Surveillance, Intelligence Agencies, Persuasion, Influence and Accountability: Problematic Silences in Civil Society

• In Event: Digital Surveillance and Citizenship

Abstract

This paper draws on an inter-disciplinary literature (Media, Journalism, History and International Relations) to interrogate the relationship between intelligence agencies, persuasion, influence and accountability. Its empirical focus is the relationship between the press and signal intelligence agencies (especially the USA’s National Security Agency and the UK’s Government Communication HeadQuarters) concerning digital surveillance, or ‘bulk data collection’ as revealed by the 2013 Snowden leaks.
I raise three fundamental questions concerning contemporary surveillance and civil society.
1. What is the relationship between surveillance and persuasion/influence, and why is hardly anyone looking at this?
2. Why is the press, as a key public mechanism of holding intelligence agencies to account, so supine, as evidenced in the debate on Snowden-revealed surveillance?
3. In what ways could the press, and civil society more generally, better hold the political-intelligence elite to account?

Author

• Vian Bakir, Bangor University