Spies and the Spied Upon: The Continuing Need for Human Surveillance
Considerable media coverage around the globe has been devoted to the on-going saga of the National Security Agency leaks emerging from the computer and files obtained by contractor and ex-Central Intelligence Agency employee Edward Snowden. The stories and the revelations themselves have sparked considerable political and public discussion over the limits on privacy and the intervention of the state into the lives of ordinary citizens. Some of this has concentrated on the implications of intrusive surveillance through technological collection on personal privacy. Hollywood movies such as Enemy of the State and Minority Report suddenly seem less works of futuristic fiction and more like contemporary documentaries. And yet this emphasis is problematic in two important respects. First, it suggests that everyone is equally under threat from surveillance. More significantly, the focus ignores the continuing involvement of old fashioned human beings as key ins...