We Know all About you : : the Story of Surveillance in Britain and America
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1. A Survey of Surveillance -- 2. The Private Eye Invades Our Privacy -- 3. The Blacklist -- 4. Franklin D. Roosevelt's Incipient Surveillance State -- 5. McCarthyism in America -- 6. McCarthyism in Britain -- 7. COINTELPRO and 1960s Surveillance -- 8. An Age of Transparency -- 9. The Intensification of Surveillance Post-9/11 -- 10. Private-Sector Surveillance in the Twenty-First Century -- 11. Snowden -- 12. Policy and Reform in the Obama-Cameron Era.
This is the story of surveillance in Britain and the United States, from the detective agencies of the late nineteenth century to Wikileaks and CIA whistle-blower Edward Snowden in the twenty-first. Written by historian and intelligence expert Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, it is the first full overview of its kind. Delving into the roles of credit agencies, private detectives, and phone-hacking journalists as well as agencies like the FBI and NSA in the USA and GCHQ and MI5 in the UK, Jeffreys-Jones highlights malpractices such as the blacklist and illegal electronic interceptions. He demonstrates that several presidents -- Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon -- conducted various forms of political surveillance, and also how British agencies have been under a constant cloud of suspicion for similar reasons. Continuing with an account of the 1970s' leaks that revealed how the FBI and CIA kept tabs on anti-Vietnam War protestors, he assesses the reform impulse of this era -- an impulse that began in America and only gradually spread to Britain. The end of the Cold War further at the end of the 1980s then undermined confidence in the need for state surveillance still further, but it was to return with a vengeance after 9/11. What emerges is a story in which governments habitually abuse their surveillance powers once granted, demonstrating the need for proper controls in this area. But, as Jeffreys-Jones makes clear, this is not simply a story of the Orwellian state. While private sector firms have sometimes acted as a brake on surveillance by the state (particularly in the electronic era), they have also often engaged in dubious surveillance practices of their own. Oversight and regulation, he argues, therefore need to be universal and not simply concentrate on the threat to the individual posed by the agencies of government.
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PUBLISHED
Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2017.
Year Published: 2017
Description: ix, 290 pages : illustrations, map, portrait ; 21 cm.
Language: English
Format: Book
ISBN/STANDARD NUMBER
9780198749660
019874966X
SUBJECTS
Domestic intelligence -- History.
Domestic intelligence -- Great Britain -- History.
Privacy, Right of -- History.
Privacy, Right of -- Greta Britain -- History.
Internal security -- History.
Internal security -- Great Britain -- History.
Computers -- Access control.
Computers -- Access control -- Great Britain.
Wikis (Computer science) -- Access control.
Wikis (Computer science) -- Access control -- Great Britain.
Confidential communications -- History.
Confidential communications -- Great Britain -- History.
Government information -- History.
Government information -- Great Britain -- History.
Electronic surveillance -- History.
Electronic surveillance -- Great Britain -- History.
Police patrol -- History.
Police patrol -- Great Britain -- History.
Surveillance detection -- History.
Surveillance detection -- Great Britain -- History.