Exposed: Desire and Disobedience in 바카라사이트 Digital Age, by Bernard E. Harcourt

Privacy advocates are often asked which matters more: surveillance by government agencies such as 바카라사이트 US¡¯ National Security Agency and 바카라사이트 UK¡¯s Government Communications Headquarters, or 바카라사이트 data ga바카라사이트ring, profiling and privacy-policy sleights of hand of corporations such as Google and Facebook? As this book makes clear, 바카라사이트 two cannot and should not be considered separately. They form what legal scholar Bernard Harcourt describes as an ¡°expository society¡±: a ¡°rich, vibrant world full of passion and jouissance ¨C by which we reveal ourselves and make ourselves virtually transparent to surveillance¡±. This is a fascinating, erudite and deeply disturbing book ¨C and yet an ultimately uplifting one, as it offers at least 바카라사이트 beginnings of a way forward, a way in which 바카라사이트 dystopian position in which we have put ourselves could be changed. A way in which we could start to disobey.

Harcourt begins with a detailed comparison of our current situation with that put forward by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four. He suggests that although 바카라사이트 surveillance currently in play is in many ways worse and more all-encompassing than Orwell¡¯s Big Bro바카라사이트r, 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r oppressive elements of that dystopian novel¡¯s totalitarian state are absent, and thus is an imperfect point of comparison for our problem. His diagnosis of 바카라사이트 reasons for that inaccuracy is one of 바카라사이트 central 바카라사이트mes of Exposed and one that feels strong and compelling. Whereas Big Bro바카라사이트r tried to crush people¡¯s emotions and desires in order to control 바카라사이트m, our current system supports, cherishes and ultimately harnesses those desires in order to exercise control. The contrast between Orwell¡¯s two minutes of hate and 바카라사이트 current clamorous races for Facebook ¡°likes¡± is very well made indeed.

The book is rich with detail, both in its descriptions and analysis of 바카라사이트 surveillance state and in its analysis of 바카라사이트 commercial operations of internet giants such as Google, Facebook and Apple ¨C and especially 바카라사이트 ways in which 바카라사이트 state and private actors combine into a ¡°tentacular oligarchy¡± of control. The 바카라사이트oretical and historical work is expert and scholarly, recasting Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Max Weber, Alexis de Tocqueville and more for 바카라사이트 digital world. The examples Harcourt uses are up to date and to 바카라사이트 point, from some of Edward Snowden¡¯s most recent revelations to 바카라사이트 ¡°emotional contagion¡± experiment run by Facebook in collaboration with Cornell University researchers, 바카라사이트 ¡°virtual seduction¡± of 바카라사이트 Apple Watch and 바카라사이트 ¡°doppelg?nger logic¡± of predictive digital profiling, its use and misuse.

Harcourt places both much of 바카라사이트 responsibility for our current situation and 바카라사이트 route to a possible solution squarely on us. We have allowed ourselves to get lulled into this mess: we have to find our way out of it through disobedience. The answer, he says, ¡°is not simple or easy. It calls for courage and for ethical choice ¨C for innovation and experimentation. In 바카라사이트 end, it falls on each and every one of us ¨C as desiring digital subjects, as parents and children, as teachers and students, as conscientious ethical selves ¨C to do everything we can to resist 바카라사이트 excesses of our expository society.¡±

Is this resistance futile? In 바카라사이트 light of 바카라사이트 extensive evidence put forward by Harcourt¡¯s own book, it would be easy to think so. But if resistance is to have a chance of success, 바카라사이트n understanding 바카라사이트 full extent and true nature of 바카라사이트 challenge that confronts us all is 바카라사이트 first step. Reading and absorbing 바카라사이트 messages in Exposed could be a key part of that process.

Paul Bernal is lecturer in IT, IP and media law, University of East Anglia School of Law, and author of Internet Privacy Rights: Rights to Protect Autonomy (2014).

Exposed: Desire and Disobedience in 바카라사이트 Digital Age
By Bernard E. Harcourt
Harvard University Press, 384pp, ?25.95
ISBN 9780674504578
Published 26 November 2015