Surveillance and international relations

Surveillance is perhaps the most important thing that affects us in our daily lives. Surveillance can be a mode of governmentality referring to a certain number of concepts, particularly Foucault theories. Talking about surveillance is not just about technical elements. There is a whole discussion related to the need to be in a security situation, but limiting our freedoms. The purpose is not necessarily to face a danger external to us, but the purpose of monitoring to manage us.

Surveillance

Governing: from the territory to the population

Michel Foucault led us to reflect on another way of approaching the term government. When we talk about surveillance, we are talking about a different way of thinking about how to govern ourselves. A panoptic is an architectural structure to be able to always monitor. The image of the panoptic is retraced by Foucault in his development history, that is, a development between governing the territory and governing the population. It shows that in the 16th and 17th centuries, people thought about governing a specific territory. The central dimension is territorial delimitation where the State can act in a legitimate way. There is relatively little thought about who is governing us. Today, there is an obsession with the account, with data profiling, with data that defines us as a specific individual. Foucault shows how, from the 17th century onwards, we move from the idea of governing a territory to governing a population: "a population is defined in relation to issues of life and death, health and disease, propagation and longevity" which are measurable, quantifiable through multiple instruments.

When we think about a population, we are interested in health, their statistics and fertility, and reproductive issues. As Dean shows in Governmentality. Power and Rule in Modern Society, change of government is a change of attitude from government to the people. In Il faut défendre la société published in 1997, Foucault shows that we are moving from the right to let live and die (sovereignty) to the right to let live and die (bio-politics). The State accompanies the individual in all aspects of our lives. When we talk about letting people die, to a certain extent, the state chooses the frameworks in which we will die. The state governs the individual at all times. This "whole" participates in a production of knowledge that participates in a form of government of the population. Statistics is a tool for the production of knowledge that does not simply make a space empty by collecting data, statistics creates problems. The development of statistics that appeared during the 17th century essentially makes it possible to see how a State seeks to control and manage the population. We must take an interest in the issue of statistics. This gives indications of how the government thinks the people think.

Governmentality

In Le sujet et le pouvoir published in 1982, Foucault states that "The exercise of power consists in'conducting conduct' and adjusting probability. Power, in essence, is less of the order of the confrontation between two adversaries, or of the commitment of one to the other, than of the order of the'government'.... Government in the 16th century] did not only refer to political structures and state management; it referred to the way in which individuals and groups conduct themselves: government of children, souls, communities, families, the sick.... To govern in this sense is to structure the possible field of action of others.

Governmentality is about conducting conduct. It is not only the government that pushes us to define conduct, but also the way we are led to conduct ourselves. Through the dimension of what the State invites us to do, our subjectivities invite us to do it. What is important in the dimensions of production is that we create subjectivity around the idea of being a productive actor and if we are not, we will feel bad as for some unemployed people who feel they do not have the right conduct to have.

The Foucauldian idea is that we are in a relationship of power and therefore in a relationship of co-constitution. Actors have more capital to determine what we are going to be. Foucault will return to the first meaning of the term government: "it referred to the way in which individuals and groups conduct themselves: the government of children, souls, communities, families, the sick". To govern is to structure the essential field of others. The government's goal is to make us act with a certain probability. The government is going to give a range of problems of what we are going to do and how we are going to do it. Not only do we make people think of themselves in a certain way through statistics, ministries and laws, but of course this has an effect on the way we think of ourselves as self-regulating. It is thinking in a certain way, acting in a certain way, but it is also thinking and acting according to what the State wants us to do.

Mitchell Dean has published Governmentality. Power and Rule in Modern Society raising the central question of a government analytic which is "How do we govern and are we governed within different regimes[of practices, vérité́, etc.], and[what are] the conditions through which these regimes emerge, continue to operate and are transformed". Practice remiges are the way in which an object will lead us to act in a particular way when in fact we would have to act in different ways. In Japan, the refusal of full employment for the younger generations can be read in a way of thinking that goes against previous generations who saw work as an end in itself as a citizen and as individuals.

There is a historical contextual dimension, it is always necessary to think that there is an origin without trying to discover its origin. The aim is to show that there are very specific moments that explain modes of representation and referents. It's about looking at how these things will reappear. It is necessary to study continuity while admitting that there are not only determinants. When Foucault talks about government in Security, Territory, People, he posits that there is an essential technology to govern who are the "security devices".

The apparatus

In Michel Foucault's Le jeu, Foucault speaks of " apparatus " as " a resolutely heterogeneous whole, comprising speeches, institutions, architectural arrangements, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral and philanthropic proposals, in short: both what is said and what is not said... The device itself is the network that can be established between these elements.... [the device is] some kind of... of training, which, at a given historical moment, had as its major function to respond to an emergency.

An apparatus and everything is anything but anything unless you are interested in it in terms of a problem because you are going to start shaping and discover the apparatus set up by starting to give it a specific outline. For the question of surveillance, a discourse is created. For example, with terrorism, the discourse on the unknown will justify certain modes of management and modes of practice. An airport can be analyzed as an architectural system to control the flow of people. A device is not necessarily linked to each other. There comes a time when the state goes out of the law to be able to deal with a danger or threat. Between the United States and Canada, a series of framework agreements are in place to facilitate border crossings. A system will be set up to be safe, to deal with a potential threat. For example, an automatic license plate recognition program has been implemented. The aim is to facilitate border crossing. This raises the question of how the simple act of crossing the border starts from the idea of controlling flows, but with technical measures to facilitate the flow. What is at stake is the individual as a body that has a certain trajectory.

The panoptic

We are entering a panoptic logic that is a logic where we no longer realize that we are being watched. The panoptic is the will to govern the individual. Surveillance is often considered in its commercial dimension. Most of the time, there is the idea that surveillance is linked to the sale of our data; but it is underestimating what surveillance does that is intended to lead us to behave in a certain way. The purpose of surveillance is to encourage us to adopt behaviours. The tension of the new communication tools is to make us behave in a certain way.

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  Le panoptic

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The panoptic is an ideal. The metaphor of the panoptic is the metaphor of society, which is a metaphor for regulation and self-regulation in which states and technologies are there to lead us to behave well. The purpose of a camera is not simply to catch us in the act, but to lead us to behave differently because we are seen. There is a dialectic between seeing and being seen. It is a dialectic related to vision. In the panoptic, the guard in the middle of his tower is not seen by the prisoners. The purpose of the panoptic is not to have a guard in the tower, the prisoner must think that a guard can be present in the tower. The metaphor of the panoptic society is a society under surveillance where there is no supervisor, it is a society where we are our own supervisor.

In Surveillance Technology and Surveillance Society published in 2004, David Lyon postulates that "Paradoxically, the hard side of the panoptic spectrum can generate moments of refusal and resistance that go against the production of docile bodies, while the soft side seems to seduce its participants to a frightening conformity to which some seem barely aware".

Surveillance can be the prison guard or the person who forces us to behave in a certain way. The strength of the panoptic as we present it is to be a soft method, we will not constrain, but we are inserted in a security device in order to govern ourselves and to govern ourselves without necessarily being aware of it.

The technologies

When Foucault talks about technology, it is always a very ambivalent term. In "Foucault and Technology" History and Technology: An International Journal, Behrent makes two important acceptances:

1. "since the 17th century, the same type of rationality, scientifically established procedures to control nature, production, time, and so on, have been used to manage human beings, particularly in the context of institutions. The purpose of science, the purpose of the lights are progressive goals, to make life easier, to be more effective. Machining in industry is to avoid hard tasks for individuals, increase productivity, increase the efficiency of producing certain complex objects, but with a certain ideology where the individual is limited to a specific task. If we take Fordism, the ideal of the human producer comes from the fact that there are concrete technical changes leading as a producer to conceive himself in a relationship limited to the object of production. As Foucault has shown, the mechanical relationship is a discipline to fulfill a function. Foucault shows that this has led us to reflect on ourselves in society in a different way.
2. form of disciplinary power"'producing' individuals in such a way as to integrate them into political and economic structures by supervising, subjectivizing and normalizing them" thus making illusory the idea of an "abstract subject defined by his individual rights". Often we have the idea that we are free to act as we see fit. As an agent, we have a number of choices and options available to us. It is a liberal use of choice when the choice is biased when we are being shaped to understand choices in a certain way. To a certain extent, we are led to conceive ourselves in a certain sense. The society in which we live is a society of institutions, and life is a follow-up to those institutions in which we are led to think of ourselves in a certain way.

Surveillance on a daily basis

Surveillance is a form of daily governmentality. In his book The Electronic Eye: The Rise of Surveillance Society, David Lyon writes that "Specific details of our personal lives are collected, recorded, retrieved and used every day in huge databases owned by large companies and government institutions. This is the "surveillance society". This includes withdrawing money from a ATM, making a phone call, using a loyalty card, driving a car, borrowing books from the library, using Facebook, crossing a border on a trip, walking on the street, etc. Therefore, having a desire can lead to isolation.

Control of flows and people

Flow and people control can be CCTV[closed circuit television] such as facial recognition, flow management. These flow management tools that analyze bodies, but are not capable of discernment. There are also tools for recognizing emotions that can lead to confessional situations.

With architecture as well as airports, they are constructions to control and rhythm the flows. In an airport, several rhythms are offered with the passage of different modalities of specific passages in a security logic, but also in a consumption logic. This architecture will allow us to reflect on how we will control ourselves as individuals. It is a temporality of sequential mobility with different processes: identification → control → control → consumption → surveillance → identification → mobility.

Biometrics raises reliability and security issues. It has been shown that these technologies have a margin of error because they are in the probability. This raises the issues of data sharing, which is the idea that if you provide your data to the Swiss government, for example, the Swiss government will transfer them to other countries. Once the data is shared, the data may participate in commercial databases.

One of the most powerful issues is the change from identification to authentication. This is to see if there is a relationship between what we claim to be and identity. With biometrics, it is no longer a question of whether you are the right person, but whether you really represent what you claim to be as a traveller. We are entering technologies in which we are not interested in the individual in relation to his identity card, but in relation to characteristics in order to verify whether we are authentically who we claim to be. This generates a logic of confession and authorization. There is an expectation that will lead to confiding in you through a scenario. It is no longer necessary to be identical, but authentic.

The myth of the balance

The reduction of freedoms

From the security perspective, we are entering an exceptional moment because someone has the power to say danger. There are also very specific moments when the State begins to act in order to reduce certain freedoms, such as in special situations of war, emergency or imminent danger. The state of emergency, the measures of reduction of freedom is a privilege given to the executive. These are special and discretionary powers in the order of an exception. If we look historically at wartime times when there was this kind of delegation, frequently, the judicial power, which is one of the strongest countervailing forces and the ultimate power of discretion, has called into question this discretionary power. One may wonder why there are so many facilities in a democracy to accept that the State can have such powers when the democratic model is the idea of a balance between spheres of power to limit such situations. In other words, the judiciary has historically demonstrated a general reluctance to oppose reductions in freedoms in these situations.

Some types of reduction:

• limitation in the possibility for individuals to travel freely: the State argues that it has the prerogative to interfere with the freedom of movement without having to justify why it does so. The State assumes a number of rights for itself without necessarily respecting certain rights. In France, anti-terrorist judges have powerful prerogatives when justified, so they have the ability to arrest people, to put them in prison;
• indefinite imprisonment without trial: the possibility, while there are legal remedies, of having a lawyer and having access to his or her file, of not consulting one;
• collection of personal data for intelligence purposes: this is done without reference to a judge. In cases of strong security logic, there is an authorization to ignore these requests;
• collection and use of personal and biometric data without control over their storage, communication and commodification: it is the collection of all forms of information related to practices leading to the creation of databases on which we have no margin of manpower and no awareness of their existence that can be shared, modified and commodified without our consent.

The concept of balance

Intuitivement il y a un sens que nous devons trouver un équilibre entre liberté et sécurité. Il y a d’un côté les libertés de l’individu dans un cadre spécifique d’agir c’est-à-dire les libertés d’un individu de faire tel qu’il l’entend, de l’autre, il y a l’idée que la sécurité doit être là pour protéger la société d’actions de certains individus qui viendraient à la menacer ou la modifier. Il y a un équilibre entre liberté et le sens que l’État doit nous protéger. Il faut trouver un équilibre entre ces deux éléments. L’idée de l’équilibre est l’idée qu’il y a quelque chose de naturel à penser la relation entre liberté et sécurité qui est une relation intime et naturelle.

Pour Waldron, dans Security and Liberty: the Image of Balance publié en 2003, l’équilibre doit évoluer en fonction des changements dans cette menace si elle devient plus grave et imminente. Si la menace venait à disparaître ou à s’estomper, il y a l’idée qu’on rééquilibrerait pour avoir plus de liberté. L’équilibre doit évoluer en fonction des changements dans cette menace si elle devient plus grave et imminente. Il y a l’idée de quantifier ce que l’on gagne et ce que l’on perd. le concept d’équilibre possède des connotations de précision et de quantité. C’est mettre en parenthèse ses libertés sachant qu’on devrait les retrouver à un moment.

Les enjeux normatifs

La question normative est de savoir quelle marge de manœuvre doit-on laisser à un État pour qu’il agisse pour nous protéger. Tous les États démocratiques ont des systèmes pour éviter que l’exécutif devienne trop fort.

À propos du 11 septembre 2001, Waldron dit qu’il y avait « un sentiment qu’une réduction de nos libertés peut être appropriée après les attaques terroristes, et qu’il était peut-être déraisonnable d’insister sur les mêmes restrictions à l’action de l’état après le 11 septembre de la même manière que nous le faisions avant le 11 septembre ». C’est l’idée qu’il y a une tension où rien n’est jamais acquis, car nos libertés sont contextuelles étant liées aux menaces et aux dangers auxquels nous faisons face.

Waldron identifie quatre enjeux normatifs centraux : 1) peut-on appliquer un raisonnement conséquentialiste à une question telle que les droits individuels ? Le raisonnement sur l’équilibre est un raisonnement conséquentialiste, c’est-à-dire qu’on va justifier un certain nombre d’actions en fonction des conséquences que l’on va avoir. Limiter les libertés est juste dans la mesure où les conséquences sont de nous rendre plus sûrs. Waldron nous interroge de savoir s’il est possible de raisonner de cette manière lorsqu’il s’agit de limiter nos droits fondamentaux, de savoir si c’est une justification de la sûreté est suffisant pour limiter nos droits. Lorsqu’il s’agit de nos droits fondamentaux, s’agit-il d’un équilibre et ne donne-t-on pas quelque chose à l’État qu’on ne peut plus retrouver. Waldron propose une perspective déontique afin de savoir si nos libertés individuelles peuvent être réfléchies en terme conséquentialiste ou si ce sont des choses inaliénables qu’on ne peut remettre en cause.

2) est-ce que la réduction des libertés induite par une logique sécuritaire touche de façon disproportionnée une frange de la population ? L’idée de l’équilibre parle de façon très abstraite, mais on se rend compte que certaines populations sont plus remises en cause que d’autres. Si on remet en cause et qu’on utilise cet équilibre on peut s’interroger dans quelle mesure a-t-on des effets qui s’appliquaientà tout le monde, dans quelle mesure crée-t-on des discriminations vis-à-vis de certains ; donc, dans quelle mesure l’idée d’équilibre ne fait que renforcer les formes de dominations au sein des sociétés, des groupes ou entre les individus.

3) dans quelle mesure la diminution de nos libertés négatives résulte dans une diminution de notre sécurité face à l’État ? Un des éléments centraux de la pensée démocratique, mais aussi de la pensée libérale est que l’ennemi premier est l’État. La réflexion de la politique démocratique est d’arriver à une situation où on sait que l’État ne va pas pouvoir devenir autoritaire, utiliser ses capacités discrétionnaires. Du moment que l’on diminue nos libertés, on peut s’interroger dans quelle mesure l’État commence à avoir des pouvoirs vis-à-vis de nos libertés individuelles qui font que l’équilibre sur lequel nous basons la société donne une illusion ; dans quelle mesure ceci afin de devenir juste une procédure, le rapport de force entre l’individu est l’État change d’une telle manière que nous ne sommes plus dans l’équilibre originel. La logique sécuritaire est la logique d’un État où l’État prend le pas sur le reste. Si on accepte la limitation des libertés individuelles, alors dans quelle mesure on accepte que l’État devienne autoritaire.

4) est-ce que ces mesures ont des effets réels ou symboliques ? Par exemple, la plupart des mesures prises dans les aéroports en matière de sécurité sont des mesures symboliques. Qui plus est, la plupart des gens qui vont vouloir outrepasser ces dispositifs vont pouvoir le faire aisément par d’autres moyens. Cela interroge sur le fait de savoir si on peut respecter nos libertés individuelles si elles sont symboliques. Il est possible d’appliquer un raisonnement conséquentialiste, mais lorsqu’il s’agit des mesures concrètes prises quotidiennement, elles n’ont pas d’effets concrets.

Le mythe de l’équilibre

Il y a un problème inhérent dans la réflexion sur l’équilibre entre liberté et sécurité. Pour Waldron, le problème de l’inhérence est de pouvoir réfléchir dans les termes de l’équilibre. Les questions normatives de Waldron posent la question de savoir si le concept de l’équilibre est pertinent lorsqu’il s’agit de réfléchir sur ce que sont nos sociétés, quelles formes prennent-elles. C’est l’idée que lorsqu’il s’agit de penser la sécurité, c’est peut-être un acte politique. Parler, faire, agir en fonction de la sécurité fait que nous sommes lié à un acte politique jamais neutre.

Neocleous argumente que le concept d’équilibre est un mythe. Le mythe peut prendre plusieurs définitions, mais il en utilise deux :

• la première est l’idée de mythe fondateur. Comme le contrat social est un mythe fondateur, Neocleous se pose la même question liée à la question entre équilibre et sécurité. Ne s’agit-il pas d’un mythe politique qui justifie l’acceptation d’un certain ordre par des gens qui n’ont pas intérêt.
• L’autre idée est qu’un mythe produit un imaginaire justifiant des choses. Tout l’argument de Neocleous est de se poser la question que si quelque chose nous est justifié, montré et mis en avant, n’y a-t-il pas quelque chose d’autre de cacher parce que le mythe éblouit.

Plusieurs vont auteurs vont noter que lorsque des penseurs libéraux utilisent l’emploi de mesures d’exception, cela est toujours pour protéger la propriété privée. Neocleous est un penseur néomarxiste montrant que chez les penseurs libéraux, la sécurité est tout aussi importante que la liberté. Dans Security, Liberty and the Myth of Balance: Towards a Critique of Security Politics, Neocleous postule que « le mythe de la ‘balance’ entre sécurité et liberté ouvre la porte [arrière] à l’acceptation d’une palette de mesures sécuritaires autoritaires; mesures qui sont ensuite justifies sur des bases libérales ». Il ne s’agit pas de protéger la liberté, mais on justifie les mesures sécuritaires par la liberté. En d’autres termes, il cache un des éléments centraux du libéralisme : la sécurité est plus importante que la liberté. L’enjeu des libéraux est que lorsqu’on met en œuvre des mesures sécuritaires, on protège un certain groupe et certaines choses par certaines personnes.

On se retrouve dans un paradoxe où on s’attend à ce que la pensée libérale dénonce les mesures liberticides alors qu’en fait, elle est plutôt en train de les justifier. Précisément parce que dans un État démocratique libéral, on a ce moment où consciemment ou inconsciemment on rend une partie de nos libertés, on s’attend à ce que l’État soit garant de nos libertés, alors, toute diminution de nos libertés prend une signification encore plus importante. Nous sommes dans des relations asymétriques vis-à-vis de l‘État et la démocratie est la gestion des relations asymétriques dans l’intérêt et l’avantage de l’individu est non pas de l’État. Pourtant, nous sommes toujours à la merci de l’État. Il est important de mettre à jour cette dimension après que nous sommes de plus en plus dans des logiques qui réduisent nos libertés, qui les conditionnent. Le libéralisme participe donc de logiques autoritaires, certes mineures comparées à des régimes autocratiques, qui deviennent de plus en plus présentes et persistantes.

La conséquence pour Neocleous est que « le concept même de sécurité est à abandonner, car il nous aveugle quant aux ‘formes contemporaines de domination sociale et justifie le court-circuitage des formes mêmes les plus minimalistes de procédures démocratiques ». Il faut abandonner même le concept de sécurité, penser dans les termes de la sécurité est renforcer les genres de domination de la pensée néolibérale. En fait, on oublie que peut être fondamentalement, que ce qui va déterminer l’équilibre de nos sociétés n’est pas la liberté et la sécurité, mais peut être est-ce le rapport de classes, l’économie politique.

Résister à la surveillance

La surveillance telle que définie par Lyon dans Surveillance Society: Monitoring Everyday Life, est définie comme « la collection et l’analyse de données personnelles, identifiables ou non, dans le but d’influencer or de gérer ceux dont ces données ont été collectées ».

James Scott montre qu’on peut trouver deux types de résistances.

• résistance transformative : résister à ce processus est difficile, car nous sommes dans logiques dont nous ne pouvons que difficilement nous défaire ou transformer. La plupart du temps, on n’arrive pas à résister à l’État parce que l’État est plus fort. Ce type de résistances n’est pas la seule façon par laquelle on peut identifier des formes de résistances.
• résistance appropriative : la résistance appropriative est de savoir dans quelle mesure dans notre quotidien par de petites choses on transforme nos relations asymétriques en arrivant à les déstabiliser dans un moment spécifique.

Il est possible de détourner la structure de surveillance comme le montre Hasan Elahi. Des auteurs fournissent des clefs de lecture afin de tenter d’ouvrir les yeux à certains ou encore transformer la relation entretenue entre l’État et l’individu.

Bilan

• La logique soit/soit (complémentarité de sécurité et liberté) cache une relation plus complexe.
• Il existe un biais du "in-group": Les minorités souffrent plus que la société en tout.
• Il y a une commodification des données. On maitrise sa propre info.
• La question de la résistance; que peut-on faire contre la surveillance?

Bibliography

• Behrent, Michael C. (2013) “Foucault and Technology” History and Technology: An International Journal 29(1): 54-104.!
• Dean, M. (2010) Governmentality. Power and Rule in Modern Society. 2nd ed. London: SAGE Publications.!
• Foucault, M. (1997) "Il faut défendre la société." Cours au Collège de France. 1976. Paris: Hautes Etudes Gallimard/Seuil.!
• Foucault, M. (2001[1977]) "Le jeu de Michel Foucault", in Dits et Ecrits II, 1976-1988. Paris: Quatro Gallimard, pp. 298-329. !
• Foucault, M. (2001[1982]) "Le sujet et le pouvoir", in Dits et Ecrits II, 1976-1988. Paris: Quatro Gallimard, pp. 1041-1062. !
• Foucault, M. (2004) Sécurité, territoire, population. Cours au Collège de France. 1977-1978. Paris: Hautes Etudes Gallimard/Seuil.!
• Lyon, D. (2006) “The search for surveillance theories”, in Lyon, David, ed. Theorizing Surveillance. The Panopticon and Beyond. Willan Publishing, pp. 3-20.
• Neocleous, Mark. 2007. “Security, Liberty and the Myth of Balance: Towards a Critique of Security Politics.” Contemporary Political Theory 6 (1): 131–49.!
• Waldron, Jeremy. 2003. “Security and Liberty: the Image of Balance.” Journal of Political Philosophy 11 (2). Wiley Online Library: 191–210.