commons

A loss of moral compass; rendition, torture, death

The global gulag

Detention centers used by the U.S

The practice of rendition

Disappearance

The assertion of a legal black hole and authority to torture

Torture committed by U.S. personnel

The plan to build permanent prisons outside the U.S

The participation of other Western democracies

New license for brutal regimes

Illusions of security

Resisting the registration and surveillance agenda

Pockets of resistance

NGOs

Democratic institutions

Courts

The future is in our hands.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-284) and index.

ISBN:

0872864766

9780872864764

OCLC:

70045861