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“Digital Blackwater”: The National Security Administration, Telecommunications Companies and State-Corporate Crime
Abstract
This article examines the National Security Administration's (NSA) coupling with major telecommunications companies for mass surveillance of Americans' communications as a form of state-facilitated state-corporate crime. It addresses the ways that the US surveillance programmes are violating the right to privacy and are excessively secretive, in violation of international human rights laws. Furthermore, given that attacking and defaming whistleblowers is a hallmark of state-corporate crime, this article also examines the treatment of Edward Snowden, the contractor who leaked information about the NSA's programmes to news media. The article also addresses how this widespread and suspicionless spying is antithetical to democracy, undermining the rule of law and dissuading critical dialogue about public policy and national security. We conclude with an examination of why so many Americans are apathetic about these privacy violations, focusing on the consumerist ideology that promotes widespread acceptance of efforts that allegedly result in greater national security.
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Notes
The USA PATRIOT Act expanded the government's surveillance power in numerous other ways (see, e.g. Keenan 2005).
In May 2002, the attorney general changed departmental rules to allow FBI agents to conduct surveillance at public meetings and events of domestic groups and organizations, including churches, mosques and synagogues, without providing any rationale for spying on the group and with little guidance on what information could be recorded and how long it could be kept (Keenan 2005: 95). In August 2002, as a result of widespread criticism, Congress passed legislation prohibiting the implementation of the proposed Terrorist Information and Prevention System (TIPS, which would have recruited one million citizen volunteers in ten large cities to spy on their neighbours and report “suspicious activity”. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the programme “epitomized the government's insatiable appetite for the surveillance of law-abiding citizens” (Scheeres 2002).