ABSTRACT

Surveillance and transparency are both significant and increasingly pervasive activities in neoliberal societies. Surveillance is taken up as a means to achieving security and efficiency; transparency is seen as a mechanism for ensuring compliance or promoting informed consumerism and informed citizenship. Indeed, transparency is often seen as the antidote to the threats and fears of surveillance. This book adopts a novel approach in examining surveillance practices and transparency practices together as parallel systems of accountability. It presents the house of mirrors as a new framework for understanding surveillance and transparency practices instrumented with information technology. The volume centers around five case studies: Campaign Finance Disclosure, Secure Flight, American Red Cross, Google, and Facebook. A series of themed chapters draw on the material and provide cross-case analysis. The volume ends with a chapter on policy implications.

chapter 1|24 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|15 pages

Campaign Finance Disclosure

Transparency Becomes Surveillance

chapter 3|19 pages

Secure Flight

Hidden Terms of Accountability

chapter 4|20 pages

American Red Cross

Institutional Transparency Requires Surveillance of Institutional Actors

chapter 5|18 pages

Google

Simple Data, Powerful Rendering

chapter 6|23 pages

Facebook

Multiple Accountabilities

chapter 7|11 pages

Online Advertising

A House of Mirrors

chapter 9|16 pages

Trust in a House of Mirrors?