Jane Duncan

Stopping the Spies (eBook, ePUB)

Constructing and resisting the surveillance state in South Africa

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Is South Africa on its way to becoming a surveillance state, and will it need a whistleblower?

In 2013, former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden leaked secret documents revealing that state agencies like the NSA had spied on the communications of millions of innocent citizens. International outrage resulted, but the Snowden documents revealed only the tip of the surveillance iceberg. Apart from insisting on their rights to tap into communications, more and more states are placing citizens under surveillance, tracking their movements and transactions with public and private institutions. The state is becoming like a one-way mirror, where it can see more of what its citizens do and say, while citizens see less and less of what the state does, owing to high levels of secrecy around surveillance.

In this book, Jane Duncan assesses the relevance of Snowden's revelations for South Africa. In doing so she questions the extent to which South Africa is becoming a surveillance society governed by a surveillance state. Duncan challenges members of civil society to be concerned about and to act on the ever-expanding surveillance capacities of the South African state. Is surveillance used for the democratic purpose of making people safer, or is it being used for the repressive purpose of social control, especially of those considered to be politically threatening to ruling interests? She explores the forms of collective action needed to ensure that unaccountable surveillance does not take place and examines what does and does not work when it comes to developing organised responses.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Wits University Press
• Seitenzahl: 312
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Oktober 2018
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781776142170
• Artikelnr.: 53025756

Autorenporträt

Jane Duncan is a professor in the Department of Journalism, Film and Television at the University of Johannesburg. Before that, she held a chair in Media and the Information Society at Rhodes University, and was the Executive Director of the Freedom of Expression Institute. She is author of The Rise of the Securocrats: The Case of South Africa (2014) and Protest Nation: The Right to Protest in South Africa (2016).