Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T01:21:06.708Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Surveillance Legacies of 9/11: Recalling, Reflecting on, and Rethinking Surveillance in the Security Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2014

David Lyon  and
Kevin D. Haggerty
David Lyon
Affiliation:
Surveillance Studies Centre, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, lyond@queensu.ca
Kevin D. Haggerty
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2H4, kevin.haggerty@ualberta.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Do we need yet more analysis of the responses to the September 11, 2001 (hereafter 9/11), terrorist attacks? Those tragic events occurred more than a decade ago, and their 10-year memorial focused on bringing “closure” to the event. For many, those attacks have become an increasingly distant, if still poignant, memory. For still others—such as the new cohort of undergraduate students who were only nine years old on the day of the attacks—9/11 is social history.

Our contention in putting together this volume is that there continues to be significant reason to scrutinize 9/11 in terms of its consequences for the dynamics of surveillance. The aftermath of that tragic event played a major role in policy changes and in international relations. Wars were fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, sparked by 9/11, and many thousands more people died as a result. “National security” was elevated to a top priority in the United States and elsewhere, and this approach has had wave and ripple effects throughout the world. This is the “War on Terror,” and, unlike other wars, this one has no visible end point. These developments certainly affected surveillance practices internationally and have been the cue for the United States to demand that other countries fall in line with its approach. On the other hand, for many countries, especially in the global south, 9/11 is not a top-of-mind matter, nor is “national security” a vital concern.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , December 2012 , pp. 291 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Lyon, David, Surveillance after September 11 (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

2 See generally Hornqvist, Magnus, “Risk Assessments and Public Order Disturbances: New European Guidelines for the Use of Force?” Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention 5, 1 (2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Ericson, Richard, “Ten Uncertainties of Risk-Management Approaches to Security,” Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice 48, 3 (2007): 345–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Lyon, Surveillance after September 11; Ball, Kirstie and Snider, Laureen, eds., The Surveillance-Industrial Complex: A Political Economy of Surveillance (London: Routledge, forthcoming 06 2013)Google Scholar.

5 Freeze, Colin, “Canada's Little-Known Spy Agency Comes Out into the Open,” The Globe and Mail (08 23, 2012), http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canadas-Iittle-known-spy-agency-comes-out-into-the-open/article4260580/?page=allGoogle Scholar.

6 See, e.g., Priest, Dana and Arkin, William, “Top Secret America,“ a special series for The Washington Post (2010), http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/Google Scholar.

7 Graham, Stephen, Cities under Siege: The New Urban Militarism (London: Verso, 2010)Google Scholar.

8 Trottier, Daniel, “Policing Social Media,” Canadian Sociological Review 49, 4 (2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Altheide, David, Terrorism and the Politics of Fear (Lanham, MD: Altamira, 2006)Google Scholar.

10 See, e.g., Hellman, Chris, “Has the Pentagon's Post-9/11 Spending Spree Made Us Safer?“ The Nation (08 16, 2011), http://www.thenation.com/article/162803/has-pentagons-post-911-spending-spree-made-us-safer/Google Scholar.

11 Zedner, Lucia, Security (London: Routledge, 2009), 73Google Scholar.

12 See Skillicorn, David, “Understanding Complex Datasets: Data Mining with Matrix Decompositions,” International Statistical Review 76, 1 (2008)Google Scholar.

13 Aas, Katja Franko, Gundhus, Helene Oppen, and Lomell, Heidi Mork, eds., Technologies of Insecurity: The Surveillance of Everyday Life (London: Routledge, 2008)Google Scholar.

14 Monahan, Torin, “The Murky World of ‘Fusion Centres’,“ Criminal Justice Matters 75, 1 (2009), 20–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 “The New Transparency: Surveillance and Social Sorting“ is the title of a SSHRC collaborative research project to which most contributors to this special issue belong.

16 See Priest and Arkin, “Top Secret America,“ http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/.

17 Klein, Iris, Applying Canadian Privacy Laws to Transborder Flows of Personal Information from Canada to the United States: A Clarification (Ottawa: Kris Klein Law Office, 2008)Google Scholar.

18 Tibbits, Janice, “A Decade On,” Canadian Lawyer Magazine (09 2011)Google Scholar.

19 See, e.g., Whitaker, Reg, “Behavioral Profiling in Israeli Aviation Security as a Tool for Social Control,“ in Surveillance and Control in Israel/Palestine, ed. Zureik, Elia, Lyon, David, and Laban, Yasmeen Abu (London: Routledge, 2010)Google Scholar.

20 Zureik, Elia, Lyon, David, and Laban, Yasmeen Abu, eds., Surveillance and Control in Israel/Palestine (London: Routledge, 2010)Google Scholar.

21 Whitaker, “Behavioral Profiling.“

22 Beyond the Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness (Declaration by the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of the United States of America, 02 4, 2011, Washington, DC)Google Scholar.

23 Embassy of the United States, “Beyond the Border, One Year Later“ (02 10, 2012), http://canada.usembassy.gov/news-events/2012-news-and-events/february-2012/10-february-2012-beyond-the-border-one-year-later.htmlGoogle Scholar; Goldstein, David, What Canadians Told Us: A Report on a Consultation on Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness between Canada and the United States (Ottawa: Government of Canada, 2012)Google Scholar.

24 Goldstein, What Canadians Told Us.

25 Ibid.

26 Klein, Naomi, “Big Brother Democracy,” The Nation (09 10, 2007), http://www.thenation.com/article/big-brother-democracy/Google Scholar.

27 Himelfarb, Alex, “A Meaner Canada: Junk Politics and the Omnibus Crime Bill,“ The Metropolitain (06 10, 2011), http://www.themetropolitain.ca/articles/view/987Google Scholar.

28 Geist, Michael, “Web Surveillance Legislation Requires Study, Not Speed“ (2011), http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5808/135/Google Scholar.

29 See Stoddart, Eric, Theological Perspectives on the Surveillance Society (London: Ashgate, 2011)Google Scholar.

30 Mosco, Vincent, The Digital Sublime (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

31 Office of the Privacy Commissioner, A Matter of Trust: Integrating Privacy and Public Safety in the 21st Century (Ottawa: OPC, 2010), http://www.priv.gc.ca/information/pub/gd_sec_20101l_e.asp.Google Scholar