The story line speaks for itself, Democrats in the States are still having problems evolving a spinal chord... thats why their talking heads seem to flip, flop so badly.... among the new bunch of presidential contenders the only one so far I heard who even is able to stand up straight is Kucinich... but the issue here is the sacrifice of individual privacy rights versus the intrusive desire of the State and Corporate interest to extract as much information possible from the targeted population (in this case the whole world) . Its also a testament to how fear turns back to feed on itself, or as the title of a Fassbinder film reminds us: Angst isst Seele auf or Fear eats the Soul. At any rate Rudolph Giuliani, the Republican presidential hopeful, thinks that's pretty good campaign strategy.
Of course to the extent that new information and monitoring technologies can increase the expansive gaze of the Panopticon it is most troubling
16 June 2001
Transcription and HTML by Cartome
Source: Bentham, Jeremy Panopticon Letters Ed.Bozovic, Miran (London: Verso, 1995). p. 29-95
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Go to Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon Letters (1787) and detailed architectural specifications for his surveillance machine. |
Theory of Surveillance: The PANOPTICON
The PANOPTICON was proposed as a model prison by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), a Utilitarian philosopher and theorist of British legal reform.
The Panopticon ("all-seeing") functioned as a round-the-clock surveillance machine. Its design ensured that no prisoner could ever see the 'inspector' who conducted surveillance from the privileged central location within the radial configuration. The prisoner could never know when he was being surveilled -- mental uncertainty that in itself would prove to be a crucial instrument of discipline.
French philosopher Michel Foucault described the implications of 'Panopticism' in his 1975 work Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison --
"Hence
the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious
and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So
to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if
it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend
to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus
should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent
of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught
up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers. To achieve
this, it is at once too much and too little that the prisoner should be constantly
observed by an inspector: too little, for what matters is that he knows himself
to be observed; too much, because he has no need in fact of being so. In view
of this, Bentham laid down the principle that power should be visible and unverifiable.
Visible: the inmate will constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of
the central tower from which he is spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must
never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment; but he must be sure
that he may always be so. In order to make the presence or absence of the inspector
unverifiable, so that the prisoners, in their cells, cannot even see a shadow,
Bentham envisaged not only venetian blinds on the windows of the central observation
hall, but, on the inside, partitions that intersected the hall at right angles
and, in order to pass from one quarter to the other, not doors but zig-zag openings;
for the slightest noise, a gleam of light, a brightness in a half-opened door
would betray the presence of the guardian. The Panopticon is a machine for dissociating
the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without
ever seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen."
excerpt from 'Panopticism'
in Foucault, Michel
Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison
(NY: Vintage Books 1995) pp. 195-228
translated from the French by Alan Sheridan (translation � 1977)
Yet again, the Democrats roll over
WASHINGTON -- President Bush has the Democrats' number on Capitol Hill. All he has to do is play the fear card and invoke the war on terror and they will cave.
What's more, the president has found out that he can break the law and the rubber stamp
Democratic Congress will give him a pass every time.
The fear of being branded "soft on terrorism" was enough to make the Democrats capitulate once again to the Bush administration's demands. Or was it simply a looming vacation and beckoning campaign travel that led them to desert the nation's capital after giving the National Security Agency the power to expand its eavesdropping program without a warrant.
The Orwellian measure allows the federal government -- without a court order or oversight -- to intercept electronic communications between people in the U.S. and people outside the U.S.
The old rule required that a special court give its approval for that kind of surveillance. The new law bypasses the court and empowers the director of national intelligence and the attorney general to authorize the surveillance.
Oversight by the special foreign intelligence surveillance court is now severely limited to examining whether the government's guidelines for targeting overseas suspects are appropriate.
The administration said the new law is designed to bring the Foreign Surveillance Act of 1978 "in step with advances in technology by restoring the government's power to gather information without a warrant on foreign intelligence on targets located overseas."
Mike McConnell, the director of National Intelligence, asserted that he needed the expanded spying authority because "the government is significantly burdened in capturing overseas communications of foreign terrorists planning to conduct attacks inside the United States."
McConnell -- who is pushing for more spy power -- and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- who has huge credibility problems -- will decide on the targets. Both will also have charge of oversight of the program. Figure that!
In recent weeks, administration officials have warned that the United States is under a heightened terrorist threat.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid denounced the new legislation, saying it authorizes warrantless searches and surveillance of American phone calls, e-mails, homes, offices and personal records.
Civil liberties advocates and most Democrats warned the law will allow the government to monitor communications between U.S. residents and people living outside the country -- without first getting approval from the secret foreign intelligence court.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said the lawmakers were "stampeded by fear-mongering and deception."
The White House stampeded members of Congress and they wilted. The question is who is going to protect the privacy rights of the U.S. citizen? Certainly not Bush and not Congress.
The legislation has a six-month expiration date, but critics are concerned that it may become permanent.
Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., a member of the House Intelligence Committee said: "I'm not comfortable suspending the Constitution even temporarily."
Holt added: "The countries we detest around the world are the ones that spy on their own people. Usually they say they do it for public safety and security."
When Bush took the oath of office he swore to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
But after the 9/11 terrorist attack, he authorized a secret warrantless wiretapping program that allowed the NSA to intercept communications between individuals in the United States and others overseas when there is suspicion of a link to terrorism.
Full details of the program have never been revealed.
In ordering wiretapping without a warrant, Bush seemed to think that the laws did not apply to him. The compliant FISA court has turned down only one request for a warrant in the past two years. So what's his problem with obeying the law?
He seems to be giving credence to President Nixon's famous quote: "If a president does it, it's not illegal."
It boggles the mind to imagine what secret executive orders the next president will uncover after Bush leaves office and what the American people will eventually learn about the secret infringement of their rights.