Data Borders investigates entrenched and emerging borderland technology that ensnares all people in an intimate web of surveillance where data resides and defines citizenship. Detailing the new trend of biologically mapping undocumented people through biotechnologies, Melissa Villa-Nicholas shows how surreptitious monitoring of Latinx immigrants is the focus of and driving force behind Silicon Valley's growing industry within defense technology manufacturing. Villa-Nicholas reveals a murky network that gathers data on marginalized communities for purposes of exploitation and control that implicates law enforcement, border patrol, and ICE, but that also pulls in public workers and the general public, often without their knowledge or consent. Enriched by interviews of Latinx immigrants living in the borderlands who describe their daily use of technology and their caution around surveillance, this book argues that in order to move beyond a heavily surveilled state that dehumanizes both immigrants and citizens, we must first understand how our data is being collected, aggregated, correlated, and weaponized with artificial intelligence and then push for immigrant and citizen information privacy rights along the border and throughout the United States.

The United States has poured over a billion dollars into a network of interagency intelligence centers called "fusion centers." These centers were ostensibly set up to prevent terrorism, but politicians, the press, and policy advocates have criticized them for failing on this account. So why do these security systems persist? Pacifying the Homeland travels inside the secret world of intelligence fusion, looks beyond the apparent failure of fusion centers, and reveals a broader shift away from mass incarceration and toward a more surveillance- and police-intensive system of social regulation. Provided with unprecedented access to domestic intelligence centers, Brendan McQuade uncovers how the institutionalization of intelligence fusion enables decarceration without fully addressing the underlying social problems at the root of mass incarceration. The result is a startling analysis that contributes to the debates on surveillance, mass incarceration, and policing and challenges readers to see surveillance, policing, mass incarceration, and the security state in an entirely new light.

A most timely publication in view of current concerns about snooping. Thomas Mathiesen describes how the major databases of Europe have become interlinked and accessible to diverse organizations and third States; meaning that, largely unchallenged, a 'Surveillance Monster' now threatens rights, freedoms, democracy and the Rule of Law. As information is logged on citizens' every move, data flows across borders via systems soon to be under central, global or even non-State control. Secret plans happen behind closed doors and 'systems func tionaries' become defensive of their own role. Goals expand and entire processes are shrouded in mystery. Alongside the integration of automated systems sits a weakening of State ties as the Prum Treaty and Schengen Convention lead to systems lacking transparency, restraint or Parliamentary scrutiny. As Mathiesen explains, the intention may have been fighting terrorism or organized crime, but the means have become disproportionate, unaccountable, over-expensive and lacking in results which ordinary vigilance and sound intelligence in communities should provide.

Data Borders investigates entrenched and emerging borderland technology that ensnares all people in an intimate web of surveillance where data resides and defines citizenship. Detailing the new trend of biologically mapping undocumented people through biotechnologies, Melissa Villa-Nicholas shows how surreptitious monitoring of Latinx immigrants is the focus of and driving force behind Silicon Valley's growing industry within defense technology manufacturing. Villa-Nicholas reveals a murky network that gathers data on marginalized communities for purposes of exploitation and control that implicates law enforcement, border patrol, and ICE, but that also pulls in public workers and the general public, often without their knowledge or consent. Enriched by interviews of Latinx immigrants living in the borderlands who describe their daily use of technology and their caution around surveillance, this book argues that in order to move beyond a heavily surveilled state that dehumanizes both immigrants and citizens, we must first understand how our data is being collected, aggregated, correlated, and weaponized with artificial intelligence and then push for immigrant and citizen information privacy rights along the border and throughout the United States.

Video surveillance, public records, fingerprints, hidden microphones, RFID chips: in contemporary societies the intrusive techniques of surveillance used in daily life have increased dramatically. The "war against terror" has only exacerbated this trend, creating a world that is closer than one might have imagined to that envisaged by George Orwell in 1984.How have we reached this situation? Why have democratic societies accepted that their rights and freedoms should be taken away, a little at a time, by increasingly sophisticated mechanisms of surveillance?From the anthropometry of the 19th Century to the Patriot Act, through an analysis of military theory and the Echelon Project, Armand Mattelart constructs a genealogy of this new power of control and examines its globalising dynamic. This book provides an essential wake-up call at a time when democratic societies are becoming less and less vigilant against the dangers of proliferating systems of surveillance.

A practical, user-friendly handbook for understanding and protecting our personal data and digital privacy. Our Data, Ourselves addresses a common and crucial question: What can we as private individuals do to protect our personal information in a digital world? In this practical handbook, legal expert Jacqueline D. Lipton guides readers through important issues involving technology, data collection, and digital privacy as they apply to our daily lives. Our Data, Ourselves covers a broad range of everyday privacy concerns with easily digestible, accessible overviews and real-world examples. Lipton explores the ways we can protect our personal data and monitor its use by corporations, the government, and others. She also explains our rights regarding sensitive personal data like health insurance records and credit scores, as well as what information retailers can legally gather, and how. Who actually owns our personal information? Can an employer legally access personal emails? What privacy rights do we have on social media? Answering these questions and more, Our Data, Ourselves provides a strategic approach to assuming control over, and ultimately protecting, our personal information.