The Intensification of Surveillance: Crime, Terrorism and Warfare in the Information Age.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Author: Markantonatou, Maria
• Date: 01 August 2007

The Intensification of Surveillance: Crime, Terrorism and Warfare in the Information Age Ball, Kirstie and Webster, Frank (eds.) (2003) Pluto Press, London, 176pp. ISBN 0 7453 1995 5 (hb) ISBN 0 7453 1994 7 (ppb)

Over the last years and especially since September 11, 2001, surveillance has been dramatically intensified. In this collective volume, various aspects of modern surveillance and a series of argumentations about its intensification are being critically discussed. In the introduction, Kirstie Ball and Frank Webster underline the increasing surveillance in everyday life and in routine activities, such as the surveillance around making phone calls, paying by debit cards, being controlled in airports or being watched in private and public spaces by close-circuit television cameras (CCTV). As they note, 'surveillance includes the observation, recording and categorisation of information about people, processes and institutions' (p. 1) and it is 'more organised and technology-based than hitherto' (p. 1).

This widening tendency to construct surveillance by technological means is emphasised also by David Lyon (p. 16). Since September 11, not only legal changes have taken place (e.g., legislation in the United States and in other countries to give police and intelligence services greater powers), but also technical (iris scans, face recognition, smart cards and biometrics) and commercial changes (expansion of security firms and new opportunities for high-tech surveillance companies; p. 18). Do these changes mean that the classical Big...