THE HIGH COSTS OF POST-9/11 SURVEILLANCE Costs of War / Brown University 092623
The expansion of mass surveillance post-9/11 was conducted in secret, often in violation of the Constitution and U.S. law, and comes with enormous costs to society, according to a new report from the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute.
THE HIGH COSTS OF POST-9/11 SURVEILLANCE Costs of War / Brown University 092623
The expansion of mass surveillance post-9/11 was conducted in secret, often in violation of the Constitution and U.S. law, and comes with enormous costs to society, according to a new report from the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute.
While “mass surveillance” is often used to refer to government spying, today it involves a complex grouping of federal agencies, local police, private companies, and even members of the public. The report describes how this “dizzyingly large and complex” architecture built to sustain post-9/11 mass surveillance lacks government transparency, and makes accounting for the true budgetary costs nearly impossible.
Meanwhile, mass surveillance has intensified the criminalization of marginalized and racialized groups, from Muslims and Arabs to Latinx immigrant communities and Black and Indigenous organizers. This focus may leave officials ill-prepared to address rising white supremacist violence. What's more, building a set of institutions and technologies capable of overseeing both mass movement and minute details of individuals’ lives has broadened the powers of law enforcement and corporations, in ways that have often proved difficult to reverse or even oversee.
THE HIGH COSTS OF POST-9/11 SURVEILLANCE Costs of War / Brown University 092623
The expansion of mass surveillance post-9/11 was conducted in secret, often in violation of the Constitution and U.S. law, and comes with enormous costs to society, according to a new report from the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute.
While “mass surveillance” is often used to refer to government spying, today it involves a complex grouping of federal agencies, local police, private companies, and even members of the public. The report describes how this “dizzyingly large and complex” architecture built to sustain post-9/11 mass surveillance lacks government transparency, and makes accounting for the true budgetary costs nearly impossible.
Meanwhile, mass surveillance has intensified the criminalization of marginalized and racialized groups, from Muslims and Arabs to Latinx immigrant communities and Black and Indigenous organizers. This focus may leave officials ill-prepared to address rising white supremacist violence. What's more, building a set of institutions and technologies capable of overseeing both mass movement and minute details of individuals’ lives has broadened the powers of law enforcement and corporations, in ways that have often proved difficult to reverse or even oversee.
The full report is at https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2023/surveillance .