1984word "Social Control"

[Paul Mackin]

On Tue, 2003-04-29 at 09:45, davemarc wrote:
> The following excerpt about "social control" is from an essay called "Recent
> Developments in Undercover Policing" by Professor Gary T. Marx.  I think it
> might be of interest to those interested in Pynchon's remarks about 1984,
> social control, and the Internet.
> 
> The book by Cohen is called Visions of Social Control.  It's from 1985--off
> by just one year!

Sorry to be so negative, but my impression of what's included in the ten
points below is one of extreme skepticism. Too easy to find objections.
Mine scribbled out below popped out instantaneously. Others could no
doubt do better.

Nothing about the Internet at least for which we're grateful.

Don't think I'm trying to minimize dangers to freedom. But it's fear,
not technology that will propel the loss. Why didn't Pynchon talk about
this? Maybe he did. Perhaps Orwell did not take up the question.
Probably he didn't need to. It's so obvious.



> 
> d.
> 
> *
> 
> In recent decades social control has become more specialized and technical
> and, in many ways, more penetrating and intrusive.
> 
> Cohen (1985) offers a good discussion of this. One manifestation is the
> expansion of undercover police practices as part of the rise of the new
> surveillance (computer dossiers, electronic location monitoring, drug and
> DNA testing, video and audio monitoring, etc.). The new surveillance tends
> to be differentiated from the old surveillance by at least ten major
> characteristics:
> 1. It transcends distance, darkness, and physical barriers.

So does the automobile and the airplane.


> 2. It transcends time; its records can be easily stored, retrieved,
> combined, analyzed, and communicated.

Seems easy for people who haven't tried to do it.


> 3. It has low visibility or is invisible


Just like God, yet people continue to sin with reckless abandon.




> 4. It is involuntary.

Hard to know what this means but I will comment that in the history of
the world no one has ever volunteered to be surveilled.

> 5. It is preventive.

Prevention extends to bad things as well as good.

> 6. It is capital- rather than labor-intensive.

It's both capital and labor intensive. Information in a computer is
useless without enormous amounts of intelligent and dedicated human
participation. Which by the way will be in short supply under the
tyrannies envisioned. 


> 7. It is decentralized and often involves self-policing.

No, it's freedom, not tyranny, that is decentralized and self policing.
Tyranny requires central control. And central control or rather attempts
at central control tend to fail


> 8. It triggers a shift from targeting a specific suspect to categorical
> suspicion.

Categorical thinking, profiling,stereotyping are as old as the hills.
New Jersey cop sees black driver and goes for it without even consulting
his computer.
  
> 9. It is more intensive --probing beneath surfaces, discovering previously
> inaccessible information.

This is a myth. During the early post 9/11 days such approaches were
explored and given up as impractical. Data harvesting seems like a great
idea to those who haven't tried it.

> 10. It is more extensive --covering an ever enlarging number of spatial,
> temporal, and functional areas.

This guy is really reaching . . 

> 
> web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/recent.html
> 
> 
> 
>