Liquid Surveillance / PCVS-Polity Conversations Series (ePub)

'Today the smallest details of our daily lives are tracked
and traced more closely than ever before, and those who are
monitored often cooperate willingly with the monitors. From London
and New York to New Delhi, Shanghai and Rio de Janeiro, video
cameras are a familiar and accepted sight in public places. Air
travel now commonly involves devices such as body-scanners and
biometric checks that have proliferated in the wake of 9/11. And
every day Google and credit-card issuers note the details of our
habits, concerns and preferences, quietly prompting customized
marketing strategies with our active, all too often zealous
cooperation.

In today's liquid modern world, the paths of daily life
are mobile and flexible. Crossing national borders is a commonplace
activity and immersion in social media increasingly ubiquitous.
Today's citizens, workers, consumers and travellers are
always on the move but often lacking certainty and lasting bonds.
But in this world where spaces may not be fixed and time is
boundless, our perpetual motion does not go unnoticed. Surveillance
spreads in hitherto unimaginable ways, responding to and
reproducing the slippery nature of modern life, seeping into areas
where it once had only marginal sway.

In this book the surveillance analysis of David Lyon meets the
liquid modern world so insightfully dissected by Zygmunt
Bauman. Is a dismal future of moment-by-moment monitoring
closing in, or are there still spaces of freedom and hope? How do
we realize our responsibility for the human beings before us, often
lost in discussions of data and categorization? Dealing with
questions of power, technology and morality, this book is a
brilliant analysis of what it means to be watched - and
watching - today.