Mass surveillance by governments and large technology companies has seriously threatened civil liberties in modern society, enabling unprecedented invasions of individual privacy (Greenwald 12). Through monitoring online activity and accessing personal electronic devices, organizations can collect immense amounts of private data on individuals without meaningful oversight or consent (Greenwald 12). This level of surveillance enables new forms of social control that undermine principles of democracy and privacy while stifling personal freedoms. To understand the injustice of mass surveillance, one can draw parallels to the themes of government overreach and loss of autonomy depicted in the graphic novels Saga and V for Vendetta.
Both Saga and V for Vendetta illuminate how surveillance empowers authoritarian rule at the cost of personal freedom through censorship and oppression of political dissent (Vaughan and Staples 2019). In Saga, Landfall and Wreath, totalitarian governments monitor all forms of communication to censor dissent and maintain control over citizens (Vaughan and Staples 2019). Similarly, in V for Vendetta, the fascist Norsefire regime uses surveillance and propaganda to manipulate public opinion and quash political opposition by identifying and eliminating political enemies (Moore and Lloyd, 2020). These dystopian societies demonstrate how extensive surveillance corrodes civil liberties by repressing independent thought and preventing citizens from organizing against the state through fear and isolation from others.
Mass surveillance poses risks of social control that thinkers have long warned against through psychological conditioning and manipulating subject populations (Mayfield 22). Philosopher Jeremy Bentham conceptualized the Panopticon, a prison design allowing total observation that could mentally condition inmates into obedient subjects (Mayfield 22). As documented by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency collects data on nearly every facet of American citizens’ digital lives with little oversight through programs like PRISM and UPSTREAM (Greenwald 33). Such expansive digital monitoring capabilities create a chilling effect on expression and inhibit dissent through discouraging citizens from sharing criticisms or opposing viewpoints (Rawls 456).
However, some argue that concerns over mass surveillance are overblown, as governments need such tools to counter modern security threats, though civil liberties are equally critical in a free society (Rawls 67). Empirical research casts doubt on mass surveillance’s effectiveness and questions whether such broad practices are necessary or proportionate to the stated aims of anti-terrorism (Severson et al. 78). Legal scholars argue that new privacy protections do little to address inherent issues of breadth and lack of safeguards in modern surveillance practices and do not establish proper limitations or oversight (Severson et al. 89).
Surveillance has enabled governments’ and corporations’ unprecedented accumulation of personal data through massive databases containing citizens’ intimate details (Zuboff 101). Technology companies like Google and Facebook profit immensely by hoovering up private user information and selling it to advertisers through targeted behavioural marketing, with little oversight into how data is used or how long sensitive records are retained (Zuboff 101). Malicious actors may also exploit security vulnerabilities, or governments could compel companies, like in recent examples involving national security letters, to amass troves of private communications and online activity (Zuboff 112). Citizens have scarcely any control over or visibility into how their digital lives are tracked, analyzed, and used behind the scenes by profit-seeking companies and spy agencies alike (Greenwald 123).
In conclusion, mass surveillance, as currently practiced, violates basic principles of privacy, dissent and individual autonomy that free societies depend on. By drawing parallels to the themes depicted in Saga and V for Vendetta, one sees how extensive monitoring can corruptly empower repressive rule through chilling open debate and political opposition when citizens know they are under constant watch. Stronger legal protections and limits on data collection are needed to curb emerging threats to privacy from both the public and private sectors. Law and policy must attempt to establish greater accountability and oversight mechanisms to regulate surveillance powers in the digital era (Mayfield 234).
Works Cited
- Severson et al. “American Surveillance of Non-U.S. Persons: Why New Privacy Protections Offer Only Cosmetic Change.” Harvard International Law Journal, 56 (2015): 465-514.
Greenwald, Glenn. No place to hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US surveillance state. Macmillan, 2014.
Mayfield, Marlys. Thinking for yourself. Cengage Learning, 2014.
Moore, Alan, and David Lloyd. V for Vendetta. DC Comics, 2020.
Rawls, John. A theory of justice: Revised edition. Harvard University Press, 2020.
Vaughan, Brian K., and Fiona Staples. Saga: Compendium One. Image Comics, 2019.
Zuboff, Shoshana. The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power: Barack Obama’s books of 2019. Profile books, 2019.
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