Spying on Democracy

Spying on Democracy:
Government Surveillance, Corporate Power and Public Resistance

By Heidi Boghosian

"In Spying on Democracy, National Lawyers Guild Executive Director Heidi Boghosian documents the disturbing increase in surveillance of ordinary citizens and the danger it poses to our privacy, our civil liberties, and to the future of democracy itself. Boghosian reveals how technology is being used to categorize and monitor people based on their associations, their movements, their purchases, and their perceived political beliefs. She shows how corporations and government intelligence agencies mine data from sources as diverse as surveillance cameras and unmanned drones to iris scans and medical records, while combing websites, email, phone records and social media for resale to third parties, including U.S. intelligence agencies."

* (pp. 108-109)  A civilian employee of the Fort Lewis Force Protection Division in Washington State, struck up friendships with many peace activists. For at least two years he posed as an activist... He gave information... to his supervisor Thomas Rudd, who wrote threat assessments that local law enforcement officials used in harassment campaigns that included "preemptive arrests and physical attacks on peaceful demonstrations, as well as other harassment." In the words of the government agencies involved, they aimed to neutralize PMR [a local political / activist group] through a pattern of false arrest and detentions, attacks on homes and friendships, and attempting to impede members from peacefully assembling and demonstrating anywhere, at any time."

I thought that "Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power and Public Resistance" was very well-written and highlights concerns that many in our communities have about invasions of our personal privacy and abuse of our civil liberties.