The Rise of the Modern Intelligence State

Abstract

The rise of the formal surveillance state in the early twenty-first century was precipitated by political impetus to empower security and intelligence organisations to perform a broad range of counterterrorism functions. Ethical debates about the implications of the security intelligence reach of modern states have focused on balancing individual rights, liberties, and privacy against the security of the state. Meanwhile, the surveillance state has rapidly evolved into an intelligence state, capable not only of pervasive data collection, but also of analytical modelling which expands existing boundaries of surveillance. Existing concerns about the ethical collection and use of surveillance data are compounded by three emergent capabilities of the modern intelligence state: persistent data surveillance, pattern-of-life analysis, and activity-based intelligence. These intelligence methods provide descriptive and/or predictive models of human behaviour that empower governments to generate intelligence about the actual and the potential subjects of counterterrorism investigations. The ethical implications of counterterrorism intelligence extend beyond the collection and use of data to the application of predictive modelling to dehumanised patterns of behaviour. This process has the potential to redefine the boundaries of the person, particularly by blurring the distinction between thoughts and actions which threaten the state.

The implosion of the Dutch surveillance welfare state

“…In this regard, Henman & Marston (2008: 191) speak of ‘welfare surveillance’, which they defined as “the collection and processing of personal data, whether identifiable or not, in the operation, delivery and provision of occupational, fiscal and social welfare for the purposes of influencing or managing those whose data have been garnered”. Data that may be used include individual user profiles and search histories, GPS location data and Bluetooth and Wi‐Fi connections logs, social media accounts and financial transactions (Hardy, 2021).…”