Surveillance and the Vanishing Individual: Power and Privacy in the Digital Age

Surveillance and the Vanishing Individual is an investigation into the impact of the spread of digital technologies and practices, and especially the wide-spread practice of mass surveillance, on privacy and personhood. The book argues that the quest for prediction, certainty, and control lying at the heart of the state’s security apparatus destroys an essential component of human dignity and fundamentally undermines liberalism. The book begins with a discussion of the rise of the digital age and the historical import of this development. Subsequent chapters of the book examine different cultural understandings of privacy, the philosophical discussion of its centrality to human existence, and the form and extent of its legal protection. Lindau explores the reasons behind the rise of mass state surveillance, the modest legal restraints governing its use, and its deployment against activists, protestors, and dissidents and its impact on individuals and on privacy. The book then turns to a discussion of the rise of “surveillance capitalism” and, because this is not just—or even primarily—a U.S. phenomenon, examines the political, social, and other impacts of social media around the world. The book includes a case study discussing the global use of surveillance during the Covid-19 pandemic and the implications of this development before concluding with reflections on the relationship between mass surveillance and liberalism. The book will appeal equally to readers across the social sciences and philosophy, and to students in courses on privacy, surveillance, and democracy. Lindau expertly explores the social, political, and economic consequences of digitization and one of its essential features – the appropriation and “mining” of ever large troves of personal information. The book primarily focuses on the experience of the United States but includes a comparative cross-national and cross-regional analysis and a discussion of the link between different regime types and state surveillance.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Chapter 1: The Transition from the Industrial to the Digital Age Additional Reasons for the Failure to Confront the Consequences of the Digital Age New Configurations of Power in the Digital Age The Emergence of New Digital Economic Identities The Impact of the Internet on Political and Associational Activity Conclusion Chapter 2: Interdisciplinary Discussions of Privacy and its Loss Socio-cultural Understandings of Privacy Rationalization for the Loss of Privacy in the Digital Age The “I Have Nothing to Hide Rationalization” The “I Am Irrelevant” Rationalization The Trump Rationalization Public Defenders of Mass Surveillance Conclusion Chapter 3: Philosophical Debates About Privacy Arguments About Privacy's Subsidiarity to Other Rights and Interests Conclusion Chapter 4: Privacy as a Legal and Constitutional Right The Fourth Amendment and Privacy The Legal and Constitutional Protection of Privacy in Other Countries International Law and Privacy Conclusion Chapter 5: Nation

About the Author :
Juan D. Lindau is professor of Political Science at Colorado College. He primarily teaches courses on Comparative Politics and Latin American Politics and actively participates, outside the department, in the History/Political Science major and the International Political Economy major. His primary scholarly interests are the drug war, migration, and the impact of the internet and digital technology on politics. He has written articles and essays for Political Science Quarterly and for Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, Foro Internacional, and for the International Political Science Review as well as for a number of edited collections. He is the author of La elite gobernante mexicana (Mexico D.F.: Joaquin Mortiz, 1993) and co-editor, with Timothy Cheek, of Market Economics and Political Change: Comparing China and Mexico (Boulder: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998). In addition, with Curtis Cook, he edited Aboriginal Right and Self-Government: The Canadian Experience in North American Perspective (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2000). He has received the Lloyd E. Worner Teacher of the Year award and the A.E. and Ethel Irene Carlton Professorship.

Review :
‘Digital technologies,’ Juan Lindau convincingly writes, ‘turn people inside out, making their inner selves increasingly legible while erasing…their right to be let alone, undisturbed, and unrecognized.’ If you want to understand why and how that is happening—and why it’s so hard to do anything about it—this deeply-researched book is the place to start. Professor Lindau’s Surveillance and the Vanishing Individual is a welcome addition to the technology and surveillance literature. Rich with both theory and applications the book provides a timely analysis and critique of corporate and state surveillance. Clearly the result of much scholarly labor, the product is a rare synthesis of political, legal, and ethical theory that will be of enduring interest to scholars and practitioners alike.