Histories of Surveillance from Antiquity to the Digital Era: The Eyes and Ears of Power 9780367340698, 9781032021539, 9780429323751

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Histories of Surveillance from Antiquity to the Digital Era

Deploying empirical studies spanning from early Imperial China to the present day, 17 scholars from across the globe explore the history of surveillance with special attention to the mechanisms of power that impel the concept of surveillance in society. By delving into a broad range of historical periods and contexts, the book sheds new light on surveillance as a societal phenomenon, offering 10 in-depth, applied analyses that revolve around two main questions: • •

Who are the central actors in the history of surveillance? What kinds of phenomena have been deemed eligible for surveillance, for example, information flows, political movements, border-crossing trade, interacting with foreign states, workplace relations, gender relations, and sexuality?

Andreas Marklund is Senior Research Fellow at ENIGMA – the Museum of Communication in Copenhagen, Denmark. Laura Skouvig is Associate Professor at the Department of Communication at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Routledge Studies in Modern History

Engaging with Historical Traumas Experiential Learning and Pedagogies of Resilience Edited by Nena Močnik, Ger Duijzings, Hanna Meretoja, and Bonface Njeresa Beti Sun Yatsen, Robert Wilcox and Their Failed Revolutions, Honolulu and Canton 1895 Dynamite on the Tropic of Cancer Patrick Anderson Histories of Surveillance from Antiquity to the Digital Era The Eyes and Ears of Power Edited by Andreas Marklund and Laura Skouvig Children Born of War Past, Present and Future Edited by Barbara Stelzl-Marx, Sabine Lee and Heide Glaesmer The Cold War, the Space Race, and the Law of Outer Space Space for Peace Albert K. Lai Experiences of War in Europe and the Americas, 1792–1815 Soldiers, Slaves, and Civilians Mark Lawrence The Greek Revolution in the Age of Revolutions (1776–1848) Reappraisals and Comparisons Edited by Paschalis M. Kitromilides For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/history/ series/MODHIST

Histories of Surveillance from Antiquity to the Digital Era The Eyes and Ears of Power

Edited by Andreas Marklund & Laura Skouvig

First published 2022 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Andreas Marklund & Laura Skouvig; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Andreas Marklund & Laura Skouvig to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-34069-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-02153-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-32375-1 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of contributors Introduction: histories of surveillance from antiquity to the digital era

vii

1

ANDREAS MARKLUND AND LAURA SKOUVIG

1 Big data in early China: population surveillance in the early Chinese empires

20

REBECCA ROBINSON

2 “Consciences are not to bee forced, but to bee Wonne”: the inward turn in Elizabethan homiletic discourse and the legal debate over the ex officio oath in the Court of High Commission, 1570–1593

37

ANNI HAAHR HENRIKSEN

3 Sexual surveillance in Paris and Versailles under Louis XIV

53

NATÁLIA DA SILVA PEREZ

4 Convict surveillance and reform in theory and practice: Jeremy Bentham versus New South Wales

70

MATTHEW ALLEN

5 Surveillance on the assembly line: communist resistance to modern production at the Stollwerck Chocolate Factory, 1924–1930 SARA ANN SEWELL

87

vi

Contents

6 Securing the state: the First World War and the birth of the modern surveillance state in Scandinavia

105

NIK BRANDAL, EIRIK BRAZIER AND OLA TEIGE

7 Civil liberties, state police wartime measures, and the case of “the Six”

122

VILLE OKKONEN AND TIINA LINTUNEN

8 Citizen informants, glitches in the system, and the limits of collaboration: Eastern experiences in the Cold War Era

146

CAROL ANNE COSTABILE-HEMING, VALENTINA GLAJAR AND ALISON LEWIS

9 The historical ubiquity of surveillance

163

TONI WELLER

10 The archipelago of global surveillance – without States – in the Western world

180

SÉBASTIEN-YVES LAURENT

Index

193

Contributors

Matthew Allen is Lecturer in Historical Criminology at the University of New England (Australia). His diverse research is focused on understanding the unique and extraordinary transition of New South Wales from a penal colony to a responsible democracy and the way that this process was shaped by the conflict between liberal ideals and authoritarian controls within the British world. His work on policing, summary justice, and surveillance has been published in the ANZ Journal of Criminology, History Australia, and Australian Historical Studies. He is currently writing a history of the politics and government of alcohol in New South Wales in the period 1788–1856. Sara Ann Sewell is a Professor of history at Virginia Wesleyan University in Virginia Beach, Virginia (the United States). Her current research project examines the sonic experiences of Holocaust victims. She has also published on German communism during the Weimar Republic, focusing on everyday life, gender, and political culture. She is a co-author of Ruptures in the Everyday: Views of Modern Germany from the Ground (Berghahn Books, 2017). Her work on German communism has also appeared in a variety of academic journals. Carol Anne Costabile-Heming is Professor of German in the Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of North Texas (the United States). She has published extensively on twentieth- and twenty-firstcentury German literature and culture, including essays on censorship in the GDR; the role of the Stasi in the GDR public sphere; and on the authors Ingeborg Bachmann, Volker Braun, Friedrich Christian Delius, Jürgen Fuchs, Günter Grass, Günter Kunert, Peter Schneider, and Christa Wolf. Her current monograph, Friedrich Christian Delius: Witnessing German History is under contract with Camden House. Her research has been supported by the DAAD, NEH, ACLS, Fulbright Commission, and the Deutsches Literaturarchiv. Nik Brandal is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Björknes University College in Oslo, Norway. His research focuses on democracy, radicalization, and the Nordic Model. He is co-editor of Social Democracy in the 21st Century (Emerald Insight, 2021) and

viii  Contributors has co-authored Det norske demokratiet og dets fiender (‘Norwegian Democracy and It’s Enemies’, Dreyer, 2018); The Nordic Model of Social Democracy (Palgrave MacMillan, 2014), and De ukjente krigerne: Nordmenn i første verdenskrig (‘The Unknown Warriors: Norwegian soldiers in The First World War’, Humanist, 2014). Brandal is currently collaborating on a study of intelligence and counterintelligence in Norway during the period 1914–18. Eirik Brazier is Associate Professor in History at the University of Southeast Norway. His main fields of research include Scandinavia, in particularly Norway, during the First World War; the intelligence history of Scandinavia before 1945; the political and cultural history of Norwegian participation in the Belgian Congo; and cultural aspects of military cooperation within the British Empire prior to 1914. He has co-authored De ukjente krigerne: Nordmenn i første verdenskrig (‘The Unknown Warriors: Norwegian soldiers in The First World War’, Humanist, 2014) in addition to numerous other academic articles and contributions to edited volumes on the First World War. Brazier is currently collaborating on a study of intelligence and counterintelligence in Norway of the period 1914–18 and a project that examines historical consciousness and public discourse. Valentina Glajar is Professor of German at Texas State University and an accredited external researcher at the Romanian CNSAS (National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives). She is the author of The German Legacy in East Central Europe (Camden House, 2004), co-editor of Herta Müller: Politics and Aesthetics (University of Nebraska Press, 2013) with Bettina Brandt, of Local History, Transnational Memory in the Romanian Holocaust (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) with Jeanine Teodorescu, and of “Gypsies” in European Literature and Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) and Vampirettes, Wretches, and Amazons: Western Representations of East European Women (East European Monographs; Columbia University Press, 2004) with Domnica Radulescu. She has also translated (with André Lefevere) Traveling on One Leg (Northwestern University Press, 1998; 2nd ed., 2010) by the Nobel Prize laureate Herta Müller. Glajar’s latest two books, coedited with Alison Lewis and Corina L. Petrescu, are Secret Police Files from the Eastern Bloc: Between Surveillance and Life Writing (Camden House, 2016) and Cold War Spy Stories from Eastern Europe (Potomac Books; University of Nebraska Press, 2019). She is currently completing a monograph, “The Afterlife of Files: Herta Müller’s Story of Surveillance,” for which she has received an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship. Anni Haahr Henriksen is a Ph.D. Fellow at the Centre for Privacy Studies at the University of Copenhagen. She holds BA and MA degrees in English literature and history from the University of Copenhagen and an M.Phil. degree in medieval English literature from the University of Cambridge. Her work focuses on early modern England and Elizabethan notions of privacy and thought in particular.

Contributors ix Sébastien-Yves Laurent, political scientist and historian, is a tenured Professor (Faculty of Law and Political Science) at the University of Bordeaux. His three main interests of research are the applied role of social sciences for analysis and strategic forecasting, the dynamics of armed conflicts, and transnational governance and conflict in the cybersphere. He has published widely in the field of security studies in several journals and has published several books and edited collections. Sébastien-Yves is a member of the editorial board of the Intelligence and National Security journal. Alison Lewis is Professor in German Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She has published extensively on modern German literature, history, and culture. Her main monographs are Subverting Patriarchy: Feminism and Fantasy in the Works of Irmtraud Morgner (Berg 1995), Die Kunst des Verrats: der Prenzlauer Berg und die Staatssicherheit (Königshausen & Neumann 2003), and Eine schwierige Ehe: Liebe, Geschlecht und die Geschichte der Wiedervereinigung im Spiegel der Literatur (Rombach 2009) and she is co-editor of the Australian yearbook Limbus. In the area of Intelligence History, she has published one co-edited book, Secret Police Files from the Eastern Bloc: Between Surveillance and Life Writing (with V. Glajar/C. Petrescu) (Camden House 2016) and Cold War Spy Stories from Eastern Europe (with V. Glajar/C. Petrescu) (Potomac Books 2019). Her latest book, forthcoming in 2021, is A State of Secrecy: Stasi Informers and the Surveillance of Culture (Potomac Books). Tiina Lintunen works as a university Lecturer in contemporary history at the University of Turku, Finland. She is the head of the department. Her research interests include the Finnish civil war, war propaganda, history of nationalist socialist Germany, and the function and methods of the state police in the Nordic countries. Andreas Marklund is Senior Research Fellow at ENIGMA – Museum of ­Communication in Copenhagen, Denmark. He holds a Ph.D. in History from European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and is specialized in Nordic Cultural and Political History from 1700 onwards, including historical explorations into the fields of modern communications and infrastructures. His work on communication, surveillance, and privacy has been published in Technology and Culture, History and Technology, and in the research volume Historicizing Infrastructure (Aalborg University Press, 2017), which he co-edited with professor Mogens Rüdiger. Ville Okkonen is a Post-doctoral Researcher in contemporary history at the University of Turku, Finland. He published his doctoral thesis in 2017 on criticism of and resistance to the Finnish comprehensive school reform of the 1970s. He has also specialized on the legal history of the interwar Finland and on the legal restrictions on the leftist movement. Rebecca Robinson is Research Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU). Her research is in the field of

x  Contributors Global Antiquities, with a focus on religion, environment, and governmentality in early China (Warring States through Han) and Ancient Rome. She is currently preparing a monograph, Spiritual Imperialism: Religion and Empire in early China and Rome, which examines the way religious institutions were used to shape imperial authority. Her work has appeared in the Journal of World History and several edited volumes. Natália da Silva Perez is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Privacy Studies at the University of Copenhagen. She holds a Joint Ph.D. from the Free Universität Berlin and the University of Kent on text and event in early modern Europe. Her current research project focuses on the intersection of privacy and fertility control in the early modern period. She is interested in understanding how women’s ability to engage in gainful work might have been influenced by their attempts to control their fertility. For that, she cross-examines historical documents about the religious, legal, intellectual, and cultural landscapes that helped to shape early modern understandings of sexual and reproductive privacy. Laura Skouvig is Associate Professor at the Department of Communication at the University of Copenhagen. Her research focuses on information as a historical phenomenon particularly in late absolutist Denmark at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In concrete examinations of information flows and systems of information, she has looked at how information is always formed and shaped by the genres and media in which it is embedded and how information is intertwined with surveillance practices. Ola Teige is Associate Professor at the Department of History, Volda University College. His main areas of research are on the Social and Political History of Denmark–Norway in the Early modern period, as well as the First World War and Scandinavia. He is co-editor of Mikrohistorie (‘Microhistory’, Museumsforlaget, 2020) and has co-authored De ukjente krigerne: Nordmenn i første verdenskrig (‘The Unknown Warriors: Norwegian soldiers in The First World War’, Humanist, 2014). Teige is currently collaborating on a study of intelligence and counterintelligence in Norway of the period 1914–18 and a study of Norwegian–Swedish relations in the ‘peace period’ 1720–1807. Toni Weller is Visiting Research Fellow in History at De Montfort University (England), educated at Cambridge University and City, University of London. Her research focuses upon the field of information history, of which she was one of the earliest advocates, with a focus on society and culture in nineteenthcentury Britain. She has also published and lectured extensively on the history of surveillance and the impact of history in the digital age.

Introduction Histories of surveillance from antiquity to the digital era Andreas Marklund and Laura Skouvig

Early one summer morning in 1918, the newly appointed superintendent of the Foreign Ministry’s Censorship Office at the Main Telegraph Station in Copenhagen made a troubling discovery on his way to work: When I arrived at the Censorship Office on Friday 7 June, about 7.30 in the morning, I saw a trash cart parked outside the entrance at Løvstræde 1. On top of the pile of rubbish was an invalidated telegram, on which the Censor had deleted some words. It surprised me to see how censored telegrams, which in the Office itself are meticulously collected and kept in a particular wastepaper basket under the control of the Superintendent, are then handed over to the general refuse collectors and taken to the Rubbish Tip.1 The young superintendent, Lauritz Larsen, approached the refuse collector, who told him that nearly every day, he emptied garbage bins that were stuffed with telegrams and perforated paper strips. Mr Larsen decided to discuss the matter with a number of executives at the telegraph station, and the Chief Telegraph Manager promised that he would remind the staff members of their duty to destroy telegraphic waste materials. However, just a few days later, when Mr Larsen incidentally went into the backyard, he stumbled upon some cardboard boxes and garbage bins that were filled to the brim with what he identified as “old telegrams”. Frustrated by the lack of cooperation at the end of the telegraph staff, the worried censor reported the matter to his superior at the Foreign Ministry. And this higher-ranking Foreign Ministry official, a certain Marinus Yde, alerted the head of the Danish Telegraph Directory, Telegraph Director Meyer, reminding him about “the consequences that could arise, if censored telegrams were to fall into the hands of unauthorised persons, and if they, for instance, were printed in a newspaper that is hostile to the Censorship Office.” This peculiar and somewhat comical incident, which was recorded by the Danish Foreign Ministry in a confidential memo, sheds light upon a number of crucial features in the system of secret cable surveillance that developed throughout Scandinavia during the First World War. First, it was a system that was designed to guarantee Scandinavian neutrality by blocking the dissemination of information that could compromise the trustworthiness of wartime neutrality in the

2  Andreas Marklund and Laura Skouvig eyes of the European belligerents. As such, it was a system that largely – but not exclusively – focused on the transnational flow of information between journalists, newspapers, and press agencies and intended to combat espionage and information leaks as well as rumours and propaganda. Second, it was a system that proved very difficult to operate in practice. The main reasons for this were twofold: the enormous quantity of information that passed through the Scandinavian networks from 1914 to 1918 and, second, the serious collaboration problems between the authorities involved in the practical implementation of state surveillance. Mr Larsen’s grievances about the uncooperative telegraphers were anything but unique. The regimes for wartime communication surveillance were constantly hampered by glitches and internal miscommunication. Telegrams with dubious, unchecked content continuously found their way through the censors’ nets, and inventive actors such as spies and journalists evaded monitoring altogether by transferring sensitive information through border-crossing telephone lines or letters penned with invisible ink.2 The opening case from Scandinavia during the First World War allows us to make two general observations with regard to how we as historians define the very concept of surveillance. It is a concept that today seems omnipresent, not least in politics and various kinds of media reporting. Moreover, it is frequently associated with phenomena that are unique to our current day and age, for example digital social media and CCTV cameras. So how do we as historians study such a topical and politicised concept without falling victim to present mindedness? First, surveillance can be defined as a tool or practice for exercising power, for instance, through technologies and administrative procedures such as cable censorship or the bureaucratic registering of “suspicious” individuals. As such it is a historical phenomenon that clearly predates the digital age. Thus, surveillance must be approached as a historically situated phenomenon. The visions and practices of royal surveillance in, for example, early modern France differed significantly from that of the systems for communications surveillance that emerged throughout Europe during the World War era. Both were instruments for the expression and deployment of state power, but they were entirely different in terms of their aims, scopes, and methods of surveillance.3 Moreover, as the opening example elucidates, surveillance has a strong bureaucratic element, especially when carried out by agents of the state. The collection of information about people and territories has necessitated practices, procedures, and structures for the handling of what is known as “data” today: bits and pieces of knowledge about the world, organised into more or less coherent categories, themes, and series. This has resulted in an enormous corpus of documentation; a historically accumulated paper trail that, akin to the censored telegrams at the Main Telegraph Station in Copenhagen, threatens to make the hidden structures of state surveillance embarrassingly visible.4 A second critical factor to consider is the difference between surveillance as political discourse on the one hand and its practical aspects on the other. Claims to all-seeing, panoptical surveillance have been made by political and religious leaders throughout history, from pre-Christian emperors to modern-day totalitarian

Introduction 3 regimes, yet propaganda and political wishes are not the same as actual implementation with effect on everyday experiences for the general public. Historical records are never straightforward in establishing direct links between discourse and experience. As demonstrated by the complaint of Mr Larsen – the Danish Foreign Ministry’s chief cable censor at the operative level in 1918 – surveillance systems are complex socio-technical entities in which different human actors and institutions interact. Such systems are inherently vulnerable and prone to glitches, breakdowns, and frustrated agendas, and the relationship between input and output in these systems is never predetermined.5 Not even in brutal twentiethcentury dictatorships such as the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Third Reich did the actual scope and efficiency of surveillance live up to the all-encompassing character of official propaganda.6 Outside the realm of science fiction, the fabled “Big Brother” has primarily been a creature of public imagination and state-instilled fears. In fact, that is one of George Orwell’s main points in Nineteen-Eighty-four – the iconic, early post-war novel about totalitarian power – which introduced the very concept of Big Brother into modern political parlance. It is unclear whether Big Brother actually exists in Orwell’s dystopian state, but the fear of this all-seeing political entity is real as death and has a profound, deeply invasive influence on people’s minds and behaviour in the novel.7 In this book about the history of surveillance from antiquity to the present day, we shall delve into different regimes and practices of surveillance in concrete historical settings. Situatedness, temporality, and the complicated relationship between politics and experience are crucial for our understanding of surveillance as a subject for historical analysis. In the following 10 chapters, these issues will be explored and further elaborated by 17 scholars from across the globe. By focusing on different historical and societal contexts, from the earliest phases of Imperial China to the global security landscape after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the book delves into the historical dimensions of surveillance with a focus on two main questions: • •

Who are the central actors in the history of surveillance? What kinds of phenomena have been deemed eligible for surveillance, for example information flows, political movements, border-crossing trade, specific technologies, interacting with foreign states, workplace relations, gender relations, and sexuality?

Before we proceed with the concrete empirical cases that constitute the major part of this book, we will discuss how the history of surveillance relates itself to the field of surveillance studies. As scholars, we are indebted to this new, interdisciplinary field of inquiry, which often – and with great enthusiasm – welcomes historical angles on surveillance. We also share the conviction that such historical awareness has relevance within surveillance studies as well as society in general, as it poses new questions to contemporary issues and developments. However, we want to emphasise that historical perspectives also have a value of their own. The aim of this book is to analyse surveillance as a phenomenon on the conditions of

4  Andreas Marklund and Laura Skouvig the past – how it has been practiced, experienced, conceptualised, and criticised in specific historical periods and contexts. This ambition is shared by several other surveillance scholars, for example Robert Heynen and Emily van der Meulen, who in their recent volume Making Surveillance States. Transnational Histories emphasised the importance of delving into “the deeper dynamics of state surveillance and . . . tracing the roots of contemporary surveillance practices”.8 Heynen and van der Meulen argue that history enables us to minimise a tendency within surveillance studies in which present understandings of surveillance – and the surveillance state – risk to homogenise and even out the variety of past and contemporary surveillance practices. A history of surveillance should fight this risk by bringing forth the multiple threads, branches, and roots of surveillance practices that form and shape (different) surveillance states. Our aim with this book is not merely to further this endeavour, but also to argue that historical case studies illuminate the limitations of surveillance discourses and policies and – moreover – that surveillance in its implemented form nearly always has been problematised and often even failed in relation to real people and their societal circumstances.

Surveillance studies and history The field of surveillance studies is inevitable when discussing the aim and scope of the history of surveillance. It is a new and vibrant research field that sees transdisciplinarity as a necessity in order to understand the morphology of contemporary surveillance.9 Its academic roots in sociology are evident in its focus on surveillance as a social process, but the tight relationships with power, communication technologies, media, and information have made it attractive for scholars representing a broad smorgasbord of different academic disciplines.10 As a consequence of this scholarly open-mindedness, historical approaches and perspectives on surveillance are welcomed and encouraged.11 Yet, as noted by the American media historian Josh Lauer, the references to the historical dimensions of surveillance are seldom followed by in-depth historical analyses.12 Such an endeavour is, justifiably, a task for historians, and this book aims to fill in this critical gap in the scholarly literature.13 Surveillance studies as a research field aim at exploring, understanding, and criticizing contemporary developments in surveillance. Many scholars use the term “surveillance society” as designation for a kind of society in which surveillance is nestled into discourses and practices defined by modern information and communication technologies (ICT), and where ordinary people experience intrusions into their private lives by both public and private entities that collect their private data.14 Thus, surveillance studies covers an incredible breadth of perspectives, approaches, and disciplines that all engage in the exploration of contemporary issues and developments – experiences, representations, and practices.15 From the historian’s point of view, it is inspiring to follow these often very substantial discussions about the societal and theoretical underpinnings of surveillance.16 In a recent reader in surveillance studies, the two editors – Torin Monahan and David Murakami Wood – pledge for non-uniform and multiple definitions of

Introduction 5 surveillance as a way to open up the field for new interpretations. Yet, they also acknowledge that most scholars share a common – still very broad – definition of surveillance as “a capacity to control, regulate or modulate behavior”.17 This capacity involves the accumulation of data and information, as suggested by the prominent surveillance scholar David Lyon – a pioneer in the field – as well as British sociologist Anthony Giddens.18 This is an understanding of surveillance that, from our point of view, gives it a truly ubiquitous character. Moreover, it is a definition that differs quite significantly from the more traditional “security-andintelligence” angle, where surveillance is understood as primarily an element of police work and intelligence services.19 In surveillance studies, thus, surveillance becomes a broader technique of power, not solely reduced to state agencies, though it still refers to a “power relationship” and stresses notions of hierarchies.20 The wish to – or will to – control, regulate, or monitor behaviour is to be located in the ambiguous relationship between control and care, which seems to be inherent to most forms of surveillance. Control is a concept with negative connotations, yet – as frequently pointed out by Lyon – surveillance also has an element of care.21 We shall elaborate on this ambiguity in our discussion about previous historical scholarship on the subject, where we also will try to get to grips with the relationship between information gathering and surveillance, along with the role of technology. A classic analysis of surveillance from this broader point of view is James B. Rule’s Private Lives and Public Surveillance: Social Control in the Computer Age (1974). Based on the case studies on information gathering systems of postwar society, Rule discussed how such mass surveillance systems became part of the modern industrial society. Less known in historical circles, Rule’s analysis is widely acknowledged in surveillance studies not least due to his concluding discussion about how such large-scale surveillance systems introduced predictive elements, based on the ability to locate individuals.22 From our point of view, Rule’s analysis is interesting as it argues that changes in technology, combined with a social organisation of surveillance, also lead to changes in social and political institutions. Most prominently, Rule argues for assessing not the intention behind a specific surveillance system but its potential use when it comes to its surveillance capacity. Rule’s analysis elucidates the crucial fact that the state never has been the sole actor of surveillance. Large-scale corporations like banks and insurance companies did, also in the pre-digital era, develop comprehensive information gathering and processing systems for the sorting out and classification of customers. This ties well into the historical consideration of Christopher Dandeker, whose analysis built on the notion that surveillance is an administrative means of power in modern states and corporations. In his view, the surveillance capacity of modern states and companies outnumbered that of other kinds of societies.23

Panopticon: the straitjacket of surveillance studies Rule’s analysis is historically fascinating as it appeared as a response to technological developments in post-war information gathering and furthermore hit the

6  Andreas Marklund and Laura Skouvig bookstores just a few years before the publication of Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison (1975). Both scholars probed into an evolving proclivity for social control exercised through impersonal systems, yet Foucault’s analysis revolved around the transition to modernity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In his seminal study, Foucault launched the idea of surveillance as a technique or technology of power that paved the way for the disciplinary society. His interpretation of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon has made him indispensable when discussing and scrutinising surveillance in modern, late-modern, and post-modern societies.24 Nevertheless, current surveillance scholars have criticised Foucault’s theory of the panopticon as a kind of conceptual straitjacket that limits theoretical developments and restrains empirical research, for instance into datafied forms of surveillance. Our main goal in the following section is to review and elucidate the criticisms that these contemporary scholars have levelled at Foucault and his understanding of surveillance. The often-cited David Lyon, for instance, has expressed a wish for the future of surveillance studies, where Foucault and his conception of the panopticon have been allowed to retire as family ghosts.25 Another example is Simone Browne, who – with a reference to Roy Boyne – has suggested that the terms panopticon, panoptical, and panopticism should be put under erasure, thus allowing them to be seen while simultaneously denying their validity as descriptions.26 The criticism against the theoretical limitations of Foucault’s panopticon has been followed by other conceptual perspectives that surveillance scholars find better suited for contemporary developments. Yet, as Greg Elmer has pointed out, much current critique of the panopticon lies in a “common flawed assumption about Foucault’s central thesis”, and he points at the necessity for distinguishing between Bentham’s vision of the panopticon and Foucault’s interpretation of the same phenomenon.27 In an article tellingly entitled Tear Down the Walls: On Demolishing the Panopticon, a major proponent of the letting-the-panopticonretire thesis – Kevin D. Haggerty – identifies several features that in his analysis reduce the usefulness of the panopticon for understanding contemporary developments. He sums up and positions much of the critique against the dominance of the panopticon within surveillance studies and urges the field to move forward in exploring other theoretical perspectives. In the following section, we will discuss three of Haggerty’s criticisms as a basis for qualifying our own understanding of Foucault and his definition of surveillance in order to argue for a continued relevance of Foucault’s panopticism for historical explorations into the phenomenon of surveillance. First, Haggerty emphasises that the panopticon as a model does not address the impact of information technologies and that this fundamental feature of late modern society distinguishes it decisively from modern society. He argues that Foucault’s lacking acknowledgement of the impact of information technologies calls for new models for interpreting surveillance in today’s society.28 Though Foucault himself argued for the generalisation of the panopticon as a model for the disciplinary, modern society – which he situates at the turn of the nineteenth century – he did not envision its relevance for the late modern society. The critical

Introduction 7 structural differences between the modern disciplinary societies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the post-modern societies that emerged after the Second World War do call for other ways of addressing surveillance. These changes led, for example Gilles Deleuze to reconceptualise Foucault’s old “disciplinary society” as the “control society”. In the control society, control replaced discipline in enclosures and centred on fluid, pertaining, and continuous control mechanisms.29 Thus, what we as historians want to argue for as being important here is to focus on the temporalities or chronologies of surveillance in early-modern, modern, and late (or post-)modern societies. The second element of Haggerty’s critique focuses on the panopticon as a physical architecture, based on visibility and direct monitoring of passive individuals. The passivity of the inmates in the panopticon, Haggerty argues, is not consistent with how surveillance has become part of contemporary entertainment and health practices, for example notions of self-tracking and “quantifying yourself” self-surveillance that flourish and revolve around the active participation of the monitored actors.30 In the end, he points to what might be seen as a paradox in Foucault’s interpretation of the panopticon. Foucault defined the individual (i.e. the body) as the object of surveillance, but he was not interested in nonhuman objects nor was he focused on the observer and the “who” in the surveillance practice. This is a serious flaw, according to Haggerty. Contemporary surveillance practices, determined by technologies and their ownerships, require a focused attention on the who-factor: the actor or agent conducting the surveillance.31 According to Haggerty, thus, it is clear that Foucault and the panopticon have run out of steam as a concept for grasping the flows, networks, and datafication processes within our contemporary technological systems. This critical occupation with panopticon – and the Orwellian Big Brotherconcept – has spawned reinterpretations and reformulations (syn-opticon and ban-opticon to mention a few) that also serve as inspirations for historical investigations.32 However, it is our claim that Haggerty misses a crucial point in his critique of the Foucauldian approach. While he surely gives ample attention to the architectural aspects of the panopticon, Haggerty is decidedly less concerned with how Foucault combined this interest in physical surveillance with a keen eye for the bureaucratic, paper-based surveillance practices in modern society. In Foucault’s analysis, bureaucracy is framed as a net of writing; an ever-tightening, paper-producing net that gradually in itself turns into a mechanism of surveillance, as it creates a new space of knowledge which focuses on that peculiarly modern, separately distinguishable societal phenomenon called the individual. A crucial element in this process is the “examination”, defined in Discipline and Punish as “a normalising monitoring and surveillance that enables qualification, classification and punishment”.33 In the age of modernity, that is not in our current, latemodern society, this ritualised form of surveillance was practised by various state authorities such as school teachers, military officers, and medical doctors, and it enabled them to “differentiate individuals, to reward and to punish them”.34 Moreover, the traits and flaws of these examined individuals were recorded through descriptions and various kinds of biographies in bureaucratic dossiers. Thus, it

8 Andreas Marklund and Laura Skouvig is fair to say that this was a form of surveillance that operated by documenting, verifying, and – indeed – quantifying individuals.35 In an extensive elaboration of the differences between Bentham’s thinking and Foucault’s interpretations and developments of Bentham’s original work, Anne Brunon-Ernst points to the need for distinguishing between the Panopticon (Bentham) and panopticism (Foucault) and further notes that Bentham devised four different kinds of panopticons. Neither Bentham’s concepts nor Foucault’s theories were constant and stabilised but need to be seen in relation to their own historical contexts and periods.36 Sifted through Haggerty’s critique, we reassemble the role of the panopticon and panopticism by stressing its fundamental reliance on writing and bureaucracy as a technique of surveillance. Foucault’s importance for what Lauer identifies as “the origins of surveillance in the use of bureaucracy and carceral institutions” has been duly recognised by Lyon.37 The key issue, however, is to provide a deeper understanding of the entanglements of surveillance practices and technologies in the older paper-based bureaucracies and their digital counterparts in our contemporary day and age. It is difficult not to see parallels between the paper-based, bureaucratic documentation of people in previous times and the digital datafication processes in our contemporary world.38 However, information technologies have what Shoshana Zuboff identifies as a fundamental duality. Besides the mere mechanical replacement of humans, information technologies also generate information.39 Contemporary surveillance, thus, relies on the datafication of information. Datafication of information disregards the origins of information and pools information, regardless of the original purpose of the information collection. Information is reframed quantitatively in order to tabulate it and analyse it for patterns and correlations.40 Contemporary surveillance is an inherent part of the big data environment, where actors such as states, corporations, and other kinds of organisations have no pressing need to collect data for specific purposes, as the monitored actors themselves – that is the people in the system – provide that information incessantly.41 Yet, still, Foucault’s analysis of the bureaucratic sides of the panopticon has been largely absent in the theoretical discussions within surveillance studies.42 The panopticon emerged as a diagram in the genealogy of punishment systems, but if we want to understand the workings of contemporary information technology systems, we might need to focus on other branches in the genealogy of surveillance. For surveillance studies, the most prominent issue in contemporary society is information technology as a determinant. This might point to totally different genealogies of surveillance than surveillance itself, for example that of technology (e.g. Ronald Kline) or information (e.g. Toni Weller, Edward Higgs, and John Durham Peters).43 The preoccupation with information technology in its digital form is reflected in Kevin D. Haggerty and Richard V. Ericson’s concept of the “surveillant assemblage”.44 The surveillant assemblage consists of a multiplicity of different objects that each comprise other systems, but all work together as a functional unit. Such an assemblage cannot be split into pieces or dismantled by simply isolating one part of the system. Moreover, individuals inserted into such systems are split into

Introduction 9 flows and reassembled as data doubles, rendering them new digital identities. Haggerty and Ericson propose the rhizome as a new model of surveillance that levels out surveillance and includes all classes in society. In contrast to the visibility of the panopticon, a rhizome signals a definition of surveillance as underground, unseen, and something that pops up unexpectedly, they argue. This allows for “the watchful eye of ordinary citizens”, twisting the Foucauldian notion of power from a hierarchical perspective to a horizontal perspective.45 With the rhizome, surveillance is not merely diffused, but it also strengthens the interest in the actual actors of surveillance – those who actually perform stake-outs, produce evidences, or sit in the watch tower.

Scales of surveillance: chronologies of surveillance When surveillance scholars compare past and present forms of surveillance, they often emphasise the pervasiveness – that is the perceived pervasiveness – of surveil­ lance today. The practices of surveillance in our increasingly digitised society, they argue, are enmeshed in a great number of perfectly mundane activities such as shopping, meeting friends, and paying taxes.46 From this point of view, the determining factor that divides the past from present forms of surveillance is technology, in particular digital forms of ICT.47 Our argument, however – leaning in part on the previously mentioned Lauer – is that this “tech-based” approach to surveillance suffers from an element of reductionism and that it accordingly runs the risk of downplaying other crucial factors in the process, such as the paperbased bureaucracies of modern and early modern states.48 Besides reductionism and the ever-present pitfall of technological determinism, moreover, the focus on technology risks being trapped in a discourse of quantity: modern information technologies facilitate a larger degree and pervasiveness of surveillance than earlier forms of technology due to the fact that the sheer number of technological devices is larger than ever before in history.49 So, how do we historicise surveillance? How do we grasp its development over time, its temporality, or even chronology? Surveillance scholars Monahan and Wood highlight the end of the eighteenth century as a temporal turning point, and the crucial factor in their analysis is not technological change but the administrative tools and needs of the emerging nation state. While early modern states had an interest in larger groups and collective social entities, the nation state rulers focused on the identification of individuals for the governance of an increasingly complex society.50 By emphasising crucial changes in surveillance in the transitory phase from the early modern to the modern period, Monahan and Wood situate their analysis within a scholarly tradition that highlights surveillance as a feature of the modern, industrialised, capitalist nation-state.51 The focus of their brief historical overview is primarily on the targets of surveillance, for example the workforce and the minorities.52 The state itself, however –one of the most prominent actors in surveillance practices even today – receives only scant attention, even though the crucial transformation between early modern and modern surveillance is ascribed to state practices.

10  Andreas Marklund and Laura Skouvig Issues about temporalities and changes over time are also connected to the more fundamental risk of presentism that was briefly touched upon in the beginning of this chapter. Was what we conceive of today as surveillance also considered as such in a given historical context? Moreover, if we also include not only the intentions behind the systems, but also how they were put into work – or their potential use for surveillance as argued by Rule – all state information-gathering systems are potentially surveillance systems: tools for gathering information about populations with an option for using this information to control it. Archives (not only state archives), thus, seem to be concrete results of surveillance practices of gathering immense bunches of information.53 Yet, as Edward Higgs emphasises, much information was gathered about people without the intention to monitor individuals, and it would thus be truly presentist to assume that all information collection was seen as surveillance in the past.54 Other motives for collecting information could be assumed as to be, for instance, the possibility of obtaining pensions and civil rights.55 This point is supported by Toni Weller, who defines the role of surveil­lance in the information state as a tool of either warfare (against internal or external enemies) or welfare (primarily an internal state affair).56 Arguably, the welfare dimension contains elements of what Lyon has termed the doubled-sided face of surveillance.57 This is reflected when Weller stresses the pastoral care for citizens’ health and welfare, though always with a backdrop in fear arising from political or economic crises towards potential opposition.58 Though the inclusion of the continuum between warfare and welfare reflects a more positive interpretation of surveillance, even such seemingly caring information systems benefited the state as it gained control over potential deviants, according to Weller. A strong line of criticism in Higgs’ book addresses how sociologists have played the most important role in interpreting the history of the state and the role of surveillance in modern statecraft. The major part of this criticism addresses the distinction between the modern nation-state and the pre-modern or early modern state.59 According to Anthony Giddens, for instance, surveillance became a central strategy of power for the modern, centralised nation-state.60 In Giddens’ terminology, surveillance is the accumulation of coded information about people, and though this kind of accumulation also took place in early modern states, the information gathering missed the dynamics of centralisation that made surveillance a powerful technique for government.61 A similar point is made by Christopher Dandeker, who stresses bureaucratic centralisation as the determining factor.62 In his view, early modern state power was restricted by technology, demography, geography, and underdeveloped economic capacity.63 Further, the decentralised structures of early modern (or pre-absolutist) states prevented surveillance as an effective tool to exercise power. The sociological interpretation of the changing relationship between surveillance (and purposes of surveillance), information, and the state stresses a discontinuity in scale, purpose, and means at the end of the eighteenth century towards a modern understanding of surveillance. Weller ties the changes together by stating that “state surveillance became more organised, formal and centralised than had previously been the case.”64 There was a clear move towards centralisation of surveillance after the eighteenth century; yet as

Introduction 11 demonstrated by the chapters in this book, state surveillance was often channelled through intermediaries in the local communities who performed and enacted the collection of information and other kinds of monitoring practices. The thesis of formalisation and centralisation is not contested by Higgs, though he argues for a stronger historical continuity or a more gradual shift in surveillance practices from the early modern English state to the emergent, modern state of Victorian England. Using information (gathering and storing) as an interpretive lever, Higgs seeks to dissolve the underlying assumption that decentralised information practices were inefficient. Instead, he addresses how and for what purposes information was gathered. Government in early modern England was decentralised but not isolated, and state surveillance was at times more concerned with the monitoring of local civil servants (e.g. justices of peace or tax collectors) rather than with keeping an eye on the local population.65 Higgs also turns around the decentralisation/centralisation axis of surveillance by pointing out that local communities – the local gentry – identified eventual problems and relied on the Crown to assist in addressing social problems with poor people and vagrants. And even though the Crown might see itself as the centre of the kingdom, it comprised local peripheries, as pointed out by, for example, Patrick Joyce in his analysis of the Victorian state bureaucracy.66 Higgs and Weller are mainly focused on the usage of surveillance as a means of giving and securing citizens’ rights, such as the franchise and different kinds of social security. Information gathering also produced the notion of the taxpayer, as it was needed to identify individuals to serve on board Navy ships. Weller identifies these surveillance practices as overt.67 The state, however, also needed more covert surveillance institutions to gather information and knowledge about the state itself. Joyce emphasises how the postal network in early modern England was enmeshed with surveillance and security, with the local postal masters working as the eyes and ears of power. If suspicious, postal servants had authority to open letters. In this way, central agencies related to the state were concerned with the control, collection, and fabrication of information and knowledge.68 Even for early modern, decentralised states, thus, surveillance and constant inflows of information were crucial for rendering visibility to society in general and the subject in particular and for the ongoing maintenance – and creation – of a wellorganised state apparatus.69 In this introductory chapter, we have primarily dealt with the temporality angle – the simple but easily forgotten fact that surveillance is a fluid and time-old practice, not reserved for states or state agencies and certainly not for twenty-first century, digital tech-companies. We have, to a minor extent, discussed the assumption derived from Lyon that surveillance oscillates between control and care – a distinction that comes with the assumption that surveillance is neither inherently good nor bad.70 Recently, however, this distinction and its reliance on a Christian tradition have been severely criticised by James Harding.71 The aim of his critical analysis is to reinstall the hierarchical and power-infused understanding of surveillance: “The panopticon is a grim place, where, as Michel Foucault has famously noted, the ‘perfection of power’ is exemplified in the grotesque fact that

12  Andreas Marklund and Laura Skouvig inmates are ‘caught up in a situation of which they are themselves the bearer.’ ”72 In Harding’s study, surveillance is punishment, and if everyone becomes inmates in the panopticon, everyone is guilty of deflecting from some spoken or unspoken norm. The transition from the early-modern to the modern period shows that surveil­ lance worked differently during different epochs and had different functions for the different types of state. The history of surveillance, thus, is not a question of following how surveillance increasingly gained the position as a defining feature of twenty-first century society, but of understanding the specific forms, practices, and understandings of surveillance in specific historical contexts and how these different aspects of surveillance have changed over time.

About this book This volume is divided into 10 empirical case studies which delve into the phenomenon of surveillance from the point of view of the past. All of them were originally presented as either research papers or keynote lectures at the international conference “The Eyes and Ears of Power – Surveillance, History, and Privacy”, organised in September 2018 at the University of Copenhagen by The Department of Information Studies, The Centre for Public Regulation and Administration (CORA), The Danish Research foundation Centre for Privacy Studies, and Enigma – Museum of Communication.73 In the first study, American historian Rebecca Robinson delves into the systems for population registration and state surveillance in early China, primarily within the ancient empires of the Qin (221–207 bce) and Han (206 bce – 220 ce). Robinson focuses on the Chinese state and its age-old ambition to monitor the deeds and movements of the entire population. In close dialogue with Foucault, she argues that China’s imperial dynasties from earliest times utilised a form of “panoptic mechanism” as a basic tool for population management. Akin to the inmates of the panopticon, the imperial subjects of early China would always assume that they could be under state surveillance, that is the imperial gaze of the Son of Heaven, who had the all-seeing omnipotence of a God. In order to implement this in daily practice – and to diffuse the imperial gaze throughout the population – the governments of Quin and Han developed a system of mutual responsibility, or linked liability, in which the subjects were divided into five household units, where family members and neighbours were liable for crimes and deviations done by each other. Thus, Robinson argues, the Chinese emperor could use the people as his eyes and ears and regulate behaviour at a distance. Moreover, the surveillance legacy of the Quin–Han era has proved remarkably persistent throughout Chinese history. Similar systems of linked liability are at work in contemporary China, propped up by the informational speed and omnipresence of digital ICT. In the following chapter, Danish historian Anni Haahr Henriksen turns our gaze to Elizabethan England and a less known aspect of early modern surveillance – the monitoring of the individual mind. Though much research has been done about the extensive use of spymasters during the reign of Elizabeth 1 (1558–1603), the period’s ideas about inner, thought-oriented surveillance as a way to ward off, for

Introduction 13 example, religious dissent are decidedly less explored by historians. According to Henriksen, the religious conflicts of the Elizabethan period paved the way for a new deployment of surveillance as a technique for detecting religious dissents and even accessing the very site of treason, that is the human mind. Through a close study of legal debates and homilies, she demonstrates how Elizabethan discourse adopted a previously abandoned position of seeing the mind as “the true progenitor and harbourer of treasonous acts”, thus criminalising the mind as a political threat. The question was how to make the activities of the mind publicly visible – and how to regulate and legislate the realm of thought and conscience. The public oath became a powerful instrument, and it evolved into an Elizabethan surveillance technique, not very different from the usage of confessions in pastoral care in a more Foucauldian notion. In the third study, Natália da Silva Perez – historian of early modern history – investigates the entangled history of sexual surveillance during the reign of the French “Sun-King”, Louis XIV (1643–1715). Through three empirical cases (illegal abortion, alleged homosexual behavior, and illegal childbirths), she follows the diversity of surveillance practices from lateral methods over the use of active agents, so-called mouches or flies, to the idle and precise registration of details that could help the authorities in identifying illegally born babies. The first and the last case pivots around surveillance of pregnant, unmarried women, including the severe consequences of unwanted pregnancies, but they also demonstrate how surveillance could produce denunciation of the abortion provider or the presumed father. As emphasised by Silva Perez, the early modern French state invested a great interest in the administration of “proper” sexuality. Homosexuality and the female body became targets for surveillance, supported by religious discourse in popular manuals on sexual behavior as a way to secure the Christian ideal of marriage. Religious discourse also played a role in instilling norms of selfsurveillance and in the mapping out of sexuality as an area of surveillance. Akin to Rebecca Robinson’s Chinese findings, moreover, the study emphasises how state and church surveillance depended on collaboration with local actors who monitored people and social interactions at the operative level. The chapter by Australian historian and criminologist Matthew Allen brings Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon into its historical context, during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with a special focus on notions of governmentality and policing. Bentham saw the “inspection principle” as a theoretical concept that could solve the difficulties with the practical implementation of surveillance as a means of reforming deviants. He devised the panopticon as a response to what he considered an unsuccessful British export of convicts to New South Wales. In dialogue with Michel Foucault’s theory of panopticism, Allen argues that Foucault’s ideas about governmentality are more in line with Bentham’s later writings, where he promoted a bureaucratic branch of surveillance centred on collecting and publishing information about offenders nationwide as “a means of applying the inspection principle to society at large”. Moreover, Allen argues that Bentham misunderstood the role and significance of surveillance in New South Wales. Panoptic surveillance, as in his ideal prison, seemed impossible to be implemented in

14  Andreas Marklund and Laura Skouvig practice. Still, however, surveillance was integral to the planning of at least some of the early British settlements in Australia, including the division of Sydney into different districts and the usage of passports that documented the status of former convicts. In the next study, American historian Sara Ann Sewell analyses another important actor in the history of surveillance: the capitalist firm or company. Her case is a German chocolate factory, Stollwerck, which in the 1920s introduced Fordist and Taylorist techniques and technologies in order to rationalise production. Using a communist cell paper from the factory, the “Stollwerck Gold”, as her main source, Sewell investigates the employee’s own experiences of surveillance. She argues that gender and class, in combination with severe socio-economic disruptions in society, made surveillance in the shape of practices such as body inspections and lavatory designed into crucial tools for maintaining and preserving patriarchal order at the factory. This strong disciplining of the worker is not only to a large extent well aligned with Foucault’s theoretical combination of power, surveillance, and discipline, but Sewell also illustrates how this framework is somewhat too rigid when it comes to dynamics of surveillance and resistance towards surveillance. She documents how communist workers used the cell paper as a site of resistance, reporting issues that were based in workers’ countersurveillance of their own working conditions and the management of the factory. Crucial tools of counter-surveillance were visibility and defamation, for example listing the names of moles on the cell paper or accusing people of being members of the Nazi party. In “Securing the State”, Norwegian historians Nik Brandal, Eirik Brazier, and Ola Teige explore the impact of the First World War on state surveillance in twentiethcentury Scandinavia. At the centre of analysis is the Norwegian state and its efforts at controlling borders, migration flows, potential spies, and revolutionary impulses. Drawing on James C. Scott’s notion of “high modernism”, along with Zygmunt Bauman’s twin concepts of “the gardening state” and “liquid modernity”, they argue that the social and economic crisis unleashed by the war enabled a level of state intervention – into civil society as well as the private sphere of the citizens – that would have been unthinkable before the summer of 1914. It was a new control regime that found its legitimation in the war and the perceived chaos that accompanied the conflict, also among the Scandinavian neutrals. Furthermore, essential elements of these control regimes survived into the interwar era and contributed to the development of the welfare state and the peculiar relationship between state and citizens in the so-called Nordic or Scandinavian model. The relationship between war and state surveillance is also investigated in Ville Okkonen’s and Tiina Lintunen’s in-depth study of how left-leaning Finnish social democrats were monitored by police authorities in the years around the Second World War. They focus on a small group of excluded members of the Social Democratic Party – all of them being Members of Parliament – who due to their criticism of the government’s wartime politics were considered a threat to national security. Thus, the Finnish state police (Valpo) was authorised to bug their telephones, monitor their mail, spy on their doorstep, and infiltrate

Introduction 15 their social and professional circles. Before the war was over, these governmentcritical MPs – who are known as “the Six” in Finnish historiography – were locked up as political prisoners on the basis of questionable evidence and intelligence, delivered through the often brutal and politically biased interventions of the Valpo. As Okkonen and Lintunen argue in their chapter, “The Case of the Six” reveals the dilemma of reconciling civil liberties with national security in times of war and crises. The chapter by Carol Anne Costabile-Heming, Valentina Glajar, and Alison Lewis examines state surveillance in the communist Eastern bloc during the Cold War. They concentrate on the surveillance of the cultural sphere and demonstrate how the secret state police of the GDR and the Socialist Republic of Romania – the so-called Stasi and Securitate, respectively – intervened in all stages of the creative process in the production of literature and the visual arts during the years of communist rule. Through an extensive usage of citizen informers, for instance in publishing houses and art academies, the Eastern bloc regimes massively magnified the visibility of writers and other cultural producers, making this potentially subversive part of the population easier to control and manipulate. Thus, the exercising of power through “permanent visibility” – emphasised by Foucault as a key feature of the panopticon – was crucial for the mechanisms of totalitarian surveillance. However, as the chapter illuminates through three in-depth case studies, the watching eyes of “the communist panopticon” were neither fixed nor passive but constantly on the move and constantly interacting, more or less directly, with their particular targets. British historian Toni Weller reflects on the parallels and easy identifications between past and present surveillance in her contribution to the present volume. She argues that longevity is not the same as continuity and that the state – in terms of longevity – is a long-time associate with the phenomenon of surveillance. Focusing on this association between the state and surveillance, she discerns different thresholds in the conceptualisation of surveillance. One example is state-orchestrated collection of information, a practice that in modern history has oscillated between warfare and welfare as the general political framework. According to Weller, the state has used fear as a way of legitimising surveillance, while surveillance in itself simultaneously strengthens and even generates an atmosphere of fear in society. Yet fear is not a transcendent phenomenon, she reminds us, but historically situated and fluid. Transgressing sexual practices, female workers, dissidents, and – in Weller’s example – prostitutes have historically been objects of surveillance, often due to the politics of fear. Moreover, surveillance is not necessarily initiated by a state only, but also thrives among citizens themselves. Weller concludes that surveillance is not merely about societal impact. It also encompasses an element of lived experience, which leaves art and other kinds of aesthetic expressions of “lived surveillance” as a rich resource for historians. In the final chapter, French historian and sociologist Sébastien-Yves Laurent critically analyses what he calls “the state-centric model” of much surveillance scholarship. Reviewing the matter from a macro-historical perspective, Laurent

16  Andreas Marklund and Laura Skouvig emphasises the existence of holistic social self-surveillance in the ages before the modern state: archaic forms of “neighbourhood” policing, where family members and village neighbours regulated violence as well as social behavior by constantly watching each other. These non-state forms of surveillance are on the rise again in our current day and age, greatly helped by a private surveillance industry which produces data-collecting gadgets that enable permanent mobile self-surveillance. Yet, as Laurent argues, the lines distinguishing state surveillance from digital self-surveillance – or underveillance – are neither clear nor definite. He therefore suggests the archipelago as a helpful metaphor for understanding surveillance in the contemporary society. The top-down model where state exercises full power and control is no longer relevant; instead, we should think of surveillance as a societally dispersed and increasingly formless entity, devoid of “hierarchy, centre and periphery”. *** The historical case studies enclosed in this volume approach surveillance from a great variety of theoretical perspectives and chronological vantage points, but they all testify to the dire need for carefully situated, contextualised studies if we ever want to understand the mechanisms of surveillance – past, present, and future. These mechanisms are often hidden, especially the ones connected to government authorities, yet they are anything but intangible in their societal effects. As the chapters of this book demonstrate, surveillance has been used a tool of power by different kinds of actors throughout history, state, as well as non-state actors. Therefore, it is fair to conclude that surveillance is a societal phenomenon that, akin to, for example, taxation, law enforcement, and warfare, has affected the lives of ordinary people in very real, tangible, and sometimes even brutal ways. Getting deeper into these broader, societal consequences at the level of hands-on historical experience seems to be a fruitful field for future explorations and scholarly debates among historians and other surveillance scholars.

Notes 1 Udenrigsministeriet, Gruppeordnede sager 1909–1945: 110 x. 9.B-F, Kopenhamn, Danish National Archive (Rigsarkivet). 2 A. Marklund, ‘Listening for the State: Censoring Communications in Scandinavia During World War I,’ History and Technology, vol. 32, no. 3, 2016, pp. 293–314. For broader, global implications, see General Staff, War Office, Report on Cable Censorship During the Great War (1914–1919), London, General Staff, War Office, 1920. 3 See for instance J. Soll, The Information Master: Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s Secret State Intelligence System, Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press, 2009; P. Holquist, ‘Information Is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work: Bolshevik Surveillance in Its PanEuropean Context,’ Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 69, 1997, pp. 415–450. 4 See L. Skouvig, ‘Records and Rumors: Surveillance and Information in Late Absolutist Denmark (1770–1849),’ Surveillance and Society, vol. 15, no. 2, 2017, pp. 314–325. 5 A. Marklund and M. Rüdiger, ‘Historicizing Infrastructure – After the Material Turn,’ in A. Marklund and M. Rüdiger (eds.), Historicizing Infrastructure, Aalborg, Aalborg University Press, 2017, pp. 5–20. Here pp. 11–12.

Introduction 17 6 J. Gieseke, The History of the Stasi: East Germany’s Secret Police 1945–1990, New York and Oxford, Berghan Books, 2014; S. J. Wisen, A. Zimmerman, G. Eley, R. Habermas, E. Rosenhaft, S. Weichlein and J. Zatlin, ‘Forum: Surveillance in German History,’ German History, vol. 34, 2016, pp. 293–314. 7 This framing of Big Brother can be demonstrated by the following passage from the first chapter of Orwell’s novel: “You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinised.” G. Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, London, Penguin Books, 2013 (1949). 8 R. Heynen and E. van der Meulen, ‘Unpacking State Surveillance: Histories, Theories, and Global Contexts,’ in R. Heynen and E. van der Meulen (eds.), Making Surveillance States: Transnational Histories, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2019, p. 25. 9 T. Monahan and D. Murakami Wood, ‘Introduction: Surveillance Studies as a Transdisciplinary Endeavor,’ in T. Monahan and D. Murakami Wood (eds.), Surveillance Studies: A Reader, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018. 10 D. Lyon, K. D. Haggerty and K. Ball, ‘Introducing Surveillance Studies,’ in K. Ball, K. D. Haggerty and D. Lyon (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, London, Routledge, 2012, pp. 1–3. See also T. Monahan and D. Murakami Wood (eds.), Surveillance Studies: A Reader, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018. 11 Eighth Biennial Surveillance Studies Network conference ‘Surveillance Beyond Borders and Boundaries,’ Aarhus Denmark, 2018, encouraged papers about history of surveillance, https://conferences.au.dk/ssn2018/ (accessed 23 September 2020). 12 J. Lauer, ‘Surveillance History and the History of New Media: An Evidential Paradigm,’ New Media & Society, vol. 14, no. 4, 2011, pp. 566–582. 13 R. Heynen and E. van der Meulen (eds.), Making Surveillance States: Transnational Histories, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2019, also aim at giving historical background and depths for present-day surveillance practices. The contributions focus primarily on nineteenth- and twentieth-century surveillance practices and argue for the importance of state surveillance in shaping the societies of the late modernity. 14 S. Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, London, Profile Books, 2019. 15 See Monahan and Wood, Surveillance Studies for this incredible width. 16 See, e.g. D. Lyon, The Electronic Eye: The Rise of Surveillance Society, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1994; D. Lyon, Surveillance Society: Monitoring Everyday Life, Maidenhead, Open University Press, 2001; Lyon, Haggerty and Ball, ‘Introducing Surveillance Studies.’ 17 Monahan and Murakami Wood, ‘Introduction,’ p. ix. 18 Lyon, Surveillance Society, p. 2; A. Giddens, ‘The Nation State and Violence,’ in Vol. 2, a Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1985. For Giddens, see the paragraph “Scales of Surveillance: Chronologies of surveillance”. 19 Lyon, Electronic Eye, p. 6. 20 Monahan and Murakami Wood, ‘Introduction,’ p. ix. 21 Lyon, Surveillance Societies, p. 3. 22 J. B. Rule, Private Lives and Public Surveillance: Social Control in the Computer Age, New York, Schocken Books, 1974. 23 C. Dandeker, Surveillance, Power and Modernity: Bureaucracy and Discipline from 1700 to the Present Day, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1990. 24 D. Lyon, ‘Introduction: The Search for Surveillance Theories,’ in D. Lyon (ed.), Theorizing Surveillance, Portland, Willan Publishing, 2006. 25 Lyon, Surveillance Theories, p. 2. 26 S. Browne, Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, Durham, Duke University Press, 2015, p. 38; R. Boyne, ‘Post-Panopticism,’ Economy and Society, vol. 29, no. 2, 2000, pp. 285–307.

18  Andreas Marklund and Laura Skouvig 27 G. Elmer, ‘Panopticon – Discipline – Control,’ in K. Ball, K. D. Haggerty and D. Lyon (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, London, Routledge, 2012, p. 27. 28 See e.g. K. D. Haggerty, ‘Tear Down the Walls: On Demolishing the Panopticon,’ in D. Lyon (ed.), Theorizing Surveillance, Portland, Willan Publishing, pp. 23–45. 29 Gilles Deleuze, ‘Postscript on the Societies of Control,’ October, vol. 59, Winter 1992, pp. 3–7. 30 Haggerty, ‘Tear Down the Walls,’ p. 28; see also B. E. Harcourt, Exposed: Desire and Disobedience in the Digital Age, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2015, p. 41ff on how people desiring the exposure on Facebook paid for with their data. 31 Haggerty, Tear Down the Walls, p. 33. 32 M. Galič, T. Timan and B. J. Koops, ‘Bentham, Deleuze and Beyond: An Overview of Surveillance Theories from the Panopticon to Participation,’ Philosophy of Technology, vol. 30, no. 9, 2017, p. 37. 33 Michel Foucault, Övervakning och straff: Fängelsets födelse, Lund, Arkiv Förlag, 1993 (1975), p. 216. 34 Foucault, Övervakning och straff, p. 216. 35 Foucault, Övervakning och straff, pp. 199–227; see also Browne, Dark Matters, p. 41ff for a similar notion of the relevance of bureaucracy as a technique in racialized surveillance and making the black body legible as property. 36 Anne Brunon-Ernst, Beyond Foucault: New Perspectives on Bentham’s Panopticon, Farnham, Ashgate, 2012. 37 Lauer, ‘Surveillance History,’ p. 569; Lyon, The Electronic Eye, pp. 22–40 for a review of Weber, Foucault, and the rise of bureaucratic organisations. 38 See Browne, Dark Matters, pp. 88–131. 39 S. Zuboff, ‘Big Other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization,’ Journal of Information Technology, vol. 30, 2015, pp. 75–89. 40 J. E. Mai, ‘Big Data Privacy. The Datafication of Personal Information,’ The Information Society, vol. 32, no. 3, 2016, pp. 192–199. 41 Harcourt, Exposed, p. 18. 42 See however O. Gandy, The Panoptic Sort: A Political Economy of Personal Information, Boulder, Westview Press, 1993 for a discussion of personal information based on Foucault’s panopticism. 43 R. R. Kline, The Cybernetics Moment: Or Why We Call Our Age the Information Age, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015; Toni Weller, The Victorians and Information: A  Social and Cultural History, Saarbrücken, VDM Verlag, 2009; E. Higgs, The Information State in England: The Central Collection of Information on Citizens Since 1500, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004; J. Durham Peters, ‘Information: Notes Toward a Critical History,’ The Journal of Communication Inquiry, vol. 12, no. 2, 1988. 44 K. D. Haggerty and R. V. Ericson, ‘The Surveillant Assemblage,’ British Journal of Sociology, vol. 51, no. 4, 2000, pp. 605–622. 45 S. I. Ketchell, ‘Carceral Ambivalence: Japanese Canadian “Internment” and the Sugar Beet Programme During WWII,’ Surveillance & Society, vol. 7, no. 1, 2009, p. 27. 46 D. Lyon, ‘Exploring Surveillance Culture,’ On_Culture: The Open Journal for the Study of Culture, vol. 6, December 2018, pp. 2–11. 47 Lauer, ‘Surveillance History,’ p. 568. 48 Lauer, ‘Surveillance History,’ p. 569. 49 Dandeker, Surveillance, Power and Modernity, p. 54. 50 Monahan and Murakami Wood, ‘Introduction,’ p, xxii. This is precisely what Foucault argues in Discipline and Punishment. Yet although Monahan and Wood set out with the framing of a history of surveillance, their overview quickly turns into a brief historiography of surveillance studies. 51 Giddens, ‘The Nation-State and Violence’; Dandeker, Surveillance, Power and Modernity.

Introduction 19 52 Monahan and Murakami Wood, ‘Introduction,’ p. xiv. 53 See Heynen and van der Meulen, Unpacking Surveillance States, p. 9ff for an elaborate discussion on the relationship between archives and surveillance. 54 Higgs, The Information State. 55 Higgs, The Information State, pp. 133–168. 56 T. Weller, ‘The Information State: An Historical Perspective on Surveillance,’ in D. Lyon, K. D. Haggerty and K. Ball (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, London, Routledge, 2014, pp. 57–64. 57 Lyon, Electronic Eye, p. 5. 58 Weller, ‘The Information State,’ p. 59. 59 Higgs, The Information State, pp. 99–132. 60 Giddens, ‘The Nation State and Violence,’ p. 48ff. 61 Giddens, ‘The Nation State and Violence,’ p. 2. 62 Dandeker, Surveillance, Power, Modernity, p. 31ff. 63 Dandeker, Surveillance, Power, Modernity, pp. 54–55. 64 Weller, ‘The Information State,’ p. 57. 65 Higgs, The Information State, p. 47ff. 66 P. Joyce, The State of Freedom: A Social History of the British State Since 1800, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013. 67 Weller, ‘The Information State’; Higgs, The Information State. 68 Joyce, The State of Freedom, 62. 69 J. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Scemes to Improve Human Condition Have Failed, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1998, pp. 1–8. 70 Lyon, The Electronic Eye, p. 22, 5. 71 J. M. Harding, Performance, Transparency, and the Cultures of Surveillance, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2018. 72 Harding, Performance, p. 62. 73 The conference received a generous support from Dreyers Fond.

1 Big data in early China Population surveillance in the early Chinese empires Rebecca Robinson

In Security, Territory, Population, Michel Foucault traced the genesis of a politics which focused on the regulation of the population to strengthen the state. In order to regulate the population, however, it is first necessary to know the population. Contemporary China has one of the most extensive systems of population surveillance and control in the world, and it continues to increase its surveillance of the population through digital technologies. The ubiquity of CCTV cameras in China lets citizens and visitors know that they are always being watched, while facial recognition software, contactless payments, and other technologies leave a digital footprint of day-to-day activities of individuals. These kinds of surveillance track targeted individuals or groups in order to deter wrongdoing or dissent at all levels of society. The scale of surveillance in contemporary China is made possible by the development and employment of digital technologies that allow the government to gather and analyse vast quantities of data. However, the desire to have such a thorough understanding and record of the population has much longer roots in Chinese history. Despite not having such advanced technologies, imperial dynasties from earliest times accumulated large amounts of data about their populations, albeit in analogue formats. The question of the population was of prime concern to the rulers of the first Chinese empires, the Qin (221–207 bce) and Han (206 bce–220 ce), who established sophisticated systems to gather information through which to control their population of up to 57.7 million people.1 These methods included population and tax registries, regulation of travel and commerce, a 20-tier system of rank, an elaborate legal system, as well as the systems of linked liability, also known as mutual responsibility (lian zuo 連坐). While the rulers of early China lacked the sophisticated technology and infrastructure that is enjoyed by contemporary states, they, too, desired to monitor the population to ensure that every individual met their tax and corvée labour requirements and to eliminate crime and sedition, which were seen as disruptions against the social and cosmic order. In order to keep track of the population and to make the population aware that someone was always watching, the Qin and Han rulers implemented legal regulations and forms of population management which transformed the population at large into the eyes and ears of the sovereign. Through these systems, the population became active agents in their own surveillance.

Big data in early China 21

The panoptic mechanism Foucault introduces the panoptic mechanism in Discipline and Punish, illustrating how surveillance becomes “permanent in its effects” although “discontinuous in action.”2 The inmate in a panoptic prison or the subject in an institution will never know exactly when they are being watched, but there will always be the possibility that someone will be watching at any given time. As such, the individual will feel compelled to behave as though they were being watched at all times. The observer is invisible and through this position of invisibility is able to observe multiple subjects at one time, and, in the modern era, the observer is themselves also under observation.3 Foucault places the advent of panopticism at the intersection between the ancient and the modern; with the “gradual extension of the mechanisms of discipline throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries . . . the formation of what might be called in general the disciplinary society.”4 The modern era distinguishes itself from the premodern through its privileging of surveillance over spectacle: Our society is one not of spectacle, but of surveillance; under the surface of images, one invests bodies in depth; behind the great abstraction of exchange, there continues the meticulous, concrete training of useful forces; the circuits of communication are the supports of an accumulation and a centralization of knowledge; the play of signs defines the anchorages of power; it is not that the beautiful totality of the individual is amputated, repressed, altered by our social order, it is rather that the individual is carefully fabricated in it, according to a whole technique of forces and bodies.5 Disciplinary society is thus defined by the relationship between the individual and the state, rather than the community and public life.6 Foucault’s description thus far of the panoptic mechanism and the development of a disciplinary society is canon. He elaborates on the development of both panopticism and the different orientations of societies, that is, juridico-legal, disciplinary, and security, and we have tended to take this sequence of domination as gospel.7 In the 1977–78 Security, Territory, Population lectures, however, he notes that the mechanisms of each societal orientation existed simultaneously in each of the periods and that the transformation from juridico-legal to disciplinary and to security societies was not purely evolutionary; rather, it was a question of which sets of mechanisms came to dominate at a particular time. Foucault was, quite consciously, only concerned with mechanisms of power that appeared in the western historical tradition, and our understanding of the interplay and development of these different mechanisms is thoroughly complicated by considering them in the context of non-Western societies. Before leaving Foucault and turning our gaze to the political philosophers of early China, it is worth noting that Foucault acknowledges that, at least with regard to the panoptic mechanism, it is the technology rather than the intention that is new: The idea of the panopticon is a modern idea in one sense, but we can also say that it is completely archaic, since the panoptic mechanism basically involves

22  Rebecca Robinson putting someone in the centre – an eye, a gaze, a principle of surveillance – who will be able to make its sovereignty function over all the individuals [placed] within this machine of power. To that extent we can say that the panopticon is the oldest dream of the oldest sovereign: None of my subjects can escape and none of their actions is unknown to me.8 The desire to know each individual of the population and to be able to monitor her or his actions and ensure that she or he always remained trapped within the network of the state appealed to rulers of early China just as much as Western Europe. And like their European counterparts, the rulers of early China attempted to make this dream a reality.

Theories of surveillance in early China The early Chinese kingdoms and empires had a surprisingly elaborate bureaucratic apparatus with which to keep track of the population. During the Spring and Autumn (771–453 bce ) and Warring States (453–221 bce ) periods, contending states – seven, by the late Warring States period – sought ways to strengthen their states in order to increase their territory and population and, ultimately, to gain hegemony over the others.9 As such, this was a period of not only intense internecine warfare, but also of great development in military technology and strategy and political theory. During this period, a number of intellectuals travelled between the states, offering their ministerial services to kings. These intellectuals often left behind records of their political and philosophical theories, either written by themselves or compiled by their disciples after their deaths.10 From these texts and from historical records of the states, we know that there were many theories of population management, some of which were implemented, while other remained at a purely theoretical level. Through a series of political and military reforms, the state of Qin was able to conquer its rivals and form the first empire in 221 bce. Central to their programme of political reform was the management and surveillance of the population, which sought to ensure that all individuals were working towards the state’s goals. While the Qin empire (221–210 bce) did not long outlast its founding emperor, the majority of its bureaucratic and legal systems were adopted by its successor, the Han (206 bce–220 ce), at least during the first two centuries of Han rule. In what follows, I will discuss the development of theories of population surveillance and their connection to imperial power and then turn to the application of these theories to the Qin and early Han periods. From the earliest times, we can see that the thinkers of early China identified the importance of the sovereign knowing the actions of the population, in order to properly govern their state. These early texts discuss the problems inherent in effectively monitoring the population with the limited technological means available to the state. The Mozi 墨子, a text which represents the doctrines of the fifth

Big data in early China 23 to third century bce followers of Mo Di 墨翟,11 provides an elaboration on the notion that the population could be used to monitor itself: When the Son of Heaven, feudal lords, rulers and the leaders of the populace had already been established, the Son of Heaven put forth a decree, saying: “Whenever you hear or see something good, you must inform your superior. Whenever you hear or see something bad, you must also inform your superior. What the superior approves of, you must also approve of. What the superior condemns, you must also condemn. When the people are good, enquire about it and reward them. When the people are at fault, admonish them. Value uniformity with those above and do not act in collusion with those below. If those above get to know [about this], they will reward you. If the ten thousand people hear [about this], they will praise you. If, on the other hand, you hear or see something good and do not inform your superior, or if you hear or see something bad and also do not inform your superior, if you are unable to approve of what your superior approves of, or unable to condemn what your superior condemns, if the people are good but you are unable to enquire about and reward them, if your superiors are at fault but you are unable to admonish them, if you collude with those below and act against those above, then if those above get to know [about this], they will reprove and punish you and if the ten thousand people hear [about this], they will condemn and vilify you.”12 The people were thus expected to not only agree with the Son of Heaven, but also inform on anyone who did good and those who did wrong; those who did good would be rewarded, while those who did wrong would be punished. Presumably “doing good” consisted in acting in alignment with your superior’s wishes. The text goes on to argue that this is how the sovereign is able to know about the actions of the population and thereby regulate their behaviour, namely, by using the people as his eyes and ears: So it was that, if there was someone who had done good several thousand or even ten thousand li away, although family members were completely unaware of it and district and village had not heard of it at all, the Son of Heaven learned of it and rewarded him. And if there was someone who had done evil several thousand or even ten thousand li away, although family members were completely unaware of it and district and village had not heard of it at all, the Son of Heaven learned of it and punished him. Thus the people of the world were all fearful, agitated and awe-struck, and did not dare act in a depraved or evil manner, saying that the Son of Heaven’s sight and hearing were those of a god. [But] the former kings’ words said: “He is not a god. It is only that he is able to use the ears and eyes of the people to help his own speech, to use the minds of the people to help his own plans, and to use the limbs of the people to help his own actions.” If those who help his sight and

24  Rebecca Robinson hearing are many, then what he hears and sees is far distant. If those who help his speech are many, then the comfort given by his wise words is farreaching. If those who help his plans are many, then his schemes and devices are swiftly accomplished. If those who help him in his activities are many, then the matters he embarks upon will be swiftly brought to completion.13 In the system envisioned by Mozi, the people themselves would pass along pertinent information, acting, essentially, as informants for the state. In this way, society could be monitored and people’s behaviour shaped by rewarding those who had done good and punishing those who had done wrong. This idea of using the people as the eyes and ears of the sovereign is shared by several early thinkers. The Guanzi 管子, a compilation containing material from the fifth to first centuries bce,14 describes in more detail how such an ideal system would function: All [special] cases of filial piety and respect for elders, loyalty and faithfulness, worthiness and goodness, or refinement and talent on the part of the sons, younger brothers, male or female slaves, and retainers or guests of the head of a household shall be reported accordingly by the leaders of the groups of ten or five to the clan elder of the circuit. The clan elder shall report them to the village commandant who [in turn] shall report them to the subdistrict prefect. He shall summarize them for the district governor who will record them for the chief justice.15 The Guanzi, here, describes the hierarchy of information gathering at the local level. The information about good behaviour or, equally, of bad behaviour is to be transmitted from the level of the groups of five households, discussed in the following sections, up through the ranks, until it reaches the district level and ultimately the chief justice. Ultimately, these reports are to reach the ears of the ruler, who was to deliberate over appropriate rewards for five days, and punishments, also for five days.16 Both the Mozi and the Guanzi describe an idealized system wherein the sovereign is able to know the actions of any member of the population, without leaving his capital. The idea of information gathering and upwards dissemination described in these ancient texts reflect the principles of panopticism that subjects should always assume that they may be under surveillance. However, these ancient texts see the upward flow of information as being a fluid, organic process, where all subjects of an ideal state willingly proffer this information to their superiors. However, just as with Foucault’s panoptic mechanism, actually implementing such a vast network of information gathering required an advanced infrastructure and the collection of a vast amount of data.

Big data in early China The practical problems of this kind of surveillance were addressed most effectively by the Qin statesman Shang Yang 商鞅, who implemented a series of

Big data in early China 25 political reforms that transformed the state of Qin into the most powerful of the Warring States and recorded his theories of statecraft in a book which is largely considered to have been written by him.17 In the Book of Lord Shang 商君書, he argued that the two most important concerns of state were agriculture and warfare and that in order to succeed in these two fields, the state required a large, strong population, which was able to support the state through taxes and military and labour service. As the population grew, he also noted that it was important for the state to enumerate the population, as one of the state’s most important resources: A strong state should know thirteen numbers within its borders: the number of granaries and residents; the number of adult men and women; the number of the old and infirm; the number of officials and men-of-service; the number of those who obtain emoluments by talking; the number of beneficial people; the number of horses, oxen, hay, and straw. If one wants to strengthen one’s state but does not know these thirteen numbers, then even if the state’s soil is advantageous and residents are numerous, it will be increasingly weakened to the point of dismemberment.18 This idealized system would have detailed information on every member of the population, including those who were unable to contribute military and corvée labour service, or should be exempted from taxation due to personal circumstances.19 Additionally, those who did not make their living from the land, that is those who “obtain emoluments by talking” should also be known, for not only did they not contribute materially to the community, but they could also potentially disrupt the social order. Although excavated evidence has not confirmed that the state indeed kept detailed records of these 13 numbers, excavated Qin-era population registries from Liye 里耶, in modern Hunan Province 湖南, reveal that records were kept on each individual member of the population. While these records were not particularly detailed, they did include information on the householders’ name, rank, dependants, and, in some cases, health conditions which may have exempted them from labour requirements.20 There are no surviving population registries from the Han period, but excavated registries from the third century ce include more detailed information on the population, suggesting that these registries became more complex over time.21 The population registries enumerated the population as individuals. As Charles Sanft has shown, “every person in the Qin realm had an individual identity, framed in terms of core information: name, social rank, and village of residence, with county included as necessary,”22 and this individual identification, along with the annual recording of it, was a key component of the Qin state’s system of population control. As the population records were updated annually, with a census in the eighth month, and individuals were required to self-report their status,23 the collection of population data was not a secretive affair – individuals knew exactly what their local officials and government knew about them. The excavated Liye registers do not include Shang Yang’s famous 13 numbers, but later legal statutes discovered from Han dynasty tombs at Zhangjiashan 張家

26  Rebecca Robinson 山 have revealed what individuals were expected to report and what information officials were expected to collect: All ordinary people, in every case, are to self-report their age. For one who is young and not yet able to self-report and has no father or mother or [older sibling] born of the same [mother] to report for [him or her]: the officials are to determine his or her age, based on a comparison of [height]. Making a self-report of one’s own age, or a report of one’s children’s or siblings’ ages, which does not accord with reality by three years or more: in every case, shave [the criminal]. One who gives birth to a child is always to report the [child’s age and gender(?)] at the time of the household [-register examination in the eighth month].24 As can be seen from the statute, while individuals were expected to self-report, officials were responsible for verifying the information provided and punishing those who misreported their age or concealed any other information. In cases of individuals who moved from one hamlet to another, their household registration documents were to be transferred to their new place of residence.25 In cases where new migrants self-reported their age, if officials doubted the accuracy of the information, they could verify migrants’ declarations with their previous place of residence. Migration between different parts of the Qin state and, later, the Qin and Han empires, was not prohibited, but it was heavily regulated. Other statutes indicate that the state also collected information about property holdings. The system of household registration, both in its theorization by Shang Yang and in its application in legal statutes, was intended to keep the majority of the population tied to the land and engaged in agricultural production, creating a population from which taxes and labour service could be easily extracted.26 While the legal statutes detailed the punishments that resulted from misreporting or not reporting one’s identity, these punishments were fairly light: “the state’s primary aim was to deter repeat offenders and get peasants back on the farm, producing taxes again.”27 With a population of 57.7 million people, according to the census of 2 ce,28 the enumeration of the population required vast numbers of officials and produced vast quantities of data. It is difficult to imagine large-scale population surveillance in a pre-modern, even pre-digital society. Yet, the records and bureaucratic procedures from early China reveal that with a large enough bureaucracy and an effective system of laws and procedures, it was in fact possible to maintain records on the population and to transmit information across the empire in a timely fashion.29 Certainly the Qin, and later the Han, would have struggled to maintain these records, and the technologies and infrastructures available to the early rulers would have made it more challenging than for later empires. The monitoring capabilities and technologies of control that would qualify the Qin as a fully bureaucratic state in the modern sense were not fully developed,30 and certainly many people slipped through the cracks. Knowing this, the Qin built redundancies into the system in order to compensate for the technological limitations of their times.

Big data in early China 27

Linked liability and household units While the Qin and early Han governments were able to keep records of the population through the vast amounts of data collected by officials, scribes, and scribal assistants, the officials were not able to closely monitor the movements and actions of individuals on a day-to-day basis. For this, the government relied on the mutual responsibility, or linked liability, system to diffuse the imperial gaze throughout the population, so that each individual would become the eyes and ears of the sovereign. The mutual responsibility system was applied to the population in 359 bce as part of Shang Yang’s legal reforms in the state of Qin, though it had roots both in the creation of population registries under Duke Xian of Qin 秦獻公 in 375 bce and from earlier military practice.31 The system of mutual responsibility as applied to the military was intended to incentivize men in battle. Men were grouped into five-men groups (wu 伍) and were mutually responsible for each other’s behaviour and well-being. If, for example, a member of the five-man group committed an offence, the other four members of his group would receive punishment, unless they reported it immediately.32 If a member of the group of five was killed in action, it became the responsibility of the remaining members to compensate for that loss by capturing or killing an enemy soldier.33 This responsibility extended upwards through the ranks, so that if a platoon leader was killed, the platoon was responsible for capturing or killing an enemy platoon leader; or if the general was captured or killed, the army was required to capture or kill the enemy general.34 According to the Weiliaozi 尉繚子, a pre-Han military treatise, the punishment for failing to balance the numbers by capturing or killing enemy soldiers to compensate for those lost was death and the extermination of the families of the soldiers.35 Soldiers would be rewarded, however, if they captured or killed more soldiers than they lost. These systems of rewards and punishments and mutual responsibility in the military served to ensure that men exerted themselves in battle for the state, knowing that any failure would bring punishment and that success would bring great reward. As Robin Yates has shown, the mutual responsibility system in the military also relied on the interpersonal relationships between the soldiers to ensure that the soldiers would look out for one another: In the Qin army, squads of five men and platoons of ten were drawn from these household units, so that one man from each of a group of five households served in the five-man unit in the army. This ensured that men who served in the army would know each other intimately, would probably also be related to each other by blood and/or marriage, and would therefore be prepared to fight to the death to save the other members of their unit.36 These military institutions presumably proved so effective that many were incorporated into early Qin law, with the aim to direct the loyalty of both soldiers and civilians exclusively towards the state.37

28  Rebecca Robinson Outside of the military, the population was organized into groups of five-household groups (wu 伍) that were mutually responsible for each other’s conduct. We know from excavated Qin statutes that the groups were formed of five neighbouring households,38 ensuring that the members would not only be in close proximity to each other, but already have some pre-existing relationship.39 This system was supposedly enacted in 359 bce in the state of Qin by Shang Yang. In his biography, in Sima Qian’s 司馬遷 Shiji 史記, we read: He [Shang Yang] ordered the people to be grouped in squads of five and ten, and supervise each other, bearing mutually binding legal responsibility. Those who failed to report villainy would be cut in two at the waist. Those who reported villains would be rewarded equally to those who cut off enemy’s heads. Those who concealed villains would be penalized equally to those who surrendered to the enemy.40 While Sima Qian and other Han literati and officials were known to have greatly exaggerated the punishments utilized by the Qin in order to make the Han appear more benevolent, excavated legal statutes reveal that the system attributed to Shang Yang was continued by the early Han: For [those householders holding] Fifth Grandee or lower [rank], adjoining properties shall form [mutually-responsible] groups of five. They are to use divided [contract tallies] as proof of their trustworthiness. The residents are to investigate one another and inspect one another’s comings and goings. When there is one among them who commits robbery or assault, or absconds, [they are] immediately to inform the officials.41 Each group had a group chief or elder (wu zhang 伍長 or wu lao 伍老), whose position was sometimes indicated on the household registers.42 These chiefs or elders were responsible for maintaining “some kind of record of the registration of adults in the groups of which they had charge,” making them, essentially, low-level government functionaries.43 In addition to the organization of adjacent households into groups of five, merchants were also organized into mutually responsible groups of five in the marketplace, with those in adjacent stalls to prevent them from hiding their tax liability.44 The primary function of the mutual responsibility groups was to deter wrongdoing by ensuring that each member of the population felt the government’s gaze through the eyes of their neighbours. The mutual responsibility system, according to Anthony Barbieri-Low and Robin Yates, effectively transformed the population at large into government spies.45 Spying and reporting on crimes were incentivized by the reward and punishment system, which would, in theory, discourage neighbours from covering up each other’s crimes. Failure to report a crime committed by the other members of the five-household group would result in their being held criminally liable as though they had committed the crime themselves. They therefore had strong incentive to not only report

Big data in early China 29 crimes within their group, but also prevent group members from committing any unlawful action. The five-household groups were also expected to guarantee or certify legal findings for other members of the group, for example, regarding inheritance of rank or during the impoundment of a member’s property.46 They were also expected to come to each other’s aid and stop, if possible, a crime in progress. The Qin slips from Shuihudi 睡虎地 reveal the extent of the liability for the members of the five-household group as well as the village chief and elders: A murderer entered into A’s house and murderously wounds A. A cries out: “Robbers!”, [but] his four neighbours, the [village]) chief and the [village] elders have all gone out and are absent, and they do not hear A crying “Robbers!” Question: are they warranted to be sentenced or are they not warranted? If the investigation shows that [his four neighbours] were absent, they are not warranted to be sentenced, [but] the [village] chief and the elders, although they were absent, are warranted to be sentenced.47 In this case, the neighbours were not considered liable as they were absent and thus were unable to come to A’s assistance. The village chief and elders, however, being responsible for the general security of the village, including controlling the village gates, were held responsible for the residents of the village as a whole and therefore were expected to respond to A’s cry of “Robber!”48 In addition to the five-household groups, members of families were liable for each other’s crimes, and government officials served as guarantors for the behaviour of those whom they recommended for office. In the Zhangjiashan “Statutes on Impoundment” (shou lü 收律), we see that, in general, husbands and wives were liable for each other’s crimes, unless they first reported the crime, though wives were not liable if the crime had caused them injury.49 If it was determined that family members were liable for each other’s crimes, they could be impounded by the state and either put into government service or sold as slaves.50 Government officials were held responsible for those they recommended to office, though only for the specific term for which the individual had been recommended.51 These systems of linked liability aimed to encourage individuals to inform on others and, by being embedded in pre-existing relationships either collegial, neighbourly, or familial, to deter any wrong-doing. In particular, the statutes on abscondence from Zhangjiashan indicate that it was the responsibility of the individual to verify another person’s registration before entering into some sort of relationship with them. Innkeepers were also required to check a person’s identity and could be punished for lodging criminals or those without proper documentation and travel permits. In fact, the architect of this system, Shang Yang, was himself unable to take refuge in an inn when fleeing the wrath of the duke he had angered, because the laws he had implemented required the innkeeper to turn away anyone without the correct permits.52 The state did recognize, however, that not all neighbours got along well with each other and was therefore concerned not only with the denunciations of

30  Rebecca Robinson members of the five-household groups, but also with the accuracy of the denunciations. A false denunciation could result in wrongful punishment, and so the state was very careful in ensuring that all denunciations were thoroughly investigated. In fact, most of the known statutes or cases discussing liability for members of the five-household groups tend to be concerned with false or inaccurate denunciations. Making a false or careless denunciation was a very serious matter, and in order to prevent false denunciations, the punishments were severe. In most cases, the individual who made the false denunciation would be punished according to the crime he or she had accused the other of. We see in the Qin legal documents from Shuihudi that officials were particularly concerned with careless denunciations made by a member of a five-household group in order to escape their linked punishment: When a member of a group of five denounces another member, hoping thereby to escape punishment, (and the denunciation is) careless, (the denunciator) is to be punished with the punishment he had hoped to escape. (The statute) also says: “When one is unable to determine the criminal and denounces another person, this is (a case of) being careless in denouncing”. Now A says: “The member of my group of five (called) B has killed a person with murderous (intent).” B is immediately arrested, but questioning shows he did not kill a person. What A reported was careless. Is he warranted to be sentenced for carelessness in denouncing, or for what he (had hoped) to escape? To sentence him for what he (had hoped) to escape is fitting.53 Of course, one did not have to be a member of the same five-household group in order to make a denunciation, false or otherwise: A denounces B for having stolen to the value of. . . . The interrogation shows that B had stolen (to the value of) 30 cash; A slanderously added 50 (cash) to B’s (theft), being careless about the 30 (cash). Question: is A warranted to be sentenced or is he not warranted? According to the practice of the court A is to be fined two suits of armour.54 These cases reveal that the state was particularly concerned with false denunciations that could lead to the wrongful punishment of an innocent person and that people did in fact make such false or careless denunciations.

The system in practice From the available evidence, it is difficult to determine the effectiveness of the system. According to Barbieri-Low and Yates, the Qin and early Han projection of state power was “surprisingly effective at times. Much of the population was registered, taxes were collected, labour was mobilized, crimes were prosecuted, and messages were transmitted on schedule, or nearly so, even in a peripheral

Big data in early China 31 area of the empire.”55 With regard to the organization of the population into mutually responsible household groups, the extant evidence speaks primarily of areas where the system was not working or where officials were not entirely sure how a case should be sentenced. These extant documents may have been distributed widely, or preserved for longer, due to the fact that they clarified points of the law, whereas routine cases of rewarding or punishing members of the five-household groups would have required far less documentation and would likely not have circulated. As the population was relatively well-versed in the laws, there was also a fair amount of resistance and subversion of the laws.56 There is also the possibility that, at least in some cases, the five-household groups would have collaborated together to hide wrongdoing from the authorities out of fear of collective punishment.57 In his study of the Qing Dynasty’s (1644–1911 ce) iteration of population management, discussed in the next section, Kung-Chuan Hsiao has argued that the Qing system was ineffective at preventing individual criminals or petty crimes and that its real purpose lay in instilling a fear of surveillance in the population so that people would not consider more serious crime such as sedition.58 Given the dearth of evidence, it is impossible to determine how effective the Qin and early Hanlinked liability system was in preventing petty crime (though these crimes do appear in excavated case books), and so, perhaps, the system was focused more towards preventing people, first, from plotting serious crimes and, second, from absconding, that is, leaving one’s place of registration and assuming a new identity.59 Perhaps the strongest indicator that the population registration and linked liability systems were effective was their longevity in later dynasties and in contemporary China.

Population surveillance and organization in later imperial and modern China The systems of household registration and mutual responsibility that were established in the Qin and Han were well known throughout later empires. Subsequent kingdoms and dynasties implemented their own forms of population registration and surveillance, though we know less about these, particularly in periods of disunity. Discoveries of household registries from the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 ce) indicate that the amount of information recorded about individuals increased, as the state attempted to enumerate its population.60 Systems similar to the Qin–Han systems were established in later dynasties, notably the Song (960– 1279 ce), Ming (1368–1644 ce), and Qing, and continued on into the Republic of China (ROC) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). By far the largest difference between the ancient and modern systems of registration and surveillance is the technology employed and the amount of data collected. As bureaucracies and populations expanded, so too did the amount of “paperwork” generated. What was shared by all of these dynasties was a desire to collect information about the population and its movements by using the population itself and, through these information networks, to control the population. As each dynasty built on the earlier practices and as technology developed, allowing the state to collect data more

32  Rebecca Robinson quickly and easily from a larger geographic region, the information networks expanded, and population registration became more rigorous. Each new or revised system of population registration and surveillance was also adapted to meet the needs of the state. Wang Anshi’s 王安石 baojia 保甲 system, initiated in 1070 CE, organized the population into groups of five households, who were more akin to a neighbourhood watch brigade.61 The system was implemented due to a rise in banditry and violence as well as in response to political factions at court; Wang hoped that the baojia system would ultimately replace the expensive standing army.62 Similar to the Qin–Han system, the names of the members of the baojia were recorded and, at this time, were publicly posted on a tablet.63 They were expected to report not only on crimes in their territory, but also on any families that moved in or out of the territory, thus ensuring that no one would be able to disappear from the state’s registers.64 The baojia system was revived and reformed during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The founding emperor of the Ming dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang 朱元璋, implemented parallel lijia 里甲and baojia systems, which organized the population into household groups in multiples of ten and served to track the population for both tax and security purposes. The baojia, in particular, were concerned with village and coastal defence,65 and ultimately the system developed into a local police system, wherein households were required to register their names on a placard and “to report promptly to the government any unfamiliar face or any suspicious action” in their area of supervision.66 Just as in the Qin–Han systems, the baojia of the Ming, combined with other systems of population registration and social control, ensured that “state administration was felt, at least nominally, in every village in China.”67 The creation of these subcounty units, according to Timothy Brook, compensated for the declining proportion of officials to population in the Ming and Qing and thus enabled the state to maintain its presence and power at the local level.68 The Qing inherited and developed the Ming system. In the Qing, the baojia system served as both a neighbourhood watch and a form of population surveillance. Each household was given a placard which recorded the names of adult males, and any departures or arrivals to and from the household were to be recorded.69 Like the Qin–Han system, guesthouses were also required to keep registers, and it was “forbidden to take in strangers and suspicious characters,” unless they had thoroughly and satisfactorily questioned the stranger.70 Individuals were required to report any suspicious activity or crime to the baojia head, and failure to do so could bring punishment to the ten-household group.71 As Kung-Chuan Hsiao has noted, the basic idea behind the population registration and mutual responsibility systems remained unchanged from earliest times to the end of the empire: the surveillance of the population in order to maintain public security and to prevent sedition.72 Each of the iterations established by various dynasties shared the common feature that it was the population itself that was tasked with spying on their neighbours, thus extending the eyes and ears of the government into the population at large. Population registration continued on into the ROC and PRC eras, with the implementation of the hukou system, which not

Big data in early China 33 only registers every individual, but also ties them to a particular region, outside of which they are not permitted to work or receive benefits.73 State supervision of the population is ubiquitous in contemporary China and is of particular concern in areas populated by non-Han minorities.74 As new technologies, such as facial recognition, are becoming increasingly widespread, the Chinese state is closer to the goal of being able to remotely monitor all of the population, all of the time. The contemporary Chinese state no longer needs to rely exclusively on the people to inform on each other; the devices they interact with on a daily basis do the job for them. The historical trajectory of population surveillance from ancient times to the contemporary is far from linear, changing along with ruling authorities, larger and more diverse populations, and new technologies and infrastructures that facilitate information gathering and analysis. But behind these institutions lies a similar motivation: to maintain the sociopolitical order by making the people feel that they are constantly being watched. Foucault stated that the panoptic mechanism was the “oldest dream of the oldest sovereign,”75 and, while his assertion may have been hyperbole, an investigation of the early Chinese philosophical and bureaucratic materials reveals that ancient statesmen and rulers did in fact attempt to implement networks of surveillance and population management that encompassed the entire population, from peasants to high officials. The rulers of early China lacked modern technologies of surveillance, or advanced infrastructure to speed circulation of information, but by devolving the responsibility for surveillance to the population at large, the sovereign’s gaze was diffused throughout the empire, and every individual acted as his eyes and ears.

Notes 1 This figure is according to the census of 2 ce. We do not have reliable population data for much of the period under discussion in this chapter. H. Bielenstein, ‘Wang Mang, the Restoration of the Han Dynasty, and Later Han,’ in J. K. Fairbank and D. Twitchett (eds.), The Cambridge History of China: Volume 1. The Ch’in and Han Empires, 221 B.C.–A.D. 220, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 240. 2 Michael Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, A. Sheridan, trans., New York, Vintage, 1995, p. 200. 3 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 207. 4 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 209. 5 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 217, emphasis added. 6 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 216. 7 Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–1978, G. Burchell, trans., London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, pp. 7–10. 8 Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, p. 66, emphasis added. 9 The history of the Warring States period is too lengthy and complex to enter into in this chapter. The reader is referred to M. E. Lewis, ‘Warring States Political History,’ in Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy (eds.), The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 587–650, for a general introduction, and Y. Pines, Envisioning Eternal Empire: Chinese Political Thought of the Warring States Era, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 2009, for an overview of political thought in this era.

34  Rebecca Robinson 10 The question of authorship of these early Chinese politico-philosophical texts is a complicated subject, and it is generally believed that most texts from this period underwent processes of compilation and editing over lengthy periods of time. As such, while texts are generally seen to represent a particular “school of thought,” it is often impossible to trace the authorship or even date of composition for many texts from the early period. M. Loewe, Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, Berkeley, Society for the Study of Early China and Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1993, provides good overviews of many of the most important texts from this period. 11 On the dating and compilation of the Mozi, see A.C. Graham, “Mo tzu 墨子,” Early Chinese Texts, pp. 336–341. 12 Mozi 12.3, in I. Johnston (trans.), The Mozi: A  Complete Translation, Hong Kong, Chinese University Press, 2010, p. 101. To facilitate reference for the non-specialist, references have been given to English translations of Chinese sources. 13 Mozi 12.11, Johnston, The Mozi, p. 113. Emphasis added. 14 W. Allyn Rickett, ‘Kuan tzu,’ in M. Loewe, Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, Berkeley, Society for the Study of Early China and Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1993, pp. 244–251. 15 Guanzi ‘Li zheng,’ W. Allyn Rickett, trans., Guanzi 管子: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China, A Study and Translation, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1985, Vol. 1, pp. 104–105. 16 Guanzi, ‘Li zheng,’ Rickett, trans., Guanzi, Vol. 1, 105. 17 As with other early Chinese texts, the chapters of the Shangjun shu must be considered individually. Yuri Pines’ recent translation and study provides a detailed discussion of the composition and dating of the text: The Book of Lord Shang: Apologetics of State Power in Early China, New York, Columbia University Press, 2017. 18 Shangjun shu 4.10, Pines, trans., The Book of Lord Shang, 160. 19 For a broad overview of population registration in early China, see Du Zhengsheng杜 正勝, Bianhu qimin: chuantong zhengzhi shehui jiegou zhi xingcheng 編戶齊民：傳 統政治社會結構之形成, Taipei, Lianjing, 1990. 20 On the Liye documents in general, see R. D. S. Yates, ‘The Qin Slips and Boards from Well No. 1, Liye, Hunan: A Brief Introduction to the Qin Qianling County Archives,’ Early China, vol. 35–36, 2012–13, pp. 291–299. On Liye registers and the enumeration of the population, please see C. Sanft, ‘Population Records from Liye: Ideology in Practice,’ in Yri Pines, Paul R. Goldin, and Martin Kern (eds.), Ideology of Power and Power of Ideology in Early China, Leiden, Brill, 2015, pp. 249–269. 21 A. Barbieri-Low and R. D. S. Yates, Law, State, and Society in Early Imperial China: A Study with Critical Edition and Translation of the Legal Texts from Zhangjiashan Tomb no. 247, Leiden, Brill, 2015, p. 785. 22 Sanft, ‘Population Records,’ p. 268. 23 Zhang Jinguang 張金光, Qin zhi yanjiu 秦制研究, Shanghai, Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2004, 800. 24 Zhangjiashan ‘Statutes on Households’ slips 325–27; Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 3.18.15, 797. References to Zhangjiashan slips refer to the classification system employed by Barbieri-Low and Yates. 25 Zhangjiashan ‘Statutes on Households,’ slips 328–30; Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 3.18.16, p. 799. 26 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, pp; 210–211, 575. 27 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, p. 575. 28 Bielenstein, ‘Wang Mang,’ p. 240. 29 The state employed numerous scribes for this purpose, who effectively ran the government through documentation, but the subject is beyond the scope of this chapter. The role of the scribe in early China has recently received much attention due to their prevalence in recently excavated documents. See Ma Tsang Wing, ‘Scribes, Assistants,

Big data in early China 35 and the Materiality of Administrative Documents in Qin-Early Han China: Excavated Evidence from Liye, Shuihudi, and Zhangjiashan,’ T’oung Pao, vol. 103, no. 4–5, 2017, pp. 297–333. 30 E. Kiser and Y. Cai, ‘War and Bureaucratization in Qin China: Exploring an Anomalous Case,’ American Sociological Review, vol. 68, no. 4, 2013, p. 515. 31 Shiji 6.298; 68.2230. R. D. S. Yates, ‘Social Status in the Ch’in: Evidence from the Yün-meng Legal Documents. Part One: Commoners,’ Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 47, no. 1, 1987, p. 222. 32 Weiliaozi, ‘Orders for the Squads of Five,’ R. D. Sawyer (trans.), The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China, Boulder, Westview Press, 1993, p. 263. 33 Weiliaozi, ‘Orders for Binding the Groups of Five’; Sawyer, The Seven Military Classics, p. 265. 34 Weiliaozi, ‘Orders for Binding the Groups of Five’; Sawyer, The Seven Military Classics, p. 265. 35 Weiliaozi, ‘Orders for Binding the Groups of Five,’ Sawyer, The Seven Military Classics, p. 265. 36 R. D. S. Yates, ‘Law and the Military in Early China,’ in Nicolo di Cosmo (ed.), Military Culture in Imperial China, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2009, p. 31. 37 Yates, ‘Law and the Military,’ p. 31. 38 Shuihudi Qin mu zhujian zhengli xiaozu, Shuihudi Qin mu zhujian 睡虎地秦墓竹簡, Beijing, Wenwu chubanshe, 1990, p. 116, ‘Falü dawen,’ slip no. 99; A. F. P. Hulsewé, Remnants of Ch’in Law, Leiden, Brill, 1985, 146 D83. 39 On the composition of the groups of five, see C. Naihua 陳乃華 ‘Guanyu Qin-Han xingshi lianzuo de ruogan wenti’ 關於秦漢刑事連坐的若干問題, Shandong shida xuebao, vol. 6, 1987, pp. 3–4, and below. C. Sanft, ‘Shang Yang Was a Cooperator: Applying Axelrod’s Analysis of Cooperation in Early China,’ Philosophy East and West, vol. 64, no. 1, 2014, pp. 174–191, has argued that the existing relationship between members of a mutual responsibility group may have actually encouraged them to collaborate as a group rather than to turn on individual members. The effectiveness of the Qin and early Han system will be discussed in more detail in the following section. 40 Shiji 68.2230, B. Watson (trans.), Records of the Grand Historian: Qin Dynasty, New York, Columbia University Press, 1993, p. 92–93. 41 Zhangjiashan ‘Statutes on Households,’ slips 305–6; Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 3.18.1, p. 789. 42 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, pp. 111–112, 784–785. 43 Yates, ‘Social Status,’ p. 219. 44 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, pp. 112, 723. 45 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, p. 112. 46 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, p. 112. 47 Shuihudi, Shuihudi, p. 116, ‘Falü dawen’ slip no. 98; Hulsewé, Remnants, 145–146 D81. 48 Zhangjiashan ‘Statutes on Households,’ slips 305–306; Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 3.18.1, p. 789; An Zuozhang 安作璋 and Xiong Tieji熊鐵基, Qin Han guanzhi shigao 秦漢官制史稿, Ji’nan, Qi-Lu shushe, 1985, p. 214. 49 Zhangjiashan ‘Statutes on Impoundment,’ slips 174–5; Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 3.7.1, pp. 596–597. 50 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, pp. 595–596; Li Junming 李均明, ‘Zhangjiashan Han jian ‘shou lü’ yu jiazu lianzuo’ 張家山漢簡“收律”與家族連坐, Wenwu, vol.9, 2002, pp. 60–63. 51 Jin Tengfei 靳腾飞, ‘Qin-Han shiqi jiceng guanli zhiwu lianzuo xin tan – jiyu Qin-Han jian du de kaocha 秦漢時期基層官吏職務連坐新探 – 基於秦漢簡牘的考察,’ Hubei shehui kexue, vol. 6, 2016, pp. 114–117.

36  Rebecca Robinson 52 Shiji 68, pp. 2236–2237. 53 Shuihudi, Shuihudi, p. 116, ‘Falü dawen’ slip nos. 96–97; Hulsewé, ‘Remnants,’ 145 D80. 54 Shuihudi, Shuihudi, p. 103, ‘Falü dawen’ slip no. 42. Hulsewé, ‘Remnants,’ 132 D33. The ellipsis indicates missing graphs on the slips. 55 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, p. 216. 56 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, p. 216. 57 This argument is made by Sanft, ‘Shang Yang was a Cooperator’. 58 K. C. Hsiao, Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1967, 45–46. 59 The Zhangjiashan statutes contain an entire section on abscondence, demonstrating not only the importance of registration to the state, but also that abscondence was a common problem. 60 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, p. 785. 61 Wang Anshi was inspired by systems of the past, including the probably theoretical system described in the Rituals of Zhou. Yu Jinghui 俞箐慧, ‘Zhouli “bilü shiwu” yu Wang Anshi baojia jingzhi yanjiu’《周礼》“比闾什伍” 与王安石保甲经制研究, Zhongguo shi yanjiu, 2, 2016, pp. 111–131. 62 P. J. Smith, ‘Shen-tsung’s Reign and the New Policies of Wang An-shih, 1067–1085,’ in Denis Twitchett and Paul Jakov Smith (eds.), The Cambridge History of China: Volume 5: The Sung Dynasty and Its Precursors, 907–1279, Part 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 407–414. 63 Smith, ‘Shen-tsung’s Reign,’ p. 408. 64 Smith, ‘Shen-tsung’s Reign,’ p. 408. 65 T. Brook, The Chinese State in Ming Society, New York, Routledge Curzon, 2005, p. 36. 66 Hsiao, Rural China, p. 27. 67 Brook, The Chinese State, p. 41. 68 Brook, The Chinese State, pp. 41–42. 69 Hsiao, Rural China, p. 43. 70 Qingchao wenxian tongkao 22/5055, translated and cited in Hsiao, Rural China, pp. 44–45. 71 Hsiao, Rural China, p. 45. 72 Hsiao, Rural China, p. 3. 73 For an overview of the hukou system in English, see Wang Feiling, Organizing Through Division and Exclusion: China’s hukou System, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2005. 74 Particularly worrying at the time of writing is the surveillance of the Muslim population in Xinjiang. 75 Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, p. 66.

2 “Consciences are not to bee forced, but to bee Wonne”1 The inward turn in Elizabethan homiletic discourse and the legal debate over the ex officio oath in the Court of High Commission, 1570–15932 Anni Haahr Henriksen Minds mattered to the Elizabethan state. Though it is perhaps best remembered for its claims to the opposite. Famously, the Elizabethan state posited that it did not wish to make windows into men’s souls.3 Officials were keen to drive home the same message in foreign affairs. In a letter to the French principal secretary, Francis Bacon assures his correspondent that Elizabeth has no interest in prosecuting the inward cogitations of her subjects. “Consciences”, he insists, “are not to bee forced, but to be wonne”.4 These claims mark a significant break from the criminalisation and politicisation of the mind that had characterised Tudor policy on obedience from the early 1530s. As such, the Elizabethan reign holds particular interest, because it openly declared to focus on outward uniformity rather than inward non-conformity. This claim drew a rhetorical legislative line between outward and inward behaviours, barring political surveillance of inward, private belief – as long as it remained inward and private. The break, however, did not last long, and the focus on inward non-conformity that began to emerge around c.1570 was bent towards circumventing and dissolving this line. In this chapter, we will examine key aspects of Elizabethan thought-surveillance by investigating how this line between inward and outward behaviours, between public interest and private mind was negotiated in official religious and legal discourse. The chapter is divided into three parts. The first part briefly introduces some of the prominent ideas about thought surveillance in the sixteenth century and situate the Elizabethan claim of disinterest in inward obedience within the context of the period. The second part argues that one of the earliest indications of the changing Elizabethan policy towards inward disobedience is pronounced in the politically motivated homily An Homilee agaynst disobedience and wyllfull rebellion, published in 1570.5 Two pivotal political events took place around the publication of this homily: the Northern Rebellion in late 1569 and the excommunication of Elizabeth by Pope Pius V in early 1570. This study argues that the papal bull of excommunication, Regnans in Excelsis, put the threat of consciences – of inward disobedience – back on the Tudor political agenda and, furthermore, that this change in the political view of inward dissent is expressed in the 1570 homily and the Acts of Parliament that were passed in the following year.

38  Anni Haahr Henriksen The third part follows up on the criminalisation of treasonous thoughts in reaction to the papal bull and asks who had the right to persecute the mind and whether consciences indeed were won, not forced. These seemingly simple questions are steeped in a complex debate over jurisdiction that centred on the powers vested in the 1583 Court of High Commission and Archbishop John Whitgift’s use of said powers in the Commission’s proceedings against suspected heterodoxy.6 The Court of High Commission was an ecclesiastical court that in the 1580s became notorious for the use of inquisitorial methods in its persecution of especially Puritan nonconformists.7 The debate over the Commission’s procedural methods is a tangle of canon and common law arguments over due process, jurisdiction and precedent, and it would be impossible to cover every aspect of the altercation here.8 Instead, this study focuses very specifically on how each side of the debate appealed to and negotiated the legislative barrier between inward and outward behaviour.

Part 1 Self-surveillance was part and parcel of Elizabethan life. Indeed, the early modern notion of conscience inherently included “self-monitoring” from above. The theologian William Perkins describes conscience as “a little god sitting in the middle of mens hearts”9 taking note of every thought, word and deed, inward or outward, secret or open. In 1589, the pamphleteer William Fulwood published a scathing broadsheet accusing John Jones of perjury in a moneylending case. The text is headed by an ominous set of spectacles in which the words “deus” and “videt” are encased within each glass. Succinctly, the penetrating glare of the spectacles serves as a verbal and visual reminder that God is ever watching and that God, unlike men, is quite capable of detecting perjury.10 Significant work across the range of historical enquiry has been done on the role of conscience in early modern England.11 Recently, Paul Strohm has contributed to this field in his illuminating study of self-surveillance that details the many-faced nature of the divine conscience in the period.12 More commonly, however, historians working on Tudor and in particular Elizabethan surveillance have concentrated on the complex networks of spies and informants, which developed under the cunning machinations of the two Elizabethan spymasters, Lord Burghley and Francis Walsingham.13 Similarly, scholars have focused on specific domestic uprisings such as the Northern Rebellion and the uprisings in the south.14 These works all include aspects of the public, mind-prying gaze of the Tudor state, but the inward aspect of surveillance has been less vigorously examined as a topic of enquiry in its own right. The important exception to this observation is C.R. Duggan’s enlightening and rigorous work on thought-control in England, 1485–1547.15 One of the key contributions in Duggan’s study is his attention to the changing legal understanding of treason that took place during the reign of Henry VIII (1509–1547). Duggan traces this development by examining the period’s changing legal interpretations of the 1352 treason law. The 1352 treason law codified

“Not to bee forced, but to bee Wonne” 39 the common law crime of treason and limited the definition of treason to a purely physical, overt act against the monarch himself, his family, seal or coin. The law opens with the formulation: “When a man doth compasse or imagine the Death of our Lord the King” it is “to be judged Treason”.16 In the late medieval common law, “compasse or imagine” referred to concrete evidence of planning or plotting to physically harm the monarch, such as written words, swords drawn or armies assembled, not spoken words or inward thoughts.17 The formulation, however, is ambiguous, and a shift towards a more intent-oriented legal interpretation happened in the 1530s. The causes behind this shift are several, but key among them was the break with Rome in 1534. In breaking with Rome, Henry VIII expanded the powers of the monarch by placing himself at the head of the church. With the expansion of the role of kingship came also an expansion of the treason laws. The new treason law in 1534 uses the medieval 1352 formulation, “compasse or imagine”, but the formulation was no longer just interpreted as pertaining to overt acts but also as pertaining to the evil intent – from which overt acts spring.18 Simply put, the interpretation moved from a common law understanding of crime as the outward criminal act to a canon law understanding of crime as the inward criminal intent. This new focus on the mind as the true progenitor and harbourer of treasonous acts finds full expression two years later in a treatise on the Remedy for Sedition by the Cromwellian propagandist Richard Morison: “There is a parte in man, whiche is named the mynde” and “if this be not handeled and ordered as it shulde be, men maye lacke sedition, but they can not lacke a thynge within them to styre them to sedition.”19 That “thynge within them” is the rebellious and disobedient mind, which, as Morison blazes, “His highness intendeth to pull aweye [by] the roote.”20 It is this overt criminalisation and targeting of the mind as a potential threat to political stability that the Elizabethan government breaks with when it declares that “Consciences are not to bee forced, but to bee wonne”21 and that the queen is not “lyking to make Windowes into Mens heartes and secret thoughtes”.22 This hiatus in the public discourse on the treasonable mind is not discussed by Duggan whose study ends with the death of Henry VIII. Inspired by Duggan’s careful work, this study examines Elizabethan rhetoric on mind-surveillance through the shifting representations of the mind in the legal and homiletic discourse around the excommunication of Elizabeth in 1570.

Part 2 The private minds of Elizabeth’s subjects came to the forefront of the Protestant establishment’s agenda in 1570. In this year, Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth and thereby nullified any bonds of allegiance and obedience sworn to the queen by her Catholic subjects. The two most direct legal responses to the excommunication were passed in Parliament in 1571: An Acte whereby certayne Offences be made Treason; and An Acte agaynste the bringing in and putting in Execution of Bulls and other Instruments from the See of Rome.23

40  Anni Haahr Henriksen Emulating the treason acts of 1352 and 1534, the first clause of the 1571 treason act opens with the words “compasse imagine” to which it appends “invent devyse or intend” in describing the first offence of high treason – namely, imagining the death or bodily harm of the queen.24 The wording follows that of the previous treason laws from 1352 and 1534, but the question is how these words are interpreted. The then archbishop, Warham, rehearses the principle in 1532, stating that “it standeth not with good lawe or reason that a man shuld be punisshed for a dede by the which no man hath damage or wrong.”25 This is the common law interpretation. And this interpretation would go well with the officially expressed Elizabethan intention not to make windows into men’s secret thoughts, but the Henrician, more canonical interpretation, seems to be at play if we look to the second legal response. In the Act against the papal bull, we find that the threat of dissentious minds and the turning of minds towards evil intent is a present concern. The Act against excommunication clearly states that any possession of the bull or talk of the excommunication would be punished as a crime of high treason. In the Act’s preamble, it is explained that the bull is prohibited because it might “estraunge and alienate the Myndes and Hartes of sundry her Majesty’s Subjects from their duetyful Obedyence” and thereby “raise and stirr Sedition and Rebellion within this Realme”.26 Minds, it seems, were by 1571 perceived as potential threats to the stability of the state and furthermore as the root causes for sedition and rebellion. Whether this perception of minds influenced the interpretation of the definition of treason is uncertain. But the strong discursive focus on minds as seedbeds for subversive acts suggests a return to the Henrician legal interpretation. An earlier indication of this return is found in the Elizabethan Homilee agaynst disobedience and wyllfull rebellion, which was printed in the late spring of 1570. Homilies were printed sermons written by leading theologians of the Tudor religious establishment to teach the correct understanding of doctrine according to the new faith.27 As head of both state and church, the Crown had direct influence on the making of these texts, and as such they should not be seen only as official religious texts but as highly political texts also. Just like the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, the homilies were a mainstay of instruction and indoctrination and thus a significant instrument in the pursuit of religious conformity and winning of consciences. Two books of homilies were in use in the Elizabethan period: The Edwardian book of homilies and the Elizabethan book of homilies. The Edwardian homilies were first published in 1547 and contained 12 sermons written to expound the new Protestant doctrine throughout the realm. The homilies served doubly in that they ensured a uniformity in how the new doctrine was preached, while also ensuring that it was preached. The homilies were meant to ensure that there was a preacher for every pulpit, and that every pulpit preached the same doctrine.28 The importance of the parish church in securing stability and peace in the tumultuous years of the English Reformation is ably demonstrated by John Cooper. Cooper convincingly argues that Henry VIII started a propaganda mill

“Not to bee forced, but to bee Wonne” 41 that had its press in London but whose success hinged on the wilful dissemination of its printed word from the parish pulpits. The parish churches were “co-opted” and where attending church formerly had been principally a social and religious act, the Tudor Reformation turned it additionally into a show of obedience and conformity.29 Royal supremacy gave the Crown a voice in every local community and thereby a prime opportunity to propagate the necessity of obedience.30 Obedience and the importance of obeying not only the laws of God but also the temporal laws of his officer on earth, i.e. the monarch, is extolled in the Edwardian book of homilies. Especially in the 12th sermon, titled “An Exhortation to Obedience”. The Elizabethan government saw the benefits of controlling preachers and pulpits through the homilies and reprinted the Edwardian book of homilies in 1559. In 1563 the Second tome of homilees was published, adding 20 new homilies to the existing 12. With little overlap between the two books, parishioners across the kingdom must have welcomed the variety that an almost tripling of the homilies constituted to their Sunday services. The royal printers, Jugge and Cawood, were kept busy with reprints and new editions. Indeed, the Second Tome of Homilees saw a second edition in 1567 as well as a third edition in 1570, and a reprint of the first book of homilies was issued in 1569.31 In short, there was no scarcity of homilies in 1570. Yet, in that same year, another homily was sent to Jugge and Cawood’s presses. The Homilee Agaynst Disobedience was printed as a small booklet, boasting an impressive 72 pages. It was divided into six parts, treating the parishioners to six consecutive weeks on the dangers of disobeying their Prince. For comparison, the Edwardian “Exhortation to Obedience” was a mere 16 pages, divided into three parts. The Elizabethan homily against disobedience was not an afterthought to the existing collections. It was purposefully written in response to the political situation at the time and purposefully written for the pulpit. It is in this homily that treason receives the qualifying adjective “inward”. we may soone knowe (good people) how heinous offence the trecherie of rebellion is, if we call to rememberance the heavie wrath and dreadful indignation of almyghtie God against such subiectes as do onlye but inwardly grudge, mutter, and murmure against their govenours, though their inward treason so privilie hatched in their breastes, come not to open declaration of their doynges.32 Attention to adjectives might seem overly pedantic, but as Wittgenstein so keenly observes, “when language games change, then there is change in concepts and with the concepts, the meanings of words change.”33 By qualifying treason as inward, the Elizabethan homiletic discourse on obedience effectuates a subtle discursive turn in the vocabulary on obedience. As such, the adjective expands the definition of treason, and in doing so it rhetorically opens up for a doctrinal and legal reinterpretation that is not unlike the Henrician interpretation expressed by Morison in 1536. In a doctrinal sense, the inward turn expanded the Pauline principle of passive outward obedience to include inward passive obedience also.34

42  Anni Haahr Henriksen Legally, treason was a crime that was firmly within the purview of the state. In qualifying treason as inward, it might be argued, the legal purview of the state was rhetorically expanded to include treasonous thoughts as well. A shift, in other words, from defining treason as an overt act to defining it as an inward offence rooted in intent, not deed. It is generally argued and agreed that the homily was written in direct response to the Northern Rebellion of 1569, which undoubtedly influenced its creation greatly, but the papal bull of excommunication is often neglected as a source of provocation for the advent of the homily. To be sure, there is no doubt that there is a strong link between the Northern Rebellion and the newfound need for an additional homily on obedience.35 The homily itself ends with “A thankes geuing for the suppression of the last rebellion.”36 W. E. Collins clearly demonstrates that thoughts were bent towards giving the rebels a form of schooling in obedience from the pulpit, and the issue of preaching itself was brought up as both a means of quenching the rebellion and as one of the irritation points for the Catholics.37 Similarly, Edmund Grindal and Edwin Sandys lay the cause of the rebellion at the feet of too little preaching, and in the heyday of the Northern Rebellion a churchwarden of Sedgefield, who was burning Protestant service books, is supposed to have gleefully declared: “Lo, see how the homilies flee to the devil.”38 I do not wish to contradict the historical evidence that points to the fact that the 1570 homily on obedience was written in response to the Northern Rebellion, but I wonder at the small influence that historians accord the papal bull. In his estimation of the effects of Pope Pius V’s excommunication of Elizabeth and absolution of all English Catholics from their oaths to the queen, Ronald Bond writes that “the bull merely posed a dilemma for loyal Catholics and exacerbated anti-Catholic sentiments within the protestant establishment.”39 I posit that the subtle discursive turn in the homiletic language of obedience that we see in 1570 to a large extent was provoked by the threat implicit in the papal bull of excommunication. Regnans in Excelsis was signed on 25 February 1570. In it, Pope Pius V declares Elizabeth a heretic and monstrous usurper, claiming that she has forced her people to accept her, on oath, as their only ruler in matters temporal and spiritual. For her crimes, the pope excommunicates Elizabeth and releases all of her Catholic subjects from any oaths sworn to the Elizabethan Crown, “to be forever absolved from any such oath and from any duty arising from lordship, allegiance and obedience”.40 Pius also charges all Catholics not to “dare obey her [the queen’s] orders, mandates and laws.”41 For, “Those who shall act to the contrary we include in the like sentence of excommunication.”42 The Northern Rebellion had posed a serious threat to the stability of the realm and potentially the safety of the Crown, but it had been open, tangible and opposable. With the papal bull on the other hand, Elizabeth faced a mighty inward threat. A threat that was rooted in the minds of her subjects, not physically fightable nor even necessarily detectable. The homiletic redefinition of treason from being an outward act to being an inward act also suggests a return to the Henrician interpretation of treason. In this shift, it might be argued that the careful line drawn between inward and outward behaviour is moved. In other words, this homiletic redefinition of treason as inward suggests

“Not to bee forced, but to bee Wonne” 43 a shift in the boundary between private mind and public interest, and this shift rhetorically extended the arm of the law into the realm of thought.

Part 3 The realm of thought and the question of who had the right to legislate it became a contentious legal issue in the 1580s and 1590s. The debate centred on the legality of the proceedings in the Court of High Commission. On one side, the Commission, led by Archbishop Whitgift and the ecclesiastical lawyer Richard Cosin, argued that it was securing the safety of the realm by rooting out religious dissent. On the other side, the opposition, led by James Morice, a courtier and MP, and Robert Beale, clerk of the privy council, argued that the proceedings used by the Commission were “a wrong and injurie to freedome”, that the Commissioners would “sift through and ransack by oath”43 the “moste secret faultes and inwarde thought”44 and that such inward thoughts were “not the judgement of man, but of God.”45 The dispute at heart was one of jurisdiction. The 1559 Act of Supremacy had converged the jurisdictions of the civil and ecclesiastical courts. This convergence decisively expanded the state’s legislative powers to prosecute its enemies and opened up for a number of legal innovations that altered the barrier between public interest and private conscience. We saw this in part II of this chapter, where the interpretation of treason moved from a strict common law interpretation towards a canon law and intent-oriented interpretation. One of the most powerful instruments of the combined jurisdictions under the royal supremacy was the Court of High Commission. On 23 September 1583, John Whitgift was appointed archbishop and head of the High Commission.46 It is over this Commission’s use of the ex officio oath against nonconformist members of the clergy that the debate over public interest and private minds, that is, over who had the right to persecute treasonous thoughts and how, began.47 Before we look into the arguments of the debate, we must learn about the ex officio oath and the Court of High Commission. The ex officio oath takes its name from the procedure under which it was tendered. This procedure is referred to as ex officio mero, that is, by virtue of the “mere office” of the judge. Procedurally, this meant that a judge might proceed on his own initiative against a person even though no public accusation had been made against the same. An oath of truth, referred to as the ex officio oath, would then be tendered to the suspect before the interrogation would begin. The oath was staggeringly open-ended and set no restrictive clauses for the extent of the examination: “you shall swear to answer to all such interrogatories as shall be offered unto you and declare your whole knowledge therein, so help you God.”48 Based upon the answers given, the judge would then estimate the innocence or guilt of the person under investigation. Evidently, this procedure put the suspect in a highly pernicious situation between perjury and self-incrimination. It should also be noted that the Commission was authorised to imprison anyone who refused the oath or remained silent in answer to the questions asked during the examination. The procedure was used in the Court of High Commission and the authority to

44  Anni Haahr Henriksen proceed ex officio derived from the Commission’s letter of patent. The 1583 Commission’s range of powers exceeded any that had gone before it during Elizabeth’s reign and consisted in particular in the power to “inquire of all heretical opinions” not only “by the oaths of twelve men and witnesses, but by all other means and ways they could devise”.49 The patent letter furthermore emphasises that suspects should be examined on the oath “for the better trial and opening of the truth” and finally instructs the Commission to “punish those that refused the oath by fine or imprisonment”.50 These liberal formulations significantly broadened the discretionary power of the Commission and, between the lines, directed the Commissioners to use the ex officio oath. As such, the 1583 Commission furnished the newly appointed archbishop with the necessary tools for apprehending nonconformity. Nonconformity was a growing issue in the early 1580s. Seminary priests from Douay were covertly flooding into the realm, preaching a return to the old faith; the Spanish Armada threatened invasion, and Puritan voices were growing increasingly critical of the Elizabethan religious settlement.51 The initial statutory authority for ecclesiastical Commissions had been passed in the reign of Henry VIII in 1535.52 Commissions were meant to be temporary, and it was not until half way through Elizabeth’s reign that a more permanent Commission was authorised and took on the full title of Court of High Commission.53 A Commission would be made up of lawyers, ecclesiastics and ministers of state, and its procedure was an amalgam of heresy trial, ordinary ecclesiastical procedure and the judicial tradition of the Privy Council.54 The need for such a composite instrument stood in direct causal relationship to the political situation. That is to say, the political situation demanded a means for the Crown to exercise its new authority, as supreme head of church and state against those members of the clergy that questioned the royal supremacy. The new archbishop, John Whitgift, was a staunch supporter of the royal supremacy, and his perception of nonconformity was not restricted to Catholics and recusants but included all forms of heterodoxy, including those Puritan Protestants that swerved too far from the appointed via media. One of the means that Whitgift devised for the Commission to catch out nonconformity was a series of 24 articles on religious doctrine that a suspect in the Court of High Commission would be examined upon and asked to subscribe to under oath. The articles were devised to ferret out any form of heterodoxy and as such posed a serious danger to inwardly dissenting members of the clergy. By targeting Protestants with Puritan sympathies, Whitgift gained a lot of powerful opponents that might not have lifted a finger against the Commission’s proceedings, had Whitgift restricted it to Catholics only.55 One of the most high-ranking opponents to the Commission’s proceedings was the Lord Treasurer, William Cecil, Lord Burghley. In June 1584, only a month after the implementation of the archbishop’s articles, Burghley sent a letter to Whitgift, criticising the Commission’s new instruments of prosecution: “But now, my good Lord, by chance, I am come to the sight of an instrument of twentyfour articles of great length and curiosity, found in a Romish stile, to examine al maner of Ministers in this time, without distinction of persons. Which articles are

“Not to bee forced, but to bee Wonne” 45 intitled Apud Lambith, May 1584, to be executed ex officio mero, &c.”56 In the letter, Burghley objects to the articles and their entrapping formulations. While he does not object to the use of the oath nor the ex officio mero proceedings per se, indeed he makes it clear that they should be used in cases of “notorious papistry and heresy”, Burghley does object to the idea that all “maner of Ministers in this time, without distinction of persons” could be examined.57 Whitgift’s response to Burghley was unapologetic. The correspondence is eloquent of the two sides of the debate, and Whitgift’s response to Burghley’s accusation that the articles were inquisitorial and captious is particularly illuminating because it points to one of the most crucial points of disagreement between the two sides: what is public and what is private, what is prosecutable and what is not. The archbishop defends the Commission by insisting that in the Court of High Commission “men are onelie examined of their publike actions in their publike calling and ministrie: whereunto in conscience they are bownd to answere.”58 The trouble with this defence was that the two sides of the debate over the legality of the Commission’s proceedings differed fundamentally in their interpretation of “public acts”. What the Commission interpreted as being within the sphere of public acts for a minister with a public calling was quite contrarily interpreted as the “secret thoughtes of mens heartes” by the Commission’s opponents.59 The question of whether something was interpreted as private or public, thought or act made the difference between legality and illegality. Nowhere is the crux of this fundamental disagreement seen more clearly than in either side’s interpretation of the nature of oaths.60 Two of the main proponents in the debate were Richard Cosin and James Morice. Richard Cosin was a member of the Commission, an ecclesiastical lawyer, Member of Parliament and had worked with Whitgift at Trinity College, Cambridge. James Morice was a common lawyer and Member of Parliament. In the years between 1590 and 1596, the two opponents bandied words over the legality of the oath through legal treatises on the subject. I will be looking at Morice’s treatise from c. 1591, titled A briefe treatise on oaths and comparing it to Cosin’s response An Apologie for sundrie proceedings iudicial printed in 1593.61 Because they were among the main proponents of the two wings in the debate, it is instructive to compare their different takes on the nature of oaths and where they place them in the Elizabethan legal landscape. James Morice defines an oath as a calling or taking to recorde or witnesse of the sacred Name of God, or of God him selfe by the vse of his holie Name, for the confirmation of the trueth of such thinges which we speake, or for the true performance of our promise . . . the heart & mouth agreeing in one.62 Morice’s definition places a finger on the peculiar in-between nature of oaths. They are outwardly spoken, yet they do not address the public state. Instead, they address the divine and call on the divine to witness the outward as well as the inward performance of what is sworn. Similarly, Richard Cosin’s definition

46  Anni Haahr Henriksen acknowledges the liminal nature of oaths, yet concludes by drawing a line that firmly places oaths in the realm of the outward. Cosin writes that “albeit an oathe, in respect of the matter concerning which it is made (for the most part) may be termed an humane and ciuill matter: yet in respect of him who is called to witnesse; it is alwayes a diuine, and a religious acte.”63 In his definition, Cosin draws up the Janus face of the nature of the oath – one human and civil, the other divine and spiritual. Yet, as Cosin forcefully accents, an oath is always a religious act. This performative label is an expression of the jurisdictional view of Whitgift’s Commission. Taking the oath was a public act, within the “publike calling and ministrie: whereunto in conscience they are bownd to answere.”64 The boundary between public calling and inward conscience is elided in the interpretation of oaths as religious acts, and once again we see that consciences are moved into the purview of the law. This interpretation of oaths as public acts practically nullified the Elizabethan pledge not to persecute consciences. One of the best sources of the pledge is the 1570 declaration given in the Court of Star Chamber. In this declaration, Elizabeth asserts that as long as they [her loving subjects] shall openly continue in the observance of her laws and shall not wilfully and manifestly break them by their open actions, her majesty’s meaning is, not to have any of them molested by any inquisition or examination of their consciences in causes of religion: but will accept and entreat them as her good and obedient subjects.65 By changing the interpretation of what a public act is, the Commission effectively expunges the otherwise clear line that this declaration draws between actions that are outward, open and public and actions that are inward, hidden and private. By tendering the oath and proceeding ex officio mero, the Commission caught its suspects in a physical and mental entrapment between perjury, imprisonment and self-incrimination. But the entrapment was not based on gnarled examinations and ex officio mero process of doing away with preliminary accusation alone. The whole premise of being able to prosecute thoughts lay in the converged jurisdictions of the courts temporal and ecclesiastical embedded in the Act of Supremacy. The Commission’s proceedings did not discern crimes of ecclesiastical misdemeanours as ecclesiastical per se but rather saw them as acts against the Queen’s laws. This interpretation of the Act of Supremacy and the wide jurisdictional discretion of the 1583 Commission furnished the court with the authority and means to take the criminalisation of thought from legal rhetoric to court prosecution. We might as well ask whether suspects were able to keep their thoughts from the scrutiny of the Commission’s prying eyes. In theory, the only way to continue in open observance of the laws and still keep one’s thoughts to oneself was to lie. As one writer against the legality of the Commission’s use of the oath ex officio wrote, the deponent “is not before he swears made acquainted or understandeth what questions or interrogatories shalbe demanded but by his oath . . . first bound and subjected to the discretion or indiscretion of his judge”.66 Proceeding without

“Not to bee forced, but to bee Wonne” 47 accusation or witnesses, the judges were depending on subjects to be entangled in the complexity of the interrogatories on which they were examined; but the Commission also counted on their suspects’ fear of God, who, unlike the Commission, could tell truth from lies and thereby detect perjury. The choice then was whether to submit to the eyes of the Elizabethan supremacy or the eyes of God. Exactly this notion that God was able to judge in matters that the courts of men were not is one of the key objections raised against the procedures used in the Court of High Commission. The opposition argued that the Commission, by prying into the consciences of subjects, was doing more than mixing the jurisdictions of church and state: it was infringing upon the jurisdiction of heaven. At the beginning of this examination of Elizabethan surveillance of inward thought, I stated that the debate over the legality of the ex officio oath, at heart, was one of jurisdiction. So far we have focused on the importance of the royal supremacy and its convergence of jurisdictions, but there is another jurisdictional aspect to the debate: namely a debate between the reach of human law and divine law, between the jurisdiction of man and the jurisdiction of heaven. As the head of the church, the monarch was the highest power in the realm, and any challenge or criticism of the Commission’s powers under the supremacy might be interpreted as an assault on the royal supremacy itself. Ingeniously, opposition to the Commission sought to circumvent this snag and set up a border between inward and outward by appealing to God, the only power higher than the Crown. Their argument was based on the canon law principle, ecclesia de occultis non iudicat: the church does not judge secret matters. This principle was rooted in the acknowledgement that all men are sinners and in a distinction between private offences and public offences to the state.67 The practice of forcing men and women to reveal every petty secret crime would of course constitute an impressive level of surveillance, but such coercion, apart from being impractical, was thought to be disruptive to social order in that it would conflate the inward penitential forum with the external.68 In canon law, there is a distinction between the external forum, which is the outward, manifest sphere governed by public authorities, and the internal forum, which is the realm of conscience governed by God. In the Catholic Church, the internal forum would also be the penitential forum and confessional forum in which a subject might seek absolution for secret crimes.69 Secret crimes or sins were actions of any kind, inward or outward, thought, word or deed, which were not publicly known. Because they were not publicly known, they could not be prosecuted. What the opposition to the Commission’s use of the ex officio oath argued was that by putting suspects under oath, the Commission could force a suspect’s conscience to accuse himself by admitting to secret crimes that would not otherwise have been publicly known. In Catholic religious confessions, of course, secret crimes were revealed to members of the church, but these members were bound by strict oaths of silence. The crimes revealed to them, petty or grave, were not for the church to openly prosecute and judge. Some parts of human life, Helmholz explains, “were inherently appropriate for the confessional, not for public ventilation.”70 Secret crimes and sins may have been understood as pertaining to

48  Anni Haahr Henriksen private shameful acts between private persons, not inward treasonous thoughts, but in the debate in the 1580s and 1590s, the opponents to the Commission’s proceedings applied the ecclesia de occultis non iuducat in order to re-establish the legislative line between outward and inward behaviours that had marked the early Elizabethan reign’s policy on heterodoxy. In applying this principle, the opposition argued for the presence of a secure inward space beyond the reach of the public eyes and penal laws. It is important to note that ecclesia de occultis non iudicat was not phrased in a language of modern subjective autonomy. Nor was the refusal to take the oath ex officio seen as “the exercise of a fundamental personal right.”71 The canon law principle means to ward off prying public officials – a principle of prudence, not a subjective right.72 Yet, in a small way, the manner in which the opposition employed the principle exhibits a vocabulary that points towards an understanding of the mind as separate and non-public and, importantly, points towards an understanding of the mind as a place that was exempt from the “surveilling” eyes of the Elizabethan state.

Conclusion In an official letter in 1589, Francis Bacon insists that in England “Consciences are not to bee forced, but to bee wonne.”73 This maxim might have applied in the early years of Elizabeth’s reign, but by 1589, the Court of High Commission had practically inverted it. The excommunication of Elizabeth had effectively released her Catholic subjects’ consciences from obedience and rendered every mind in her realm a potential source of deceit, subversion and dissent. Minds had become potential threats. In the parish church, consciences were sought to be won, and in the Court of High Commission minds were sought to be forced under the ex officio oath. The redefinition of treason in the 1570 homily on obedience heralded a change in the establishment’s stand on inward behaviour. This change rhetorically blurred the line between inward and outward – a line that the Commission’s interpretation of oaths as religious acts nullified. Concomitantly, those opposing the Commission protested and claimed that secret thoughts and consciences were the judgement of God, not of man. This protest constitutes a significant counter argument that points both towards Elizabethan attempts at a surveillance of the mind and to contemporary ideas about the mind as an inward space exempt from state surveillance. This study has examined aspects of what might be called an Elizabethan surveillance of the mind. The word “surveillance” did not enter the English language for another 200 years, but there are certain traits of monitoring and detecting in the Elizabethan pursuit of inward heterodoxy that we now associate with the term. The material on the Elizabethan period is extensive, and I have by no means covered a fraction of it. Yet, the sources examined in this study suggest that the Elizabethan stand on inward behaviour changed in 1570 from disinterest to suspicion and persecution. More boldly put, this inward turn shifted the policy on inward heterodoxy around, and by 1589 consciences were forced not won.

“Not to bee forced, but to bee Wonne” 49

Notes 1 See Francis Bacon, Early Writings, 1584–1596, A. Stewart and H. Knight, eds., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2012 (1996), p. 228. 2 This research has been conducted at the Danish Research Foundation Centre for Privacy Studies (138). I want to thank Mette Birkedal Bruun, Annabel Brett, Richard Serjeantson and John P. D. Cooper for their valuable advice and comments on this study and the William Demant foundation for their generous support. 3 The popular quote is likely a rendition of Francis Bacon’s formulation: “[The Queen is not] lyking to make Windowes into Mens heartes and secret thoughtes”. I am endebted to Richard Serjeantson for calling my attention to this source. See Bacon, Early Writings, p. 228. 4 See Bacon, Early Writings, p. 228. The letter is ghost-written for Francis Walsingham by Francis Bacon. 5 A note on spelling: I retain the original spelling where possible but expand abbreviations silently. 6 The Acts and proceedings from the Court of High Commission are lost. We have the majority of the patent letters and some records of proceedings here and there, but we are mainly left with the debate’s highly biased descriptions and discussions of the court’s proceedings. For a discussion on the loss of the official court records, see R. G. Usher, The Rise and Fall of the High Commission, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1913, pp. 38–39. 7 I use the terms “Puritan”, “Protestant” and “Catholic” when referring to adherents to the new or old faith in Reformation England. There is much discussion among Reformation historians concerning the use of these broad descriptive terms because they are later rather than contemporary historical constructions. For more information on this discussion, see: A. Ryrie, ‘Protestantism as a Historical Category,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. 26, 2016, pp. 59–77. 8 For an excellent overview of the different sides of the debate, the inter-jurisdictional battle between courts and especially between common and canon law, see R. H. Helmholz, (ed.), The Privilege Against Self-Incrimination, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1997. For a more concentrated study into the jurisdictional debate and Richard Cosin’s influence, see J. E. Hampson, ‘Richard Cosin and the Rehabilitation of the Clerical Estate in late Elizabethan England,’ PhD thesis, Scotland, University of St. Andrews, 1997. 9 W. Perkins, The Whole Treatise of the Cases of Conscience Distinguished into Three Bookes, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1606, p. 10. 10 John Fulwood, “A Spectacle for Perjurers”, London, 1589. 11 The list is potentially endless, so I will only mention a few here: within political thought, see: E. Leites, Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe, Ideas in Context, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988; literature: L. Gallagher, Medusa’s Gaze: Casuistry and Conscience in the Renaissance, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1991; law: S. Tutino, Law and Conscience: Catholicism in Early Modern England, 1570–1625, Catholic Christendom, 1300–1700, Abingdon, Routledge, 2016. 12 P. Strohm, ‘ “As a Keeper Joined to Man”: Conscience and Early Modern SelfSurveillance,’ in A. Kern-Stähler and N. Nyffenegger (eds.), Secrecy and Surveillance in Medieval and Early Modern England, Tübingen, Narr Francke Attempto, 2020, p. 199. 13 Here in particular L. Baldwin-Smith, Treason in Tudor England, Politics and Paranoia, London, Cape, 1986; A. Plowden, The Elizabethan Secret Service, Hemel Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991; Conyers Read’s work on Mr. Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 3, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1925; and, more recently, J. Cooper, The Queen’s Agent, London, Faber, 2011. 14 On these particular uprisings, see: K. J. Kesselring, The Northern Rebellion of 1569, Faith, Politics and Protest in Elizabethan England, New York, Palgrave Macmillan,

50  Anni Haahr Henriksen 2007; J. Cooper, Propaganda and the Tudor State, Political Culture in the Westcountry, Oxford Historical Monographs, Oxford, Clarendon, 2003. For a broader consideration of popular rebellion in the period, see: A. Wood, Riot, Rebellion and Popular Politics, Social History in Perspective, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. 15 C. R. Duggan, ‘The Advent of Political Thought-Control in England: Seditious and Treasonable Speech, 1485–1547,’ Unpublished PhD thesis, Evanston, Northwestern University, 1993. 16 (25 Edward c. 5) The Statutes of the Realm, 10 vols., Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1810, vol. I, pp. 319–321. 17 Duggan, ‘The Advent of Political Thought-Control in England,’ p. 18. See also pp. 29–59. 18 Duggan, ‘The Advent of Political Thought-Control in England,’ p. 41. 19 R. Morison, A Remedy for Sedition, London, [1536], p. 31. 20 Morison, A Remedy, p. 29. 21 Bacon, Early Writings, p. 228. 22 Bacon, Early Writings, p. 228. 23 (13 Elizabeth c. 2), The Statutes of the Realm, vol. IV, part I, pp. 528–529. The bull is not mentioned directly in the Act nor is it in any place indicated that the bull excommunicates the queen. It seems the Protestant establishment was keen to reveal as little as possible about the contents of the bull. In May 1570, the Catholic John Felton nailed Regnans in Excelsis to the door of the bishop’s palace in London, but the text was in Latin and hardly accessible to every man. For an excellent study of the dissemination of the bull in the 1570s and of its reissue in 1580, see: A. Muller, ‘Transmitting and Translating the Excommunication of Elizabeth I,’ Studies in Church History, vol. 53, 2017, pp. 210–222. 24 My italics. (13 Elizabeth c. 1), The Statutes of the Realm, vol. IV, part I, p. 526. 25 Quoted in Duggan, ‘The Advent of Political Thought-Control in England,’ p. 13. 26 My italics. (13 Elizabeth c. 1), The Statutes of the Realm, vol. IV, part I, pp. 528–529. 27 For a concise history of the homily from the primitive church to the Edwardian reign, see R. B. Bond, Certain Sermons or Homilies (1547) and a Homily Against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion (1570): A Critical Edition, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1987, p. 3. 28 Some preachers were licenced and therefore had the training and permission to preach their own sermons, but, as Ian Green argues “the great majority probably did no more than read out the official homilies”. See I. Green, ‘Preaching in the Parishes,’ in H. Adlington, P. McCullough and E. Rhatigan (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 138. 29 Cooper, Propaganda, p. 216. The Edwardian homilies, their origins, reception, implementation and development are discussed and clearly described in A. Null, ‘Official Tudor Homilies,’ in H. Adlington, P. McCullough and E. Rhatigan (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 348–365. 30 Cooper, Propaganda, p. 216. 31 J. Griffiths, The Two Books of Homilies, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1859, p. lxviii. 32 J. Jewel, The Second Tome of Homilees, Imprinted at London, in Poules Churchyarde, by Richarde Iugge, and Iohn Cawood, Printers to the Queenes Maiestie, 1571, pp. 583–584. My italics. The Edwardian homily on obedience touches on the inward as well but never places it within the sphere of legislation. 33 L. Wittgenstein, On Certainty, G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, eds. and Denis Paul, trans., Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, 1975, p. 18. 34 Romans 13:1–7. For a succinct discussion of the importance and uses of Romans 13 in the Elizabethan period, see G. Bowman, ‘Elizabethan Catholics and Romans 13:

“Not to bee forced, but to bee Wonne” 51 A Chapter in the History of Political Polemic,’ Journal of Church and State, vol. 47, 2005, pp. 531–544. 35 The Northern Rebellion and the issuing of Elizabeth’s excommunication were linked events. Literature has revealed close financial and political ties between the agitators of the Northern Rebellion and the papal state. For a thorough discussion of the excommunication and its links to the Northern Rebellion and wider international politics, see A. Muller, The Excommunication of Elizabeth I. Faith, Politics, and Resistance in Post-Reformation England, 1570–1603, London, Brill, 2020, chap. 1, pp. 23–29 in particular. 36 An Homelie Against Disobedience and Wylfull Rebellion, Imprinted at London, in Powles Churchyarde by Richard Iugge and Iohn Cawood, printers to the Queenes Maiestie, 1570, p. 39. 37 W. E. Collins, Queen Elizabeth’s Defence, London, SPCK, 1958, pt. II of the Appendix, p. 30. 38 Bond, Certain Sermons, p. 43; Quote from Kesselring, The Northern Rebellion, p. 2. 39 Bond, Certain Sermons, pp. 41–42. 40 J. R. Tanner, Tudor Constitutional Documents, A. D. 1485–1603, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1922, p. 146. 41 Tanner, Tudor Constitutional Documents. 42 Tanner, Tudor Constitutional Documents. 43 James Morice, A Briefe Treatise of Oathes, Middelburg, 1591, p. 8. 44 ‘A Collection of some reasons used againste the takinge of oathes by ecclesiasticall judges ex officio mero.,’ c. 1590. Lambeth Palace Library (LPL) MS 2004, folio 72v. The manuscript forms part of the Fairhurst papers acquired by the LPL in 1963. Among other Elizabethan texts, the MS contains several writs for and against the use of the ex officio oath in ecclesiastical proceedings. See E. G. W. Bill, A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in Lambeth Palace Library, MSS 1907–2340, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1976, pp. 34–37. 45 BL MS 358, fols. 200r and 222v. 46 P. Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1967, p. 243. 47 The ex officio oath was not an invention of the Elizabethan establishment. The oath had also been used under Henry VIII, under great protests and contention, to persecute Protestants. See, in particular, the trials of Sir Thomas More, Anne Askew and John Lambeth for reactions against the oath. 48 ‘A discoverie of the oath enforced upon her Majesties loving subiects by the High Comissioners in causes ecclesiasticall,’ LPL MS 445, folio 438. The Manuscript is a miscellany of separate, mainly Puritan works, collated by Archbishop William Sancroft. 49 The wording of the 1583 Commission is modelled on the Marian Commission of 1557. See Usher, The Rise and Fall, p. 23. The quotes from the 1583 patent letter are taken from Daniel Neal, who cites the text in his not unbiased history of the Puritans. See D. Neal, The History of the Puritans: Or, Protestant Nonconformists, new edition, London, Printed for Thomas Tegg, 1837, p. 269. 50 Neal, The History of the Puritans. 51 The literature on these developments is considerable. A milestone within historical enquiry into Puritan, or godly, culture in Elizabethan England is Patrick Collinson’s The Elizabethan Puritan Movement. 52 Usher, The Rise and Fall, p. 15. 53 Neal, The History of the Puritans, pp. 25, 38. Elizabeth gave statutory authority for ecclesiastical commissions in 1559. Commissions were temporary and new commissions, with a varying number of members and scopes of authority were authorised by letters patent in 1562, 1570, 1572, 1576, 1583, 1589 and 1600. See, L. H. Carlson,

52  Anni Haahr Henriksen ‘The Court of High Commission: A Newly Discovered Elizabethan Letters Patent, 20 June 1589,’ Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 45, 1982, pp. 295–315, 296. 54 Usher, The Rise and Fall, p. 15. 55 Already in 1583, Whitgift had drawn up three subscription articles that, similar to the 24 articles of 1584, were directed towards Protestant heterodoxy as much as Catholic. In particular, the third article forced members of the clergy to attest to the doctrinal truth of the Book of Common Prayer. The three subscription articles are quoted in full in J. Strype, The Life and Acts of John Whitgift, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1822, vol. 1, pp. 227–228. 56 Strype, The Life and Acts of John Whitgift, vol. 3, p. 105. 57 Strype, The Life and Acts of John Whitgift, vol. 3, p. 105. 58 Strype, The Life and Acts of John Whitgift, vol. 3, p. 109. 59 British Library Add 48064, fol. 43r. This manuscript contains the papers of Robert Beale relating to religious affairs 1535–1593. Beale was an associate of James Morice and an equally important voice in the debate over the legality of the Commission’s proceedings. The quote is taken from an address in the House of Commons against the ecclesiastical proceedings, written in 1584. 60 The importance of Cosin’s definition of oaths as acts, and the centrality of the oath in this debate is thoroughly discussed by E. Shagan, whose work I am indebted to. See E. Shagan, ‘The English Inquisition: Constitutional Conflict and Ecclesiastical Law in the 1590s,’ The Historical Journal, vol. 47, 2004, pp. 541–565. 61 See Hampson, ‘Richard Cosin,’ pp. 51–52 for a discussion of the circumstances around Morice’s treatise in the early 1590s. 62 Morice, A Briefe Treatise of Oathes, pp. 3–5. 63 R. Cosin, An Apologie for Sundrie Proceedings Iudicial, London, 1593, p. 10. 64 Strype, The Life and Acts of John Whitgift, vol. 3, p. 109. 65 Collins, Queen Elizabeth’s Defence, pt. II of the Appendix. 66 LPL MS 2004, folio 72v. 67 The legal historian Henry Ansgar Kelly distinguishes between three different crimes: open crimes, quasi-occult crimes and secret crimes. Open crimes are publicly known crimes, established through fama publica. In Elizabethan England, failing to attend church would be an open and public crime and so would refusing to take the ex officio oath. Quasi-occult crimes are crimes “known to some persons but not yet bruited abroad”. In the end, Kelly writes that “Secret crimes and sins belonged to the realm of confession to one’s parish priest.” See Kelly, ‘Oath-Taking in Inquisitions,’ Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law, vol. 35, 2018, pp. 215–241, 219. 68 Helmholz, The Privilege and the Ius Commune, p. 27. 69 Kelly, ‘Oath-Taking in Inquisitions,’ p. 219. 70 Helmholz, The Privilege and the Ius Commune, p. 27. 71 Helmholz, The Privilege and the Ius Commune, p. 27. 72 Helmholz, The Privilege and the Ius Commune, p. 27. 73 Bacon, Early Writings, p. 228.

3 Sexual surveillance in Paris and Versailles under Louis XIV1 Natália da Silva Perez

Unregulated surveillance has a range of detrimental effects on civil liberties.2 Present-day surveillance of sexual behaviour puts harmful pressures on the sexual privacy and autonomy of individuals, especially pressures on women’s reproductive rights, on the rights of sexual minorities, of victims of domestic violence, and of gendered ethnoreligious minorities.3 In this chapter, I show with the example of Ancien Régime France that surveillance as a means of disciplining unsanctioned sexual practices has a long history. In Ancien Régime France, sex was supposed to serve only to give birth to children within a marriage formalised by the Roman Catholic Church.4 At least, that is what authorities insisted in, though in reality, things were messier. In the wake of Protestant and Catholic reformations, the conjugal family acquired a central role in Christian societies, and towards the end of the seventeenth century, as postTridentine morals trickled down the socio-religious order in France and started to affect members at the periphery of society, police, church leaders, and communities increasingly scrutinised and put pressure on people who strayed from sanctioned sexual behaviour.5 In what follows, I discuss selected historical documents related to sex in Paris and Versailles during the late part of the reign of Louis XIV (1682–1715) to demonstrate how written language worked as one of the main substrates of surveillance in the Ancien Régime.6 How did police and state authorities obtain information about sexual transgressions? How did information about sexual surveillance flow through the hierarchies of power? How was this information used for the purposes of state governance? And what role did religious discourse play in these practices of sexual surveillance? To answer these questions, first, I look into historical sources where police, religious authorities, and community members appear practising surveillance related to sex. From my analyses of particular instances of surveillance, I show that one of their important effects was to protect procreation as the only licit purpose for sexual practices. Next, I discuss the theoretical legal context for sexual surveillance under Louis XIV. For that, I examine examples of prescriptive documents in which the French state shows a strong preoccupation with proper sexual behaviour. I also discuss how authorities adapted the concept of surveillance to the social position of the people under investigation. In the end, I examine the

54  Natália da Silva Perez supporting role of religious discourse in sexual surveillance by considering the example of Introduction à la vie devote, where Saint François de Sales strove to instigate his readers to diligently guard against their own sexual urges.

Written traces of sexual surveillance In the second half of the seventeenth century, as Louis XIV and his aids reorganised policing across France, sexual surveillance emerged to be an important directive. Notably, the standards for acceptable sexual behaviours enforced by the police relied on religious grounds.7 Sometimes in cooperation with the police and sometimes in an adversarial relationship with them, the discourse of the church had repercussions on the surveillance of sexual transgressions. In this section, I discuss examples of complex relationships that existed between religious authorities and police in practices of sexual surveillance. The first case I discuss deals with an investigation of alleged abortion services, the second with an investigation of a priest accused of practising sodomy, and the third with several police reports of abandoned infants. Investigation of an abortion provider In a letter written on 12 April 1685 in response to an enquiry by the Marquis de Seignelay on behalf of Louis XIV, Nicolas de la Reynie, Lieutenant-General of the Police of Paris, gave details of an investigation on a man accused of providing abortion services.8 De la Reynie reported that, sometime between 1684 and 1685, a young woman who lived in the parish of Saint-Roch in Paris found herself pregnant and tried to get an abortion. Eventually, she died due to complications from drinking an abortifacient beverage. A few days before she died, she had gone to confession with a priest at her parish and told him everything she knew: another woman had helped her to procure the services of a man known as Comte de Longueval, who prepared a beverage in two doses and gave it to her, provoking her abortion. She also said that the man had provided abortion services to other women. Thanks to a tip-off from the Saint-Roch priest, the police went and searched the house of Comte de Longueval and found out that, apart from abortion services, Longueval also dealt in horoscopes, divinations, and other “secrets.”9 From the written expressions contained in de la Reynie’s letter, both the accused and his strategies of stealth to protect his knowledge and professional practices were portrayed in negative terms: Comte de Longueval is a man pernicious to the public. His papers could not be examined by removing them from under seal, but in general, they constitute only ambiguous propositions and consultations, characters, figures, conjurations, horoscopes, and secrets to commit crimes by divination, impiety, and all the other means by which feeble minds are manipulated.10

Sexual surveillance under Louis XIV 55 De la Reynie portrayed the accused in a criminal light by calling his knowledge of abortifacients and other drugs “malheureux secrets [unfortunate secrets]”: With these, this man was equipped with instruments and drugs apparently fit for the practice of such unfortunate secrets, and perhaps abortion is not the only one he acts on because this kind of people usually can satisfy those who seek them in more than one way.11 By trying to convince Seignelay of the danger that Comte de Longueval represented, de la Reynie indirectly pleaded to the king. De la Reynie’s rhetoric emphasised the king’s duty to rid the country of such secretive villains, which he calls “pestes publiques [public plagues]”: and the King can do no greater good to his subjects than to rid them of such public plagues, which are all the more to be feared as it is almost impossible to discover crimes of this quality, as they are known only to those who commit them, and consequently to those who have an interest in hiding them.12 According to Nicolas de la Reynie’s letter, the dying young woman had asked the Saint-Roch priest to report the crime to the police so that she could “relieve her conscience and that His Majesty might be informed.”13 De la Reynie carefully explained in his letter to Seignelay that the priest was fulfilling the young woman’s wish by reporting the case to the police with all the details that he learned from her in confession. De la Reynie also praised both the woman and the priest for their cooperation and diligence as Christians: [W]ithout there been this dying girl, well acquainted with the consequences, and a confessor sufficiently well-intentioned and enlightened to understand his obligations in this respect, how would it have been apparent that we needed to search the Comte de Longueval and to suspect him of meddling in such business?14 There is a reason for de la Reynie’s insistence on the legitimacy of the priest’s report: since early in the history of the Christian church, a seal of secrecy protected the sacrament of confession.15 This rule was first recorded in the Decretum Gratiani in the twelfth century, but the principle was much older. The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 threatened to deprive a priest of office in case of violation of the seal of the confessional.16 Though the rule was not always obeyed, priests in early modern France were expected to observe confessional secrecy.17 According to canon law, not even the penitent had the authority to waive this seal: what the priest heard from the penitent during confession was heard not by the person but by God, to whom the priest was simply a minister. According to the seal of the confessional, the Saint-Roch priest was not allowed to report the abortion case to the police, even if the young woman asked him to do so. However, by

56  Natália da Silva Perez emphasising the Christian values imbued in reporting this case of abortion to the police, de la Reynie justified the priest’s infringement of his obligations to keep confession secret. As a result of this practical collaboration between the SaintRoch priest and the police, Comte de Longueval was arrested at the Bastille and remained there for many years. This case illustrates that, as a state strategy to control sexual behaviour, surveillance relied on fluid cooperation between different groups in society – in this case, a religious authority, police officers, and a civilian – and did not follow a strict top-down hierarchy. This case also shows that secret or concealed information was of particular interest in surveillance efforts, whether this information existed in the form of religious secrets (such as the young woman’s confession) or in the form of professional secrets (such as Comte de Longueval’s knowledge of abortifacients). In the end, the case also demonstrates that state surveillance depended heavily on the written page for information to flow from where it was collected to the decision-makers. A dispute over the arrest of a priest accused of sodomy Under the command of Marc-René de Voyer de Paulmy d’Argenson, who served as Lieutenant-General of the Police of Paris from 1697 to 1718, the police force counted on the help of paid informants known as mouches, whose tasks included collaborating in the surveillance of men procuring sex with other men.18 Mouches waited in public spaces and baited unsuspecting men into soliciting sex, which then they would report to a police officer, who in turn would make the arrest. A series of documents reproduced in François Ravaisson’s Archives de la Bastille shows the case of a priest arrested for soliciting sex in a public place thanks to the information collected by a mouche.19 The first document, a report from officer Aulmont the younger addressed to d’Argenson, stated that in the afternoon of 28 April 1704, Gillain, acting as one of these informants known as mouches, was at the Quai Neuf watching people bowling when Chabert de Fauxbonne, the priest, approached him and they started to chat and flirt. The priest soon suggested that they go and have a beer at Gillain’s room, but Gillain responded that he did not have time. The next day, the priest came back and started to flirt with Gillain again. They eventually went to Gillain’s room and drank a beer together. The priest Fauxbonne proposed that they both lay in bed together so that Gillain could “b. par l’arriere (sic) [fuck him from behind].”20 According to the written report, Fauxbonne removed his genitals from his pants and tried to touch Gillain’s genitals, who refused by making the excuse that he did not have time. A few days later at the Quai Neuf, the same priest approached Simonnet, who was a police officer. When the priest started to chat, Simonnet told him they did not know each other. The priest insisted on making conversation, and Simonnet decided to play along to gather information. Soon the priest suggested they go to Simonnet’s room. Once in the room – which was, in fact, a basement in the house of the officer Aulmont – the priest asked if Simonnet “ever had fun with his friends” and asked, “would you like to have fun together?”21 As before, he exposed

Sexual surveillance under Louis XIV 57 his genitals. Simonnet pretended not to understand, and the priest insisted: “How do you do it? Do you not have fun sometimes?”22 Simonnet answered vaguely but managed to learn from the priest that his name was Chabert de Fauxbonne and that he lived at rue du Sepulcre. In a letter dated 14 May 1704, Pontchartrain, Grand Chancellor of France, advised d’Argenson to act swiftly and arrest Chabert de Fauxbonne. Pontchartrain recommended that, while they waited for the interrogation, d’Argenson send the accused to the Bastille to avoid retaining him illegally: With regard to the sodomite priest, Chabert de Fauxbonne, we must lock him up in the hospital as soon as possible; I send you the order for that, which you will not execute until after you have thoroughly questioned him about the facts of which you are aware, and to avoid retaining him illegally [la chartre privée], you can put him at the B. [Bastille] for a few days, so that he can be interrogated at your convenience.23 The term chartre privée employed by Pontchartrain is worth commenting on. It directly translates as a private prison, but a more accurate sense is that of an arrest without the authority of public justice. Pontchartrain seemed concerned, in part, because the accused was a priest and as such, enjoyed special jurisdiction. Following Pontchartrain’s recommendation, Chabert de Fauxbonne was held at the Bastille for interrogation. Subsequently, he was sent to the Bicêtre hospital, as he waited to be sent to Lyon. Pontchartrain intended to “write to The Archbishop of Lyon to have him observe [the accused’s] conduct.”24 However, in a letter dated 11 February 1705, Pontchartrain told d’Argenson that the Bishop of Valence, responsible for the accused’s diocese, interfered on his behalf: The Bishop of Valence is not persuaded that Chabert, a priest of his diocese, who has been confined to the hospital, is guilty of the crime of which he is accused; I send you orders to release him, and at the same time compel him to retire to the diocese of Valence; you can give the news to the bishop, who is currently in Paris.25 It seems that Pontchartrain had no choice but to concede, on behalf of the king, to the request of the Bishop of Valence. He indeed did so but not without insisting that Chabert de Fauxbonne had to be closely watched: Regarding what you wrote to me about Chabert, priest, the king found it good that he should be set free, on the condition, however, that he retire to your diocese, where it is fairer for him to be than in any another, especially under the eyes of a prelate as attentive to good ecclesiastical morals as you are.26 In interfering on behalf of Chabert de Fauxbonne, the Bishop of Valence explicitly questioned the validity of the information obtained by the police informants

58  Natália da Silva Perez who were not, strictly speaking, part of the official chain of information gathering by the police. In this case, the state authorities had no choice but to give in and release the accused priest to the jurisdiction of his superior, the Bishop of Valence. As a strategy of surveillance, the employment of unofficial informants who acted as agents provocateurs, as in the case of mouches, was entrenched in the history of the French state. However, provocation in surveillance is widespread. I invite the reader to compare the example given earlier with strategies employed nowadays in the context of preventative policing. It is often the case that provocations incited by police initiatives result in instances of the very criminal act that the police is supposed to prevent, creating a pernicious chain where surveillance becomes self-justified. The self-justification often happens through language, as the police mobilise written chains of information to formulate the facts in a perspective favourable to their policing goals, as exemplified before. In what follows, these iterative processes of surveillance will be further elaborated. I will examine the collection of data on abandoned infants at the end of the seventeenth century in Versailles, and following that, I will discuss legislation criminalising concealed pregnancies in the Ancien Régime. Through these examples, I show that surveillance can help to create the very reality that it tries to contain. Reports on abandoned infants in Versailles During the seventeenth century, the small village of Versailles grew to a sizeable town. Though Louis XIV and his aids gave the bulk of architectural and engineering attention to the palace, urban planning for the surrounding area was also important. The Baillage Royal de Versailles was officially created in December 1693,27 though a great part of the town’s infrastructure was already in place before that. Subsequently, surveillance became an increasingly important tool to manage the population. A set of eight police reports about abandoned infants from 1697 and 1698, which I consulted at the Archives départementales des Yvelines, indicate that authorities at the local level were concerned with the religious and administrative consequences of sexual transgression. In these reports, the police collected information about an infant’s baptism (or lack thereof) for surveillance and town management efforts. On 20 October 1697, the Versailles police received a report about a baby left at the door of the Maison de Charité. From the testimony of Charité Sisters Marthe Denise and Catherine des Ecures, the person who left the baby at the door of the institution rang the bell until they were sure that someone answered. According to the description on the police report, the baby was “wrapped in nasty cloths, two nasty pieces of blanket, one of which white and the other green, with a nasty striped rag, all tattered.”28 Upon examining the baby’s body, officer Rolland Charles Fresson and the Charité sisters learned that it was a boy. They also found a note attached to the baby’s clothes, saying “This child was born on 12 October 1697 and was baptized on the same day. The name of the child: François Momoranci.”29 With the note, there was also a small handmade scapular consisting of two pieces

Sexual surveillance under Louis XIV 59 of blue woollen cloth stitched together with yellow thread, where the boy’s name, the date 12 October 1697, and some floral decorations were embroidered. The items found on the baby, as well as the insistence on ringing the bell, all indicate that the person who left the child at the Maison de Charité was concerned for the baby’s well-being. Another report from 27 February 1698 states that the infant Marie Anne Tavanne had been found abandoned at a public passage at the Grande Écurie du Roy. The police report described the baby as dressed in terrible rags.30 Two notes were found hidden in this baby’s clothes, both almost identical in content, stating that the name of the baby was Marie Anne and that she had been born and baptized on 28 January 1698. The notes also said that the baby belonged to its father, Messieur Tavanne, and proceeded to give details about his person: he was the son of Madame Merlu, who in turn worked for Messieur de Fesne, at the Grand Écurie in Versailles. The note finished with the following message, directly addressed to the baby’s father: “If you have anything to say to me, I am at Viroflay near the fountain. I don’t ask anything else, except that you take better care of your child than you did of the mother.”31 In this case, though there was evidence of baptism on the baby, the person who abandoned it seemed more concerned with reprimanding the father than with the baby’s safety, given that the baby was left in a public passage. These two babies had relatively detailed information on them when they were abandoned, including names and notes indicating the fact that they were baptized and the dates. Both cases happened just before an Arrêt de la cour de parlement from 19 March 1698,32 which would reiterate, for the first time during the reign of Louis XIV, the contents of an edict by Henri II criminalising concealed pregnancies and emphasising the obligation of the mother to baptize the infant. Could it be that the people who abandoned these infants knew about this edict by Henri II? Whether they knew or not is impossible for me to ascertain with the current information at hand, but in any case, the people who abandoned these infants must have considered the sacrament of baptism important enough to mention it in the notes they left. A third police report in the series, from 27 December 1697, states only that a note informed that “this baby received baptism and is named Catherine” but contains no more information about the child or parents. Evidently, police officers were not able to gather detailed information for all babies, despite their efforts. Five other reports in the set explicitly indicate the lack of information about the infant’s baptism and formulaically express that the child was “immediately”33 or “without fail”34 sent to be baptised. Moreover, almost all police reports indicate that the babies were left to the care of the sisters at the Maison de Charité, under the supervision of Catherine Chevreau, superior of the institution. Women’s sexual practices outside of wedlock were subject to control through surveillance because they could result in unwanted pregnancies. Authorities seem to have interpreted unwanted pregnancies in two complementary ways: an unwanted pregnancy was a strong sign of illicit sex, but such pregnancy also needed to be protected from abortion. Anonymous abandonment of unwanted

60  Natália da Silva Perez infants, in this context, was an attempt by unmarried women to escape the surveillance that state and church directed towards their bodies, at the same time avoiding having an abortion, which was considered both a crime and a sin. As we saw, this type of bodily surveillance also relied on written documentation. Religiously charged linguistic expressions (as those related to the infant’s baptism) aided in transforming facts into interpretable information in the hands of authorities, who would then use this information to shape legislation, as we will see in what follows.

Legislating sexual behaviour Louis XIV and the state authorities under his command used information gathered by the police to punish infractions according to existing laws and customs, but this information was also used to update the legal system to account for other behaviours deemed worthy of curtailment. Ideas on sexual transgressions evolved. Prostitution, public solicitation of sodomy, pregnancies outside of wedlock – especially concealed pregnancies – and infanticide were a source of preoccupation for authorities. These criminalised practices all have in common the fact that they undermined the Christian goal of procreation. Among women and men whose sexual behaviour deviated from Catholic ideals,35 those of lower social status were at higher risk to be found guilty. The edict by Henri II from February 1556 criminalising concealed pregnancies – mentioned earlier in the discussion about abandoned infants – was an example of sexual surveillance targeting women in precarious social standing. The edict stated that if a baby died without baptism, the mother who hid her pregnancy could be persecuted for infanticide:36 [A]ny woman duly found to have concealed, covered, and obscured, both her pregnancy and her childbirth, without having declared either, nor having taken sufficient testimony of either, even of the life or death of her child, at the moment it emerges from her womb, and that after this, the child is found to have been deprived of both the Sacrament of Baptism and of public and customary burial, such woman shall be taken and deemed to have murdered her child. And for reparation, punished with death.37 With a focus on those women who hid their pregnancy, this edict was reiterated twice during Louis XIV’s reign in 1698 and 1708.38 These reiterations included instructions for the edict to be publicly announced at churches every three months so that people would be informed of the law. As an indirect result, police and notarial records containing declarations of pregnancy can be found scattered in archives across the French territory. Before Henri II’s edict, “complaints of pregnancy” were already a common enough practice. They served as a means for a pregnant woman to seek reparations from a “seducteur” who abandoned her without marrying her or providing for the child.39 After Henri II’s edict, a more coercive motivation for these

Sexual surveillance under Louis XIV 61 declarations emerged: an unmarried woman had to declare a pregnancy to avoid being charged with infanticide if the baby died. The reiterations of this edict during the reign of Louis XIV followed on from this logic of surveillance of unmarried pregnant women. The crackdown by French authorities on prostitution40 and sodomy41 is well understood when it comes to Paris. Zooming in on the city of Versailles, I see a similar preoccupation with sexual propriety manifesting in a localised way. For example, in 1684 and 1687, two very similar ordinances of the king target prostitution in military camps in Versailles and its surroundings. The text’s tone is almost indignant in describing the behaviour of the women in question: His Majesty was informed that while his troops were camping last summer near Versailles, several women of ill repute came to the camp and the surrounding area to debauch the soldiers, resulting in several fights among them, in which there were some casualties. And even though some of the said women of ill repute were castigated by the hands of the executor of high justice, they came back to the vicinity of the said camp, the same women who had already been punished were found there several times.42 The law escalated the punishment from a simple corporeal penalty premised on pain to one that beyond pain also left the punished person deformed: the women of ill repute who are found there, and within a radius of two leagues, with the soldiers, shall be judged and sentenced to have their noses and ears cut off by the executor of high justice. And so that no one can claim ignorance, His Majesty also wants this letter to be published and posted in Versailles, and the surrounding villages.43 A woman whose nose and ears were cut would be very conspicuous as a culprit of sexual misconduct. This particular threat of punishment for prostitution was thus not only a way of making the guilty party pay for the crime, but also a way to signal the sexual nature of the crime to the observer.44 A woman whose nose and ears were missing would more easily be regarded as a sexual deviant and prostitute and thus subjected to stigma and more surveillance. I have not found any law from Louis XIV’s period specifying punishments for homosexual sex, but the practice had been treated as a crime for a long time in France, as we will see in what follows. In the old regime, sexual encounters between people of the same sex were variously dubbed le peché contre la nature, bougrerie, sodomie, and a range of other expressions and euphemisms.45 In legal language, sexual encounters between adults of the same sex were often conflated with sex with minors or with animals. In his 1715 book Observations et maximes sur les matières criminelles, Antoine Bruneau describes sodomy as: an abominable lust against nature, which is committed by a male with a male, or with an animal, and a person with a brute female animal. . . . In France, it is

62  Natália da Silva Perez also called masculorum concubitores, and the sin against nature: Laws speak of it with horror and with the threat of terrible punishment.46 According to several local coutûmes and laws across France, homosexual sex was officially punishable by death.47 Only after the French Revolution was it decriminalised.48 In the 1786 book Traité de la justice criminelle de France, Daniel Jousse asserted that the practice had been codified as a crime in French Law since the thirteenth-century legal code Les etablissements de Saint Louis;49 however, this idea is now contested because the term bougrerie could also have meant “heresy” in that medieval legal text.50 In any case, I surmise three points: many laws across France treated homosexual sex as a capital crime, but the application of capital punishment was rare.51 Surveillance and curtailment of homosexual encounters, however, were one of the priorities of the state. In legal texts, the female body was targeted for surveillance through visible signs. On the one hand, pregnancies outside of wedlock were taken as a sign of potential infanticide, and thus unmarried women were subjected to preventative surveillance: they needed to declare their pregnancy to avoid being charged with infanticide in case their baby happened to die. Women who engaged in prostitution were threatened with a harsh punishment that would leave a visible mark on their bodies, possibly enabling easier surveillance of subsequent misconduct. Homosexual encounters between men were not so easily controlled because they did not leave immediate visible signs. Efforts by state authorities to control these illicit sexual encounters had to rely on catching the culprits in the verge of the act, the only visible indication available. In the absence of visible signs, homosexual acts could perhaps be prevented instilling fear via the threat of capital punishment, but instilling an internal sense of religious obligation could also be very effective, as we will see next.

Teaching religious sexual propriety In his Introduction à la vie devote, a very popular religious manual in France during the seventeenth century, François de Sales provided ample guidance on how a devout person was expected to behave regarding sex. Or rather, the author strongly encouraged the reader to abstain from any sexual encounter not premised on procreation, especially outside of wedlock. Addressing lay readers, most of whom did not have any access to formal religious education, his approach was didactic; the book was a conversation between the author and an imagined reader called Philotée, the lover of God. As a book for people who lived in the default world – as opposed to those who led a religious life in a convent or monastery – Introduction à la vie devote was clear: sex just for pleasure was not a licit activity for an ideal Christian. For example, in the chapter “Advis pour conserver la chasteté,” François de Sales advised his imagined interlocutor to keep far away from bodily temptation: Be ready to turn away from any lecherous path or lustful bait, because such evils can act imperceptibly, and little by little they make progress towards great trouble: it is always easier to flee than to heal.52

Sexual surveillance under Louis XIV 63 Responding in part to pressures put on Catholic piety by the Protestant Reformation, François de Sales attempted to instigate the reader to develop an internal sense of sexual propriety. He did not put so much emphasis on externally imposed barriers to sexual behaviour. The practical devout life implied in his book did not depend on outward signs of religiosity but rather on an internal feeling about what was good or bad behaviour. For this internal feeling to be cultivated, an effort was required, and proper sexual behaviour was at the centre of these concerns: Human bodies are like glasses, which cannot be carried in contact with each other without the chance of breaking, or to whole, well-ripened fruits, which get blemished from touching one another. Even water, however fresh it may be in a vase, if touched by some land animal, cannot keep its freshness for long. Never allow, Philothée, anyone to touch you uncivilly, neither by way of folly nor favour; for although chastity can be preserved in such adventures, that are rather light than malicious, if it is so, the freshness and flower of chastity always receive some detriment and loss. But allowing oneself to be touched dishonestly means the entire ruin of chastity.53 For François de Sales, the only licit frame for sexual encounters – whose main goal was procreation within the parameters of Christianity – was within marriage, which he described poetically as the seedbed of Christianity, filling the earth with faithful people to achieve the number of elected in Heaven; so much so that the preservation of marriage welfare is extremely important for society, for it is its root and the source of all its streams.54 Following this logic, he also discussed the responsibility of parents towards their children. Parents must educate their children within the Christian faith and teach them to obey God: “once children come onto this earth and start to use reason, their fathers and mothers must diligently instil the fear of God in their hearts.”55 For François de Sales, material goods did not constitute a good house; it was the care for the children that mattered: Indeed, races and generations are called houses in our language and the Hebrews even refer to the generation of children as house building; it is in this sense that it is said that God built houses for the wise women of Egypt. To build a good house is not to stuff many worldly goods into it, but to raise children well, in virtue and fear of God. One must not spare any pain or work in such a task because children are the crown of the father and the mother.56 From François de Sales’ perspective of religious obligations regarding procreation, to engage in homosexual sex, practice contraception, masturbate, abort a pregnancy, expose or abandon an infant, all were serious offences for a Christian

64  Natália da Silva Perez devout. All of these actions would obstruct the ultimate goal of procreation, thus hindering the “seedbed of Christianity.”

Conclusion Early modern French authorities’ discourses about sexual behaviour allowed the conjugal couple to have sex for the purposes of procreation; anything else was considered sinful, criminal, or both. When it came to applying these idealised principles, the situation changed depending on the person accused of sexual transgression. As exemplified by the case of Chabert de Fauxbonne, the priest accused of procuring sex with other men, those who enjoyed the privileged social position of being official members of the church were brought to a lesser level of scrutiny as they enjoyed special jurisdiction. Women who found themselves pregnant outside of wedlock – indeed a very precarious social position in seventeenthcentury France – were automatically placed under surveillance, practically treated as guilty until proven innocent, as can be surmised by the edict against concealed pregnancies. The several reports of abandoned infants, in turn, show that women were sometimes under such severe constraints that they could not fulfil the roles expected from them by society, the state, and the church. As we can see from my discussion, sexual surveillance emerged from the aggregation and iteration of seemingly independent forces of the state, church, and community. Surveillance was not simply an effect of the strong arms of an absolutist government. Religious, legal, and communal forces all coalesced in putting pressure on women and men whose sexual practices did not conform to authorised prescriptions. Thus, the need for sexual privacy is evident in historical sources well before our times, even though privacy was not a protected right. These examples from Ancien Régime France, which highlight surveillance’s chilling effects on the sexual autonomy of individuals, emphasise the need to protect privacy not only as a value but also as a robust legal principle that can serve as a pillar of democratic societies. If sexual surveillance today happens in a historical continuum with the sexual surveillance of the past, an understanding of this long history can contribute to buttressing and nuancing arguments in defence of the right to sexual privacy against coercion by governments, religious authorities, and moral communities of today.

Notes 1 This research was funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF 138). I would like to thank my colleagues at the Centre for Privacy Studies, the attendees of the Annual Conference of the Society for French Historical Studies in 2019 as well as those at the 2018 conference “The Eyes and Ears of Power – Surveillance, History and Privacy” for kindly providing feedback on early versions of this text. 2 See, for example, S. Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, London, Profile Books, 2019; D. E. Danning, ‘Power Over Information Flow,’ in E. Katz and R. Subramanian (eds.), The Global Flow of Information: Legal, Social, and Cultural Perspectives, New York, New York

Sexual surveillance under Louis XIV 65 University Press, 2011; D. L. Burk, ‘Algorithmic Fair Use,’ The University of Chicago Law Review, vol. 86, no. 2, April 2019, pp. 283–307; N. Elkin-Koren and M. S. Gal, ‘The Chilling Effect of Governance-by-Data on Data Markets,’ The University of Chicago Law Review, vol. 86, no. 2, April 2019, pp. 403–431; J. W. Penney, ‘Internet Surveillance, Regulation, and Chilling Effects Online: A Comparative Case Study,’ Internet Policy Review, vol. 6, no. 2, May 2017, https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/ internet-surveillance-regulation-and-chilling-effects-online-comparative-case. 3 S. Dasgupta and S. Dasgupta, ‘The Public Fetus and the Veiled Woman,’ in R. E. Dubrofsky and S. A. Magnet (eds.), Feminist Surveillance Studies, Durham, Duke University Press, 2015; D. E. Roberts, ‘Race, Gender, and Genetic Technologies: A New Reproductive Dystopia?,’ in R. E. Dubrofsky and S. A. Magnet (eds.), Feminist Surveillance Studies, Durham, Duke University Press, 2015; Lisa Jean Moore and Paisley Currah, ‘Legally Sexed: Birth Certificates and Transgender Citizens,’ in R. E. Dubrofsky and S. A. Magnet (eds.), Feminist Surveillance Studies, Durham, Duke University Press, 2015; P. P. Choudhury, ‘The Violence That Dares Not Speak Its Name: Invisibility in the Lives of Lesbian and Bisexual South Asian American Women,’ in S. D. Dasgupta (ed.), Body Evidence: Intimate Violence Against South Asian Women in America, New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 2007. 4 Philip L. Reynolds, How Marriage Became One of the Sacraments: The Sacramental Theology of Marriage from Its Medieval Origins to the Council of Trent, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp. 977–979; K. von Greyerz, Religion and Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1800, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008; H. Phillips, Church and Culture in Seventeenth-Century France, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002. 5 See P. F. Riley, A Lust for Virtue: Louis XIV’s Attack on Sin in Seventeenth-Century France, Westport, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001, pp. 49–82. 6 For an account of the role of state bureaucracy in information gathering and surveillance, see J. Soll, The Information Master: Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s Secret State Intelligence System, Cultures of Knowledge in the Early Modern World, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2009. 7 Consider the creation of the office of Lieutenant-General of the Police in 1667, for example, and its emphasis on sanitising the city. See Jacques Saint Germain, La Reynie et la police au grand siècle: d’après de nombreux documents inédits, Paris, Hachette, 1962. 8 This letter is reproduced in F. Ravaisson (ed.), Archives de la Bastille: Documents inédits recueillis et publiés par François Ravaisson – Règne de Louis XIV (1675–1686), vol. 8, Paris, Durand, 1866, pp. 305–306, http://archive.org/details/archivesdelabast08rava. 9 Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille, vol. 8, p. 306. 10 “le comte de Longueval est un homme pernicieux au public ; ses papiers n’ont pu être examinés en les tirant de sous le scellé; mais, en général, ce ne sont que propositions et consultations ambiguës, caractères, figures, conjurations, horoscopes et secrets pour parvenir à des crimes par la divination, par les impiétés et par toutes les autres voies par lesquelles on a accoutumé d’y conduire les esprits faibles.” Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille, vol. 8, p. 306. All translations are mine, unless otherwise indicated. 11 “Avec cela, cet homme est fourni d’instruments et de drogues qui sont apparemment propres à l’usage de ces malheureux secrets, et peut-être que celui des avortements n’est pas le seul dont il se sert, car cette sorte de gens ont d’ordinaire de quoi satisfaire de plus d’une façon ceux qui s’adressent à eux . . .” Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille, vol. 8, p. 306. 12 “. . . et le Roi ne saurait faire un plus grand bien à ses sujets que de continuer à les délivrer de ces pestes publiques, qui sont d’autant plus à craindre qu’il est presque impossible de découvrir les crimes de cette qualité, n’étant connus que de ceux qui les commettent, et de ceux, par conséquent, qui ont intérêt de les cacher . . .” Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille, vol. 8, p. 306.

66  Natália da Silva Perez 13 “. . . pour la décharge de sa conscience, et afin que S.M. en fût avertie . . .” Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille, vol. 8, p. 305. 14 “. . . à moins qu’il ne se fût trouvé une fille mourant, assez instruite des conséquences, et un confesseur assez bien intentionné et assez éclairé pour entendre ses obligations à cet égard, quelle apparence y aurait-il eu d’aller chercher le comte de Longueval et de le soupçonner seulement de se mêler d’un tel commerce ?” Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille, vol. 8, p. 306. 15 A. A. Larson, Master of Penance, Washington, DC, Catholic University of America Press, 2014, pp. 221–222. 16 “Constitution 21: On Yearly Confession to One’s Own Priest, Yearly Communion, the Confessional Seal,” in Fourth Lateran Council, Papal Encyclicals, 1215, www. papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum12-2.htm. 17 E. Lochon, Traité du secret de la confession, pour servir d’instruction aux confesseurs et pour rassurer les penitents, Paris, Simart, 1708. 18 M. Rey, ‘Police et sodomie à Paris au XVIIIe siècle: du péché au désordre,’ Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, vol. 29, no. 1, 1982, p. 114, doi:10.3406/ rhmc.1982.1179; H. P. Anderson, ‘The Police of Paris Under Louis XIV: The Imposition of Order by Marc-Rene de Voyer de Paulmy d’Argenson, Lieutenant General de Police (1697–1718),’ PhD dissertation, Ohio State University, 1978, p. 143, http:// search.proquest.com/docview/287987417/citation/3836030C710A41A7PQ/1. 19 Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille. 20 In the published source, the word that appears truncated as “b.” probably stands for baiser, for which the English “fuck” is an apt translation. Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille, vol. 11, p. 214. 21 “Vous vous divertissez quelquefois avec vos amis, ça, voulez-vous que nous nous divertissions ensemble . . .” Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille, vol. 11, p. 214. 22 “Comme vous faites? Est-ce que vous ne vous divertissez pas quelquefois?” Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille, vol. 11, p. 214. 23 “A l’égard du prêtre sodomite, Chabert de Fauxbonne, on ne peut trop tôt l’enfermer à l’hôpital; je vous adresse l’ordre pour cela que vous ne ferez exécuter néanmoins qu’après que vous l’aurez interrogé à fond sur les faits dont vous avez connaissance, et pour éviter la chartre privée, vous pouvez le faire mettre à la B. [Bastille] pour quelques jours, afin de lui faire subir l’interrogatoire à votre commodité.” Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille, vol. 11, p. 215. 24 “Versailles, 5 juillet 1704. Je vous adresse l’ordre pour tirer de la B., Chabert de Fauxbonne, et l’envoyer à l’hôpital pour 6 mois, d’où il ne sortira que pour se rendre au diocèse de Lyon, auquel temps j’écrirai à M. l’archevêque de Lyon de faire observer sa conduite.” Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille, vol. 11, p. 215. 25 “Versailles, 11 février 1705. M. l’évêque de Valence n’est pas persuadé que Chabert, prêtre de son diocèse, qui a été renfermé à l’hôpital, soit coupable du crime dont il est accusé; je vous envoie les ordres pour l’en faire sortir, et l’obliger en même temps à se retirer au diocèse de Valence; vous pourrez en donner avis à l’évêque, qui est actuellement à Paris.” Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille, vol. 11, p. 216. 26 “Versailles 11 février 1705. Sur ce que vous m’avez écrit concernant Chabert, prêtre, le Roi a trouvé bon qu’il fût mis en liberté, à condition néanmoins qu’il se retirera dans votre diocèse, où il est plus juste qu’il soit que dans un autre, particulièrement sous les yeux d’un prélat aussi attentif que vous êtes aux bonnes mœurs des ecclésiastiques.” Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille, vol. 11, p. 216. 27 V. Maroteaux, ‘Une curiosité institutionnelle: l’administration du domaine de Versailles sous l’Ancien Régime,’ Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes, vol. 143, no. 2, 1985, p. 290, doi:10.3406/bec.1985.450382. 28 “Enveloppé de mechants linges, de deux mechants morceaux de couverture dont un blanc et l’autre vert avec un mechant haillon rayé tous dechiré en lambeaux.” “Procés

Sexual surveillance under Louis XIV 67 verbal d’enfant trouvé de 20 octobre 1697 (François Momoranci),” Archives départementales des Yvelines, Collection Série B, Bailliage Royal de Versailles, Pièces du Greffe, Cote B3630. 29 “Cet Enfans a esté né le 12 octobre 1697 et a esté baptisé le mesme jour. Le nom de L’Enfans François Momoranci.” “Procés verbal d’enfant trouvé de 20 octobre 1697 (François Momoranci)”. 30 “mechants linge piqué” “Procés verbal d’enfant trouvé du 27 février 1698 (Marie Anne Tavanne),” Archives départementales des Yvelines, Collection Série B, Bailliage Royal de Versailles, Pièces du Greffe, Cote B3632-B3633. 31 ‘Procés verbal d’enfant trouvé du 27 février 1698 (Marie Anne Tavanne),’ Archives départementales des Yvelines, Collection Série B, Bailliage Royal de Versailles, Pièces du Greffe, Cote B3632-B3633. 32 ‘Arrêt de la cour de parlement du dix-neuf mars 1698,’ in G. R. de la Combe (ed.), Traité des matières criminelles, suivant l’ordonnance du mois d’aout 1670 et les Edits, Déclarations du Roi, Arrêts et Réglemens intervenu jusqu’à présent, Le Gras, 1762, pp. 525–526. 33 “incessamment,” ‘Procés verbal d’enfant trouvé du 16 aout 1698,’ Archives départementales des Yvelines, Collection Série B, Bailliage Royal de Versailles, Pièces du Greffe, Cote B3632-B3633; “Procés verbal d’enfant trouvé du 27 aout 1698,” Archives départementales des Yvelines, Série B, Bailliage Royal de Versailles, Pièces du Greffe, Cote B3632-B3633. 34 “sans faut,” ‘Procés verbal d’enfant trouvé du 2 avril 1698,’ Archives départementales des Yvelines, Série B, Bailliage Royal de Versailles, Pièces du Greffe, Cote B3632-B3633; ‘Procés verbal d’enfant trouvé du 9 décembre 1698,’ Archives départementales des Yvelines, Série B, Bailliage Royal de Versailles, Pièces du Greffe, Cote B3632-B3633. 35 Riley, A Lust for Virtue, p. xiv. 36 ‘Édit du roi Henri II du mois de février 1556,’ in G. R. de la Combe (ed.), Traité des matières criminelles, suivant l’ordonnance du mois d’aout 1670 et les Edits, Déclarations du Roi, Arrêts et Réglemens intervenu jusqu’à présent, Le Gras, 1762, pp. 525–526. 37 “toute femme qui se trouvera deuement atteinte et convaincue d’avoir celé, couvert et occulté, tant sa grossesse que son enfantement, sans avoir déclaré l’un ou l’autre, et avoir prins de l’un ou de l’autre témoignage suffisant, même de la vie ou mort de son enfant, lors de l’issue de son ventre, et qu’après se trouve l’Enfant avoir esté privé tant du saint sacrement de baptême, que sépulture publique et accoutumée, soit telle femme tenue et réputée d’avoir homicide son Enfant. Et pour réparation, punie de mort . . .” in G. R. de la Combe (ed.), Traité des matières criminelles, suivant l’ordonnance du mois d’aout 1670 et les Edits, Déclarations du Roi, Arrêts et Réglemens intervenu jusqu’à présent, Le Gras, 1762, pp. 525–526. 38 de la Combe, Traité des matières criminelles, p. 20, 525. 39 See M. C. Phan, ‘Les déclarations de grossesse en France (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles): essai institutionnel,’ Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, vol. 22, no. 1, 1975, pp. 61–88; D. Riet, ‘Les déclarations de grossesse dans la région de Dinan à la fin de l’Ancien Régime,’ Annales de Bretagne et des pays de l’Ouest, vol. 88, no. 2, 1981, pp. 181–187, doi:10.3406/abpo.1981.3043; ‘Édit du Roi Henri II du mois de février in de la Combe,’ pp. 523–525. 40 See Riley, A Lust for Virtue. 41 Rey, ‘Police et sodomie à Paris au XVIIIe siècle’; J. Merrick, ‘Sodomites and Police in Paris, 1715,’ Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 42, no. 3, April 2002, pp. 103–128, doi:10.1300/J082v42n03_07; J. Merrick, ‘Sodomitical Inclinations in Early EighteenthCentury Paris,’ Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 30, no. 3, 1997, pp. 289–295, doi:10.1353/ecs.1997.0022; L. C. Seifert, ‘Masculinity and Satires of “Sodomites”

68  Natália da Silva Perez in France, 1660–1715,’ Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 41, no. 3–4, January 2002, pp. 37–52, doi:10.1300/J082v41n03_04. 42 ‘Ordonnance du Roy du 18 Mars 1687,’ “Sa majesté ayant été informée que pendant le campement que ses troupes ont fait l’été dernier près de Versailles, plusieurs filles de mauvaise vie sont venues dans le camp, et dans les environs pour y débaucher les soldats, ce qui a donné lieu à plusieurs batteries entre eux, dans lesquelles il y en a eu de tués. Et quoi que quelques-unes desdites filles de mauvaise vie aient été fustigées par les mains de l’exécuteur de la haute-justice, elles n’ont pas laissé de retourner aux environs du dit camp ; celles mêmes qui avaient déjà été châtiées y ayant encore été rencontrées plusieurs fois,” in Reglemens et ordonnances du Roy pour les gens de guerre, Tome V, Paris, François Muguet, 1701, pp. 326–328. See also ‘Ordonnance du Roy du 31 Octobre 1684,’ pp. 146–148. 43 “les filles de mauvaise vie qui y seront trouvées, et à deux lieues aux environs avec les soldats, soient jugées et condamnées à avoir le nez et les oreilles coupées par l’exécuteur de la haute-justice. Et afin que personne ne puisse prétendre cause d’ignorance, sa Majesté veut aussi que la présente soit publiée et affichée audit Versailles, et dans les villages des environs.” Reglemens et ordonnances du Roy pour les gens de guerre, Tome V, pp. 327–328. 44 According to Patricia Skinner, the idea of cutting the nose as a punishment for prostitution comes from a biblical passage from Ezekiel where God threatens to punish Oholibah for that crime: “They will cut off your noses and your ears, and those of you who are left will be consumed by fire”, Ezekiel 23:25. Skinner explains that “The plural of nose used in the language here implies that the biblical punishment of Oholibah would be meted out to any other woman who persisted in lewdness and prostitution.” P. Skinner, ‘The Gendered Nose and Its Lack: “Medieval” Nose-Cutting and Its Modern Manifestations,’ Journal of Women’s History, vol. 26, no. 1, 2014, p. 5, doi:10.1353/ jowh.2014.0008. 45 See M. Sibalis, ‘Homosexuality in Early Modern France,’ in Katherine O’Donnell and Michael O’Rourke (eds.), Queer Masculinities, 1550–1800: Siting Same-Sex Desire in the Early Modern World, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 212, doi:10.1057/9780230524156_12. 46 “La sodomie . . . est une luxure abominable contre nature, qui se commet par um mâle avec un mâle, ou avec un animal, et une personne avec une femele animal brute . . . En France on l’appelle aussi masculorum concubitores, et le peché abominable contre nature: les Loix n’en parlent qu’avec horreur et avec des menace de punition terrible.” A. Bruneau, Observations et maximes sur les matières criminelles, vol. 2, Paris, Guillaume Cavelier, 1715, p. 403, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k96158389. 47 D. Jousse, Traité de la justice criminelle de France, Tome Quatrieme, Paris, Chez Debure Pere, 1771, pp. 119–122, items 4 to 9. 48 Sibalis, ‘Homosexuality in Early Modern France,’ p. 212. 49 Jousse, Traité de la justice criminelle de France, Tome Quatrieme, p. 119, item 4. 50 See F. R. P. Akehurst, The Etablissements de Saint Louis: Thirteenth-Century Law Texts from Tours, Orleans, and Paris, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015, p. 59, note 119. 51 Sibalis, ‘Homosexuality in Early Modern France,’ p. 212. 52 “Soyés extremement prompte a vous destourner de tous les acheminemens et de toutes les amorces de la lubricité, car ce mal agit insensiblement, et par des petitz commencemens fait progres a des grans accidens : il est tous-jours plus aysé a fuir qu’a guerir.” F. de Sales, Œuvres de saint François de Sales, évêque de Genève et docteur de l’Église, Tome Troisième, Introduction a la vie devote, J. J. Navatel, H. B. Mackey and L. Isoard (eds.), Annecy, Monastère de la Visitation, J. Niérat, 1893, p. 181, https:// gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9645908b. 53 “Les cors humains ressemblent a des verres, qui ne peuvent estre portés les uns avec les autres en se touchant sans courir fortune de se rompre, et aux fruitz, lesquelz, quoy

Sexual surveillance under Louis XIV 69 qu’entiers et bien assaisonnés, reçoivent de la tare s’entretouchans les uns les autres. L’eau mesme, pour fraische qu’elle soit dedans un vase, estant touchee de quelque animal terrestre ne peut longuement conserver sa fraischeur. Ne permettes jamais, Philothee, qu’aucun vous touche incivilement, ni par maniere de folastrerie ni par maniere de faveur; car bien qu’a l’adventure la chasteté puisse estre conservee parmi ces actions, plustost legeres que malicieuses, si est ce que la fraischeur et fleur de la chasteté en reçoit tous-jours du detriment et de la perte mays de se laisser toucher deshonnestement, c’est la ruine entiere de la chasteté.” de Sales, Œuvres de saint François de Sales, p. 97. 54 “C’est la pepiniere du Christianisme, qui remplit la terre de fideles pour accomplir au Ciel le nombre des esleuz ; si que la conservation du bien du mariage est extremement importante a la republique, car c’est sa racine et la source de tous ses ruisseaux.” de Sales, Œuvres de saint François de Sales, p. 263. 55 “Mays les enfans estans venus au monde et commençans a se servir de la rayson, les peres et meres doivent avoir un grand soin de leur imprimer la crainte de Dieu au cœur.” de Sales, Œuvres de saint François de Sales, p. 271. 56 “Certes, les races et generations sont appellees en nostre langage, maysons, et les Hebreux mesme appellent la generation des enfans, edification de mayson, car c’est en ce sens qu’il est dit que Dieu edifia des maysons aux sages femmes d’Egypte. Or c’est pour monstrer que ce n’est pas faire une bonne mayson de fourrer beaucoup de biens mondains en icelle, mais de bien eslever les enfans en la crainte de Dieu et en la vertu : en quoy on ne doit espargner aucune sorte de peyne ni de travaux, puisque les enfans sont la couronne du pere et de la mere.” de Sales, Œuvres de saint François de Sales, pp. 271–272.

4 Convict surveillance and reform in theory and practice Jeremy Bentham versus New South Wales Matthew Allen Jeremy Bentham is famous as a pioneer of modern surveillance, most notably for his panopticon, a circular prison with a central tower that ensured inmates were always watched. In his initial explanation of the panopticon, he first devised the “inspection principle” – a theory of oversight and transparency underlying both the prison’s design and many of his broader ideas about government – and argued that surveillance was the key to effective punishment and in particular to ensuring that prisoners were genuinely reformed.1 The panopticon was both a theoretical ideal of perfect surveillance and a practical design for a prison that maximised inspection in the interests of reform through a “simple idea in Architecture”.2 He stressed that: the more constantly the persons to be inspected are under the eyes of the persons who should inspect them, the more perfectly will the purpose of the establishment have been attained. Ideal perfection, if that were the object, would require that each person should actually be in that predicament, during every instant of time. This being impossible, the next thing to be wished for is, that, at every instant, seeing reason to believe as much, and not being able to satisfy himself to the contrary, he should conceive himself to be so.3 This distinction between the theory and practice of surveillance was implicit throughout his extensive writings on the panopticon, notably in his critical analysis of rival forms of punishment.4 Bentham spent over a decade fruitlessly attempting to persuade the British government to build panopticons under his management, but his plans were never realised, largely because the government decided to transport convicts to New South Wales (NSW).5 As a consequence, Bentham undertook a detailed critical analysis of the penal colony, and much of his argument centred on its practical inadequacy as a reformatory, which he attributed to its failure to come close to the ideal of perfect surveillance. This chapter uses Bentham’s critique to historicise his theory of reformative surveillance, contrasting it with contemporary surveillance practices in early NSW. I argue that Bentham misunderstood the significance of surveillance in the penal colony and failed to appreciate the difference between surveillance in theory and practice. In fact, NSW was designed around

Convict surveillance and reform 71 an intensive system of convict surveillance and the failure to implement this effectively reflected the limitations of early modern policing which Bentham himself had drawn attention to. Convicts were not subject to perfect surveillance in NSW, but as Bentham well knew, neither were the deviants in England.

Bentham versus New South Wales In 1802, Bentham addressed a series of public letters to the Home Secretary, Lord Pelham, which sought to demonstrate that transportation was a flawed means of punishing convicts and that NSW was illegally governed.6 The latter argument played a significant role in Australian history, helping to inform the political campaign against unchecked gubernatorial authority that culminated in the removal of the colony’s fourth Governor, William Bligh, in a military coup – commonly known as the rum rebellion – in 1808.7 More broadly, as Phillip Schofield has suggested, these letters form part of a significant “transition” in Bentham’s thought towards political radicalism as he became increasingly critical of the corrupt and lawless nature of eighteenth-century British government and its privileging of “sinister interest” over the common good.8 But they are also important to the history of surveillance. Bentham was inspired to write by a Home Office review of the relative merits of penitentiaries and transportation as systems of punishment, and he reacted against its recommendation that existing plans to build prisons (potentially panopticons under Bentham’s management) should be abandoned given the “improved state” of the penal colony.9 To dispute this claim, he sought to show that transportation, especially to a dedicated penal colony like NSW, was inferior to imprisonment, particularly in a panopticon. NSW was flawed in relation to all five possible “ends of penal justice”: setting an “Example” to others, “Reformation” of the offender, preventing recidivism through “Incapacitation”, providing “Compensation” to the victim, and ensuring “Economy” for the state.10 He explored each of these “ends” in some detail, but I will focus on his discussion of reformation because it is in this context that Bentham was most explicit about the problem of surveillance in NSW. Crucial to his argument was his critical comparison of the perfect surveillance of convicts within his proposed panopticon, with the “radical incapacity of . . . any efficient system of inspection” in NSW.11 He theorised that “Inspection” was “the only effective instrument of reformative management” since delinquents, especially criminals, “may be considered as persons of unsound mind. . . [or] a sort of grown children” who required “particularly close” surveillance to ensure that they behaved.12 But such close inspection was impossible in practice in NSW, an open prison where convicts had considerable freedom. This theoretical critique was supported by a profusion of evidence, largely drawn from the recently published accounts of the colony, written by its first Judge-Advocate, David Collins.13 Bentham argued that Collins’ Account demonstrated that NSW was a failure since only a tiny minority of the convicts were reformed, and “the longer they stay in that scene of intended reformation, and

72  Matthew Allen the more they are left to themselves . . . the worse they are”.14 He cited numerous examples of crime and disorder, arguing that due to the impossibility of adequate inspection, NSW corrupted rather than reformed its convicts. In particular, drunkenness was “universal”, religious instruction was “odious and easily eluded” and the convicts were frequently idle and refused to work.15 He contrasted the absence of inspection – and consequently reformation – in NSW with a series of alternative and superior punishments including the earlier system of transportation to the American colonies, modern penitentiaries in Philadelphia and New York, confinement with hard labour in the hulks on the Thames, and, best of all, his proposed panopticon.16 Thus, Bentham concluded that NSW was “supremely unfavourable” as a reformatory, “by reason of the promiscuous and unbounded association [of convicts], joined to much opportunity of sloth and to unbounded drunkenness”, all of which were largely due to the impossibility of close surveillance.17 Bentham’s arguments in these letters were both dogmatic and self-serving. As a prospective contractor of a government-funded panopticon, for which he had already been advanced £36,000, he stood to profit substantially if transportation ceased, and he came to his analysis of the colony with preconceived views about convict reform.18 To support his theory of reformative surveillance, Bentham depended on a partial reading of Collins’ works, which he ransacked for examples of corruption, illegality and disorder, while ignoring evidence that did not suit his agenda. Just as importantly, writing from London and without access to the correspondence between colonial officials and the Home Office, Bentham was not in the best position to closely scrutinise colonial affairs. As a consequence, he failed to adequately recognise the considerable efforts that the colonial authorities had made to subject convicts to surveillance. The Governors and their Officials sought to supervise convict labour, police their conduct, control their movements and keep detailed records about them; they even designed the early settlements with convict visibility in mind. At least in theory, convict reform was closely monitored in NSW. In this chapter, I will use Bentham’s critique of NSW to explore the relationship between the theory and practice of surveillance, specifically in reference to the vexed problem of reforming convicts. First, I relate Bentham’s critique to his earlier (pre-1802) writing on punishment, reform and surveillance, demonstrating the development of his thinking and its underlying consistency. Then I contrast Bentham’s ideas with the reality of controlling convicts in the penal colony in order to historicise both Bentham’s theories and colonial practices. I argue that, at the time Bentham wrote, convicts in NSW were actually subject to a remarkably comprehensive system of surveillance which sought to constantly monitor, discipline and record them. The problems which Bentham identified were not theoretical but practical and reveal the fundamental challenge of close surveillance, given the constraints of contemporary technology and governmentality.

Theorising and historicising surveillance This argument builds on the growing scholarship on surveillance in general and on Bentham and the panopticon in particular and is grounded in the historical

Convict surveillance and reform 73 context of surveillance thought and practice around the turn of the nineteenth century. Surveillance takes many forms and emerges from many distinct traditions, including labour management, modern state bureaucracy, criminal justice and concern for visibility.19 Christopher Dandeker argues that all forms of surveil­ lance involve one or more of three distinct “activities:” “collection and storage of information”, “supervision of . . . people or objects”, and “monitoring the behaviour of those under supervision”.20 Bentham is such a significant theorist of surveillance – and the panopticon such a formidable symbol of his theories – in part because his ideas encompass all of those traditions, and all these activities are at stake in the panopticon. However, his interest in bureaucratic surveillance and information gathering is peripheral to the panopticon but becomes clearer in some of his other writing from the 1790s, notably his Police Bill. As such, this chapter helps to historicise the rise of what Anthony Giddens has termed “information societies” and Edward Higgs the “information state” – modern nation-states with centralised systems of surveillance – showing both that Bentham was an early advocate for such centralised and bureaucratic surveillance and that authorities in early NSW were able to implement these modern systems in ways that were impossible in contemporary Britain.21 The panopticon also illustrates an important problem for Bentham scholars: how to reconcile his authoritarian and liberal ideas.22 For many readers of Bentham, the panopticon demonstrates Bentham’s authoritarian instincts and his preference for security over liberty.23 But the inspection principle was both a means of controlling the subjects of the disciplinary gaze and a call for radical transparency: anyone should be able to visit and inspect the panopticon since “the doors of all public establishments ought to be, thrown wide open to . . . the great open committee of the tribunal of the world.”24 Both discipline and transparency are relevant to Bentham’s critique of NSW. For Bentham, the penal colony failed to impose discipline largely due to a lack of close surveillance of convicts, and it was unconstitutional in part because it was non-transparent – “no accessible spot more distant” – which facilitated abuses of convict and ex-convict rights.25 But superficially, Bentham’s arguments are inconsistent since authoritarian surveillance of convicts is married to a liberal insistence on rights. This chapter will help to resolve this inconsistency by clarifying the extent of Bentham’s ideas about surveillance before 1802. The problem of the two Benthams – authoritarian and liberal – is in large part a consequence of the pervasive influence of Michel Foucault, his lengthy critical engagement with Bentham, and his concepts of panopticism and governmentality.26 For Foucault in Discipline and Punish, the panopticon was more than an innovative prison that combined exclusion of the deviant with control through surveillance; it was also a “laboratory of power”, the ideal form of a wider panopticism, an increasingly de-institutionalised, universal and all-encompassing technology of discipline, which symbolised modern disciplinary power.27 But, as Christian Laval has shown, Foucault’s engagement with Bentham evolved over time, and he increasingly understood Bentham as the key thinker of modern governmentality, the “techniques and procedures for directing human behaviour” in

74  Matthew Allen order to empower the liberal state and achieve its ends.28 These two Foucaultian readings of Bentham reflect the distinction I have stressed between surveillance theory and surveillance practice: panopticism depends on the broader theoretical implications of the panopticon, while governmentality is concerned with the specific practices by which people are inspected and recorded. NSW was not an expression of panopticism in Foucault’s sense – the absence of constant surveillance meant that convicts were not disciplined but subject to brutal and exemplary punishments – but it was informed by contemporary governmentality, especially systems of bureaucracy and police.29 Early modern Britain already had many systems of public surveillance often predicated on ideas similar to Bentham’s inspection principle, although in general they were localised and based on a series of “overlapping networks exercising authority”, not centralised in a modern Weberian information state, in part due to elite resistance to the growth of central government.30 Traditional ideas about what was referred to as police – “the regulation and government of a city or country, so far as regards the inhabitants” – were not only amateur, hierarchical, paternalistic and parochial, but they were also frequently effective in managing rural communities.31 But there were extensive demands for reform of these traditional systems around the turn of the nineteenth century, many of which called for systematisation, centralisation and professionalism.32 As J.M. Beattie and others have demonstrated, police reform was put into practice at a local level, especially in London, often involving increasing the presence of constables as a form of preventative surveillance to prevent offending.33 Outside of criminal justice, there were also systems of information collection, supervision and monitoring – especially restrictions on movement – embedded within the legal management of vagrancy, the relationship between masters and servants and the poor law.34 Thus, governmental systems were available for surveillance of convicts, even in an open prison like NSW, but they had never previously been imposed on society as a whole.

Bentham and reformative surveillance Bentham’s theory of reformative surveillance developed out of his broader ideas about government and particularly the problem of punishment on which he was working for the best part of two decades prior to publishing Panopticon in 1791.35 In manuscripts from the 1770s and 1780s, Bentham outlined his utilitarian theory of punishment, arguing that since punishment was always “an evil”, its main justification must be “general prevention” of crime but that in addition it should seek to prevent recidivism through “incapacitation, reformation, and intimidation” of the offender.36 He clarified his understanding of convict reform distinguishing between deterrence from crime and real reform in that the latter required “a change of character and moral dispositions” and criticised most contemporary forms of punishment for their failure to promote such real reform of criminals.37 He identified only two kinds of genuinely reformative punishment: hard labour and some forms of imprisonment. Labour helped reform both because it was “necessary that

Convict surveillance and reform 75 the workmen should be under the eye of overseers” and because it had “a positive tendency to make them better. . . [through] force of habit”.38 Imprisonment was also potentially reformative but only when combined with additional “gradual and protracted” hardships imposed by means of solitude, darkness and hard diet, which would inspire “penitent reflections” and encourage “attention and humility to the admonitions and exhortations of religion.”39 In stark contrast, the common policy of “promiscuous association of prisoners” in prisons was “directly opposed to their reformation,” strengthening rapacious motives, weakening restraining sanctions and teaching prisoners criminal habits.40 In the panopticon letters (written in 1787), Bentham adapted this understanding of reform to his new inspection principle. Surveillance thus informed the design of the panopticon: the central inspection tower and “most effectual contrivances for seeing without being seen [sic]” maximised both the perception and the reality of surveillance for prisoners and guards.41 Key features of his plan were explicitly designed to aid prisoner reform by training convicts in habits of industry. Thus, he advocated making prisoners’ work interesting and meaningfully rewarding because “among working men. . . [there is] no test of reformation so plain or so sure as the improved quantity and value of their work.”42 Interestingly, in these initial letters, he also stressed the way that the design guaranteed solitude for prisoners in accordance with the widespread belief that such solitude was an essential stimulus to penitence and reform.43 But by the time he wrote the postscripts (published in 1791), he advocated “mitigated seclusion,” arguing that isolation was only useful as a temporary measure for “breaking the spirit” and using it permanently would lead to “gloomy despondency or sullen insensibility” in criminals.44 He also made his first published reference to the nascent colony of New South Wales, pointing to what he saw as clear evidence that the convicts were not reforming: 2000 convicts of both sexes, and 160 soldiers . . . jumbled together in one mass, and mingling like beasts: in two years, from fourteen marriages, eighty-seven births; the morals of Otaheite introduced into New Holland by the medium of Old England.45 Also significant were Bentham’s ideas about providing for prisoners after their term had expired. He suggested that to “ensure . . . at the least expense, their good behaviour and subsistence”, they should only be discharged into the army, the navy, under the bond of a “responsible householder” or to a private contractor who took on this risk in exchange for a cheap supply of labour, binding the exconvicts to him as a master over servants.46 Bentham saw this aspect of his plan as a means of testing “inward reformation” and assuring against “absolute incorrigibility”, and he justified the disregard of convict rights as necessary to the security of society and better than the de facto practice in NSW where no provision was made for returning convicts to England once their sentences expired or supporting them in the colony.47 Thus, a crucial feature of the panopticon scheme was to promote and ensure genuine reformation of offenders through close surveillance

76  Matthew Allen both during and after their sentence, and this aim was sufficiently important to justify repressive measures. Bentham’s ideas about reformatory surveillance continued to develop in the intervening years between Panopticon and his critique of NSW, largely in relation to his vain hopes of enrichment through a government contract to build and run a panoptical penitentiary.48 Significantly for my argument, Bentham expanded on his plans for managing convicts after their release, suggesting that he should also be contracted to operate what he now referred to as a metasylum, a private institution, also panoptical, for employing ex-convicts. In relation to this plan, he devised an intricate system of bureaucratic surveillance to ensure that their reformation was genuine. All convicts were to be tattooed with a permanent identifier, on release they had to carry a certificate of freedom and convict records would be kept much more methodically, both within the panopticon itself and after their sentences expired, by the Governor of the metasylum, the parish authorities and the county sessions.49 Most significantly, Bentham also expanded on his theory of surveillance in relation to reform of police (meaning local government more broadly).50 The 1798 Select Committee on Finance devoted its hearings to considering means of reducing government expenditure on criminal justice and considered Bentham’s proposals. The Committee heard from both Bentham and the London magistrate and police reformer, Patrick Colquhoun, who were allied in their support for aligned reforms to systems of punishment and police.51 Bentham’s submission to the committee consolidated his plans and stressed that he would “make himself personally responsible for the reformatory Efficacy of his Management” by paying a fine for every prisoner who reoffended after release, while publishing regular reports so that his management was properly subject to public scrutiny.52 Colquhoun presented his ideas for police reform, which centred on a system of licensing to control the trade in second-hand goods and reduce property crime, managed by a centralised London police board. But he also fully endorsed Bentham’s criticisms of existing forms of punishment and told the Committee that in his experience as a magistrate: I have seldom or never known an Instance of [convicts released from the hulks] Return to honest Industry; on the contrary, many of them have been detected immediately afterwards in the Commission of new Crimes, from which it may be inferred, that this Species of Punishment has not answered the Intention of the Legislature, so far as relates to the Reformation of the Convicts.53 He made a similar claim about New South Wales, stating that “none” of the convicts who had returned from the penal colony to London “are known to me to be employed in any creditable Pursuit; on the contrary, all who have come within my Knowledge are either at this Moment Thieves upon the Town, or have been executed for new Offences.”54 Drawing on Colquhoun and Bentham’s evidence, the Committee concluded that the current approach to punishing criminals failed

Convict surveillance and reform 77 to reform them because they were “exposed to the Contagion of such immoral Example” and endorsed Bentham’s proposal for “a new and less expensive mode for employing and reforming convicts.”55 Following the report of this committee, Bentham acted as a draftsman, writing two bills – one for a Thames River police force and a second for a board of police revenue (the Police Bill), which reflected and expanded on Colquhoun’s ideas. These bills were never enacted, but the Police Bill in particular is highly revealing about the scope of Bentham’s thought about surveillance.56 As Bentham explained, while its ostensible aim was requiring a series of potential dealers in stolen goods to take out licenses and be subject to “controul and regulation” by a centralised Police Board, a secondary aim was “obtaining information.”57 Expanding on this point, Bentham suggested that “two great branches of Government, Revenue and Police [sic]” were symbiotic, both relying on and producing political information or “statistics.”58 His Police Bill proposed two new forms of national information collection and publication: “intelligence of individual acts of delinquency” to be collected in a regular “Police Gazette” and an annual “Calendar of Delinquency” aggregating this and other criminal justice data.59 Bentham thus envisaged a national network of information collection and dispersal – a centralised information state and a form of panopticism – as a means of applying the inspection principle to society at large. The Police Gazette would be provided free to all magistrates, police commissioners (a new office he proposed) and license holders of all kinds (who would have proliferated under this plan). These licensees as well as postmasters, all town or parish officials, and clergy of all denominations (including dissenters, Catholics and Jews) could be required to either prominently display or publicly read notices in the Gazette about serious crimes.60 Bentham specifically saw this as a means of preserving security by monitoring potentially subversive groups – notably non-conforming congregations and Jacobins – in the context of the revolutionary era. Beyond this, the Gazette could also serve as an organ of official propaganda, combatting “the democratical [sic] papers” and their “attacks upon the vitals of the constitution:” Over and above the direct uses of the Police Gazette . . . is [its potential] as an instrument for the propagation and maintenance of social dispositions and affections, and for the preservation of tranquillity, harmony and loyalty among the great body of the people . . . Convey’d to . . . every place of public meeting for the lower classes without exception, the Police Gazette would . . . guard the minds of the susceptible and thoughtless multitude.61 For the Calendar of Delinquency, he required all officials involved in the criminal justice system (and potentially all those involved in administering the poor laws) under threat of fines to submit comprehensive information and copies of all official documents to the Police Board. This crime data would feed into the Gazette, but the Board would also compile an annual set of national crime statistics, far more comprehensive than the current localised and inconsistent records. Bentham saw this as a contribution to the “science of political arithmetic” allowing

78  Matthew Allen “a practical test as well as index of the utility of any new measure” of reform because its effects could be accurately measured in the changing rates of crime.62 Bentham’s ambition in these proposals is only matched by their political and practical naivety.63 His legislation, let alone his larger plans for a system of national police, could never have passed through a parliament dominated by country gentlemen, fiercely protective of their local authority and liberties. Indeed, Colquhoun’s much more practical suggestions for a uniformed, centralised and professional police force for London were rejected by parliament well into the 1820s.64 Moreover, even if they had been enacted, it seems highly unlikely that any such efficient and centralised system of informational surveillance could have operated throughout England, given the institutions of the time. Bentham’s utopian plans depended on widespread literacy, administrative diligence and consistency of practice, which were unknown to a society still largely governed at a local level by amateur magistrates. But more importantly for my argument, Bentham’s proposed information state came far closer to realisation in NSW than England. Overall, Bentham’s surveillance corpus up to 1802 also demonstrates significant consistency. He justified all surveillance in terms of security but distinguished between the surveillance of prisoners, former prisoners and the public in terms of reciprocity and transparency. Public surveillance should be open and transparent, but convict surveillance was unilateral and invisible, because this uncertainty helped inspire reform.

Surveillance in practice in convict NSW Bentham’s criticisms of NSW had a real basis. Since NSW was not a total institution like the panopticon but an open prison, panopticism was impossible: convicts could not be kept “constantly . . . under the eyes” of the authorities.65 Moreover, Collins’ Account is in large part a litany of crimes and punishments, which provides abundant evidence to support Bentham’s thesis. Collins concluded his first volume lamenting that while he had occasionally had the gratification of recording the return of principle in some [convicts] . . . it has oftener been [my] task to show the predilection for immorality, perseverance in dissipation, and inveterate propensity to vice, which prevailed in many others.66 Leaving aside the accuracy of Collins’ judgement on convict reformation which were shaped by both his character and his position as chief judicial officer, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that many convicts continued to offend in NSW and that efforts to control them through surveillance often failed. However, it is also abundantly clear that the colonial authorities aspired to closely monitor the convicts through systems of oversight, policing, control of movement and recordkeeping based on local British practice, reflecting contemporary governmentality. Close inspection of convicts was a feature of the planning of the settlement, the instructions issued to its Governors and their Orders on the ground. The official

Convict surveillance and reform 79 instructions to Arthur Phillip, the first Governor, ordered him to “proceed to the cultivation of the land, distributing the convicts for that purpose in such manner, and under such inspectors or overseers, and under such regulations as may appear to you to be necessary.”67 Similarly, his Commission as Governor authorised him to appoint “justices of the peace, coroners, constables and other necessary officers” which should have ensured that the traditional forms of police inspection operated in NSW.68 However, in his first report on the new colony, Phillip noted the difficulty of motivating convicts since they were “naturally indolent [and] having none to attend them but overseers drawn from amongst themselves . . . work go[es] on very slowly.”69 Expanding on “the great want of proper persons to superintend the convicts” he noted: The officers [of the marine corps] are not only few in number, but most of them have declined any interference with the convicts. . . . I requested soon after we landed that officers would occasionally encourage such as they observed diligent, and point out for punishment such as they saw idle or straggling in the woods . . . but the officers. . . [asserted] that they were not sent out to do more than the duty of soldiers.70 In consequence, Phillip resorted to the expedient of appointing convicts and former convicts to serve as watchmen and constables, and this developed into a sophisticated system of police.71 The watchmen were ordered to “patrol at all hours in the night, and to visit such places as may be deemed necessary . . . either by entrance into any suspected hut or dwelling, or by such other manner as may appear expedient.” The emerging town of Sydney was “divided and numbered” into districts “under the particular inspection of one person, who shall be judged qualified to inform himself of the actual residence of each individual in his district, as well as of his business, connections, and acquaintance.”72 Phillip’s successor, Governor John Hunter, extended and elaborated this system of police surveillance. He divided Sydney and the inland settlement of Parramatta into divisions and ordered the free inhabitants (largely former convicts) of each to elect “three of the most decent and respectable men” to serve as watchmen and “apprehend all night-walkers, all disorderly and suspicious persons . . . interrogate all who are found idling about in their division, not being inhabitants thereof, and oblige them to give an account of themselves.”73 To facilitate this close monitoring of movement, Hunter issued a series of orders requiring former convicts to carry a “certificate of freedom” and current convicts a “passport” from their master or a magistrate, which they had to produce when confronted by a constable or face arrest.74 He also implemented careful systems of information management, monitoring and recording the population. He wrote to the British authorities requesting updated and accurate records of convict sentences and had the constables produce a register of the inhabitants of every dwelling, the owners of every boat and lists of individuals in possession of firearms.75 He also established the tradition of mustering convicts on the Sabbath, not only to ensure their attendance at Church during the service “as a most necessary and essential part of

80  Matthew Allen [the] civil police” but also as a means of monitoring the convicts and discovering runaways.76 The ambitions of this potential information state are demonstrated by the practice of disseminating official orders which were read aloud to the military at their barracks and to the convicts during their weekly musters.77 Indeed, the first book published in the colony was a collection of the “General Standing Orders”, and when a colonial newspaper was published (dated March 1803) it was “Published by Authority”, subject to official censorship, and served precisely the aims of Bentham’s Police Gazette: disseminating orders, warning about crimes and publishing official propaganda.78 These systems often failed in practice. For example, Hunter was soon obliged to add a bureaucratic requirement that constables viewing a pass should date and countersign it to prove their vigilance while his successors constantly lamented their inability to control convict movement.79 But they demonstrate the emerging ambition for an information state – at least in the context of a penal colony – and that existing British governmental practices could potentially facilitate it. Furthermore, these intersecting systems of convict surveillance were not simply a colonial expedient but were regularly praised and increasingly demanded by the British authorities. In 1798, the Home Secretary wrote to Hunter praising his “system of police” but calling for more frequent reports on convict conduct from the subordinate officers “to the establishment of future order and regularity, and . . . better to apprehend [offenders].”80 In this, he reflected aspirations similar to Bentham’s Police Bill and metasylum: information management and careful inspection were necessary to ensure reform. It is also worth noting that Bentham’s concern for ensuring visibility through architecture was shared by the colonial authorities. While the work of clearing the land was time-consuming and laborious, it was a priority for the early Governors who aspired to create an orderly settlement with clearly delineated spaces for convicts, military and civil officials and sight-lines so that the latter could more easily monitor the former.81 As Grace Karskens has shown, Phillip developed detailed plans for a prospective town he labelled “Albion”, which she characterises as “a spatial fantasy about control and beauty,” in stark contrast to the actual town of Sydney which developed through the “pragmatic structures and everyday movements” of the colonists.82 Phillip’s desire for an architecture of order, facilitating surveillance, came closer to fruition in the second settlement, subsequently known as Parramatta and built as a centre of agricultural production (and hence convict labour), up-river from Sydney. Phillip laid out the township, initially known as Rose Hill, as a kind of model village comprising a series of evenly spaced convict huts along a wide boulevard stretching from the Governor’s mansion on the hill, down to the river. The plan ensured that the Governor’s house overlooked his convict workers, serving, in Karsken’s terms, as “a material expression of rank and hierarchy, a means of surveillance and control.”83 Again, in practice, convicts were often invisible in the landscape, but the idea of utilising principles of visibility to ensure discipline was certainly a feature of early NSW.

Convict surveillance and reform 81

Panopticism, governmentality and practicality Bentham was aware of some of the efforts at convict surveillance in NSW since they were discussed in detail by Collins who had a leading role in administering them as Judge-Advocate. Indeed, much of his criticism of NSW depended upon their failure in practice not their theoretical vigour. He noted with glee the constables’ “extreme negligence, or complicity with . . . malefactors” and the destruction of the colony’s first church in an act of deliberate arson.84 In the service of his attack on the colony, he even criticised surveillance in NSW as illegal. For example he noted the system of passports but characterised it as a “sort of system of general imprisonment within the rules [sic] . . . subject to endless vexations, oppressions, and abuses”.85 But this criticism is consistent with his overall thought on surveillance. His problem with the penal colony was that such practices were applied indiscriminately to free ex-convict and convict alike, though similar flaws seem implicit in his own ideas for police reform in England. These colonial systems of convict surveillance were grounded in British precedent and reflect late eighteenth-century British governmentality but were applied more systematically and comprehensively to the penal colony under the rule of a Governor. Ironically, the nature of the penal colony meant that the kind of centralised authoritarian controls which Bentham proposed at the height of the revolutionary panic of the 1790s were theoretically feasible, and efforts were made to implement them in governing convicts. But such surveillance did not work as planned in NSW and could never achieve the kind of close inspection that Bentham saw as essential to convict reform. Thus this chapter reminds historians of surveillance of the need to keep the distinction between theory and practice clearly in mind. Bentham’s surveillance writings encompass more than his designs for a panopticon and at times approach the kind of panopticism which Foucault saw as so significant to modernity. But such ideas had their roots in early modern practices of surveillance – both inspection and bureaucracy – which reflected an existing governmentality best embodied in the idea of police as an all-encompassing system of local government. As NSW illustrates, this ideal of surveillance was simultaneously desired by authorities and impossible to effectively put into practice. Limited by the institutions and technologies of the time, colonial Governors were unable to keep convicts under close inspection, and their reported failures fed Bentham’s critique. But the same problems would doubtlessly have been true of Bentham’s own proposals for a centralised information state and a panoptical reformatory. He is perhaps fortunate that he was denied the opportunity to put them into practice.

Notes 1 J. Bentham, Panopticon; or, the Inspection-House . . . Dublin, T. Payne, 1791, pp. 1–2. For more on the panopticon as a reformatory see below. 2 Bentham, Panopticon, p. iii. 3 Bentham, Panopticon, pp. 2–3.

82  Matthew Allen 4 Anne Brunon-Ernst identifies “four distinct panopticons” that Bentham discussed between 1786 and 1830: “the ‘prison-panopticon,’ the ‘pauper-panopticon,’ the ‘chrestomathic-panopticon’ and the ‘constitutional-panopticon.’ ” See: Anne BrunonErnst, ‘Deconstructing Panopticism into the Plural Panopticons,’ in Anne BrunonErnst (ed.), Beyond Foucault: New Perspectives on Bentham’s Panopticon, London, Routledge, 2016, pp. 17–41, 21. In this chapter, I am only concerned with the first of these since it is the only one which aims at convict reform. 5 Janet Semple, Bentham’s Prison: A  Study of the Panopticon Penitentiary, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993. 6 These letters were written, printed and privately circulated in 1802 but only published in 1812 as: Jeremy Bentham, Panopticon Versus New South Wales . . ., London, R. Baldwin, 1812. The Bentham Project at University College, London, has recently produced comprehensive editions, based on Bentham’s original manuscripts, which contain additional material that is significant for my argument. They also provide editorial introductions which explain the complex history of these writings, their circulation and publication. See: Jeremy Bentham, Writings on Australia, III: Letter to Lord Pelham, T. Causer and P. Schofield, eds., pre-publication version, Dublin, The Bentham Project, 2018; Jeremy Bentham, Writings on Australia, IV: Second Letter to Lord Pelham, T. Causer and P. Schofield, eds., pre-publication version, Dublin, The Bentham Project, 2018; Jeremy Bentham, Writings on Australia, V: Third Letter to Lord Pelham, T. Causer and P. Schofield, eds., pre-publication version, Dublin, The Bentham Project, 2018; Jeremy Bentham, Writings on Australia, VI: A Plea for the Constitution, T. Causer and P. Schofield, eds., pre-publication version, Dublin, The Bentham Project, 2018. 7 Alan Atkinson, ‘Jeremy Bentham and the Rum Rebellion,’ Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, vol. 64, no. 1, 1978, pp. 1–13. For more on Bentham’s significance to the rebellion, see: Alan Atkinson, The Europeans in Australia: A History. Volume One: The Beginning, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997, chap. 13; Grace Karskens and Richard Waterhouse, ‘ “Too Sacred to Be Taken Away”: Property, Liberty, Tyranny and the “Rum Rebellion”,’ Journal of Australian Colonial History, vol. 12, 2010, pp. 1–22; Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford, Rage for Order: The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, 1800–1850, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2016, pp. 31–43; Matthew Allen, ‘Distilling Liberty: Reconsidering the Politics of Alcohol in Early New South Wales,’ Australian Historical Studies, vol. 50, no. 3, 2019, pp. 1–15. 8 Philip Schofield, Utility and Democracy: The Political Thought of Jeremy Bentham, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 344–346. 9 Bentham, [First] Letter to Pelham, 5. For more on the context of the letter, see: Semple, Bentham’s Prison, 230–241; Tim Causer, ‘The Evacuation of That Scene of Wickedness and Wretchedness’: Jeremy Bentham and the Panopticon Prison Versus New South Wales, 1802–3,’ Journal of Australian Colonial History, vol. 21, 2019, pp. 1–25. 10 Jeremy Bentham, [First] Letter to Pelham, pre-publication version, Dublin, The Bentham Project, 2018, 7–8. 11 Bentham, [First] Letter to Pelham, 10–11. 12 Bentham, [First] Letter to Pelham, 9–11. 13 David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, 2 vols., London: T. Cadell Jr. & W. Davies, 1798–1802. For more on Bentham’s reliance on Collins, see: R. V. Jackson, ‘Theory and Evidence: Bentham, Collins, and the New South Wales Penal Settlement,’ Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 39, no. 3, 1993, pp. 318–329. For Collins’ own history, see: ‘Collins, David (1756–1810),’ in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 1966. 14 Bentham, [First] Letter to Pelham, 19–20.

Convict surveillance and reform 83 15 For his evidence, drawn from Collins, see: [First] Letter to Pelham, 20–24; Second Letter to Pelham, 8–16, 21–39, 62–73. Re colonial drunkenness and its significance for Bentham’s critique, see: Matthew Allen, ‘Alcohol and Authority in Early New South Wales: The Symbolic Significance of the Spirit Trade, 1788–1808,’ History Australia, vol. 9, no. 3, August 2012, pp. 7–26. 16 For historical surveys of theories and practices of punishment in the period, see: Michael Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain: The Penitentiary in the Industrial Revolution, 1750–1850, London, Pantheon Books, 1978; Randall McGowen, ‘The Problem of Punishment in Eighteenth-Century England,’ in Paul Griffiths and Simon Devereaux (eds.), Penal Practice and Culture, 1500–1900: Punishing the English, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 210–231. For Bentham’s position in these debates, see: Barbee-Sue Rodman, ‘Bentham and the Paradox of Penal Reform,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 29, no. 2, 1968, pp. 197–210; Hugh Bedau, ‘Bentham’s Theory of Punishment: Origin and Content,’ Journal of Bentham Studies, vol. 7, 2004. 17 Bentham, Third Letter to Pelham, 5–8. 18 Semple, Bentham’s Prison, 220; Causer, ‘Panopticon Prison.’ 19 David Lyon, Surveillance Studies: An Overview, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2007, pp. 48–50. 20 Christopher Dandeker, Surveillance, Power and Modernity: Bureaucracy and Discipline from 1700 to the Present Day, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1990, p. 37. 21 Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence: Volume Two of a Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism, London, Polity Press, 1985, pp. 178–180; Edward Higgs, The Information State in England: The Central Collection of Information on Citizens Since 1500, Basingstoke, Hampshire, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Higgs criticises Giddens for his schematic view of Western modernity as sharply distinguished from its past, notably in relation to the capacity for information gathering, arguing that the English information state developed steadily over a much longer period but largely at a local level until the late nineteenth-century, a view I endorse (Chapter 2). 22 Anne Brunon-Ernst, ‘Introduction,’ in Anne Brunon-Ernst (ed.), Beyond Foucault: New Perspectives on Bentham’s Panopticon, London, Routledge, 2016, pp. 1–13. 23 The scholarly debate is best summarised in: Semple, Bentham’s Prison, pp. 2–13. 24 Bentham, Panopticon, pp. 29–30. 25 Bentham, [First] Letter to Pelham, p. 43. But on unconstitutionality, see especially: Bentham, Plea for the Constitution. 26 This useful distinction between Bentham’s panopticon and Foucault’s panopticism is adopted from Brunon-Ernst, ‘Deconstructing Panopticism,’ pp. 19–20. 27 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, New York, Vintage Books, 1979, pp. 200–209. Quotation on p. 204. 28 Christian Laval, ‘From Discipline and Punish to the Birth of Biopolitics,’ in Anne Brunon-Ernst (ed.), Beyond Foucault: New Perspectives on Bentham’s Panopticon, London, Routledge, 2016, pp. 43–60. On governmentality, see: Nikolas Rose, Pat O’Malley and Mariana Valverde, ‘Governmentality,’ Annual Review of Law and Social Science, vol. 2, no. 1, 2006, pp. 83–104. Quotation from Foucault, on p. 43. 29 On convict punishment, see: Mark Finnane, ‘Punishing the Body: Corporal Punishment and Changing Sensibilities. Execution,’ in Punishment in Australian Society, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 108–139. 30 Higgs, Information State, chap. 3, quotation on p. 36. For a summary of efforts at centralised reform and resistance to them, see: Joanna Innes and Arthur Burns, ‘Introduction,’ in Joanna Innes and Arthur Burns (eds.), Rethinking the Age of Reform: Britain 1780–1850, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 1–70. 31 Quotation from: Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language . . ., London, J. Knapton, 1756, vol. 2, [unpaginated]. On the effectiveness of local government surveillance, see: Higgs, Information State, pp. 40–44; David Eastwood,

84  Matthew Allen Government and Community in the English Provinces, 1700–1870, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1997. 32 F. M. Dodsworth, ‘The Idea of Police in Eighteenth-Century England: Discipline, Reformation, Superintendence, c. 1780–1800,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 69, no. 4, 2008, pp. 583–604; John L. McMullan, ‘The Arresting Eye: Discourse, Surveillance and Disciplinary Administration in Early English Police Thinking,’ Social  & Legal Studies, vol. 7, no. 1, March 1998, pp. 97–128. 33 There is a vast literature on the modernisation of British police, but see for example: J. M. Beattie, Policing and Punishment in London 1660–1750: Urban Crime and the Limits of Terror, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001; Clive Emsley, The English Police: A Political and Social History, 2nd ed., London: Longman, 1996; Dodsworth, ‘Idea of Police.’ 34 On vagrancy and the control of the poor, see: Tim Hitchcock, ‘Vagrancy in Law and Practice Under the Old Poor Law,’ Social History, vol. 38, no. 4, 2013, pp. 518–520. On Masters and Servants law, see: Douglas Hay, ‘England, 1562–1875: The Law and Its Uses,’ in Douglas Hay and Paul Craven (eds.), Masters, Servants, and Magistrates in Britain and the Empire, 1562–1955, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2014, pp. 59–116. 35 Semple, Bentham’s Prison, chap. 2. 36 Jeremy Bentham, Rationale of Punishment, Richard Smith, trans., London, Robert Heward, 1830, vol. 1, pp. 19–22. This work, originally published in French by Etienne Dumont (in 1811) and then retranslated into English (in 1830), was largely based on Bentham’s manuscripts from the 1770s and 1780s but included some later materials to fill out gaps. I will only cite the sections drawn from these early manuscripts and not the discussion of transportation or the panopticon, which Dumont largely drew from the Panopticon and the ‘Letters to Lord Pelham,’ discussed elsewhere. For more detail on this publication history, see: Semple, Bentham’s Prison, chap. 2. For a briefer statement of these ideas, published at the time, see: Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation . . ., London, T. Payne, 1789, p. 198. 37 Bentham, Punishment, p. 48. 38 Bentham, Punishment, pp. 163–164. 39 Bentham, Punishment, pp. 114–117. 40 Bentham, Punishment, pp. 122–128. 41 Bentham, Panopticon, pp. 3, 21–22, 25–30. 42 Bentham, Panopticon, pp. 48–49, 67–68. On the importance of industriousness to reformation, see: Semple, Bentham’s Prison, pp. 153–156. 43 Bentham, Panopticon, pp. 35–36. 44 Bentham, Panopticon, pp. 141–161. Quotations on pp. 141–142, 151. 45 Bentham, Panopticon, p. 424. These comments probably originated in an unpublished manuscript of 1791: Jeremy Bentham, Writings on Australia, I. New Wales, T. Causer and P. Schofield, eds., pre-publication version, Dublin, The Bentham Project, 2018; Causer, ‘Panoptical Prison.’ 46 Bentham, Panopticon, pp. 526–533. Quotation on p. 526. 47 Bentham, Panopticon, pp. 534–539. On Bentham’s understanding of the balance between liberty and security, see: Stephen G. Engelmann, ‘ “Indirect Legislation”: Bentham’s Liberal Government,’ Polity, vol. 35, no. 3, 2003, pp. 369–388. Bentham was wrong about support for emancipists in early NSW. They often received land grants and sometimes even convict servants. 48 For the details of Bentham’s campaign for a government contract to build a panopticon, see: Semple, chaps. 6–11. 49 Semple, pp. 177–187. On tattooing cf. Bentham’s earlier proposal for identifying tattoos in the unpublished manuscript ‘Indirect Legislation’ (1782), on which see: M. Bozzo-Rey, A. Brunon-Ernst and M. Quinn, ‘Special Issue: Indirect Legislation:

Convict surveillance and reform 85 Jeremy Bentham’s Regulatory Revolution. Introduction,’ History of European Ideas, vol. 43, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1–10. 50 On the broader meaning of the term ‘police’ at this time, see: F. M. Dodsworth, ‘The Idea of Police in Eighteenth-Century England: Discipline, Reformation, Superintendence, c. 1780–1800,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 69, no. 4, 2008, pp. 583–604. 51 For more on Colquhoun’s proposals for police, see: Patrick Colquhoun, A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis . . ., London, C. Dilly, 1796; F. M. Dodsworth, ‘The Idea of Police in Eighteenth-Century England: Discipline, Reformation, Superintendence, c. 1780–1800,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 69, no. 4, 2008, pp. 583–604. 52 House of Commons, Report of the Select Committee . . . Relative to the Establishment of a New Police in the Metropolis, &c and the Convict Establishment . . . , London, R. Shaw, 1799, pp. 82–83. 53 House of Commons, Report, p. 68. 54 House of Commons, Report, p. 78. 55 House of Commons, Report, pp. 23–24. 56 Jeremy Bentham, Writings on Political Economy, Volume III: Preventive Police, Michael Quinn, ed., pre-publication version, Dublin, The Bentham Project, 2018. Michael Quinn has explained the significance of this work and argued, convincingly, that the key ideas originated with Bentham and not Colquhoun: Michael Quinn, ‘Bentham on Preventive Police: The Calendar of Delinquency in Evaluation of Policy and the Police Gazette in Manipulation of Opinion,’ International Criminal Justice Review, vol. 1, 2019, unpaginated. 57 Bentham, Police, pp. 89–90. 58 Bentham, Police, p. 133. 59 Bentham, Police, p. 136. Quinn discusses the originality of these proposals noting precedents for each but stressing Bentham’s innovations. Quinn, ‘Preventative Police.’ 60 Bentham, Police, pp. 194–196. 61 Bentham, Police, pp. 321–330. Bentham’s authoritarian argument here was that propaganda was more effective than direct repression in preserving national security. 62 Bentham, Police, pp. 334–335. 63 As Quinn points out, they also clash with his later commitment to transparency and a free press; hypocrisy he explains in relation to Bentham’s fears of French and English Jacobins during the 1790s. Quinn, ‘Preventative Police.’ 64 Colquhoun, Police. For more on the legislative impasse around police reform, see: David Phillips, ‘ “A New Engine of Power and Authority”: The Institutionalisation of Law-Enforcement in England, 1780–1830,’ in Geoffrey Parker, Bruce Lenman, and V. A. C. Gatrell (eds.), Crime and the Law: The Social History of Crime in Western Europe Since 1500, London, Europa Publications, 1980, pp. 155–189; Ruth Paley and Elaine A. Reynolds, ‘Politicians, Parishes and Police: The Failure of the 1812 Night Watch Bill,’ Parliamentary History, vol. 28, no. 3, 2009, pp. 375–391; Eastwood, Government and Community, pp. 139–147. 65 Bentham, Panopticon, pp. 2–3. 66 Collins, Account, vol. 1, pp. 501–502. 67 ‘Phillip’s Instructions,’ 25 April 1787, Historical Records of New South Wales (Hereafter HRNSW), edited by F. M. Bladen, Sydney, Government Printer, 1893–1901, vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 87. 68 ‘Phillip’s Commission,’ HRNSW, Sydney, Government Printer, 1893–1901, vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 63. 69 ‘Phillip to Lord Sydney,’ 15 May 1788, HRNSW, vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 123. 70 ‘Phillip to Lord Sydney,’ 16 May 1788, HRNSW, vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 138. 71 For more on early policing in NSW, see my: ‘Convict Police and the Enforcement of British Order: Policing the Rum Economy in Early New South Wales,’ Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, online prepublication (2020). Similar

86  Matthew Allen expedients (employing trusted convicts as managers) seem to have been used in supervising convict workers for which, see: William M. Robbins, ‘Management and Resistance in the Convict Work Gangs, 1788–1830,’ Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 45, no. 3, 2003, pp. 360–377. 72 ‘Regulations,’ 9 November 1789, HRNSW, vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 292–293. 73 ‘General Order,’ 9 November 1796, HRNSW, vol. 3, pp. 165–166. 74 ‘General Order,’ 2 November 1795, HRNSW, vol. 2, 322; ‘General Order,’ 30 November 1796; ‘General Order,’ 20 March 1797, HRNSW, vol. 3, pp. 182–183, 198–199; Collins, Account, vol. 1, p. 229, 487; vol. 2, p. 26. 75 ‘Hunter to Portland,’ 12 November 1796, HRNSW, vol. 3, pp. 174–176; Collins, Account, vol. 1, p. 450. 76 ‘General Order,’ 27 August 1798, HRNSW, vol. 3, pp. 472–473; ‘Hunter to Portland,’ 1 November 1798, HRNSW, vol. 3, p. 505. For more on compulsory attendance at church, see: Alan Atkinson, The Europeans in Australia: A History. Volume One: The Beginning, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 179–180. 77 ‘Hunter to Portland,’ 10 June 1797, HRNSW, vol. 3, pp. 216–217; Atkinson, Europeans, pp. 264–265, 307. 78 Robert Howe (ed.), New South Wales General Standing Orders, Sydney, Government Press, 1802; Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, Sydney, George Howe, 1803–1842; J. V. Byrnes, ‘Howe, George (1769–1821),’ in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Melbourne, Melbourne University Publishing, 1966; R. B. Walker, The Newspaper Press in New South Wales, 1803–1920, Sydney, Sydney University Press, 1976, pp. 1–5. 79 ‘General Order,’ 20 March 1797, HRNSW, vol. 3, pp. 198–199. On the failure to control movement, see: Grace Karskens, ‘ “This Spirit of Emigration”: The Nature and Meanings of Escape in Early New South Wales,’ Journal of Australian Colonial History, vol. 7, 2005, pp. 1–34. 80 ‘Portland to Hunter,’ 18 September 1798, HRNSW, vol. 3, pp. 489–490. 81 For more on the political symbolism of cleared land in NSW, see: Grace Karskens, ‘Nefarious Geographies: Convicts and the Sydney Environment in the Early Colonial Period,’ Tasmanian Historical Studies, vol. 11, 2006, pp. 15–27. 82 Grace Karskens, The Colony: A History of Early Sydney, Crows Nest, Allen & Unwin, 2009, pp. 72–74. For more on Phillip’s town planning, see: Helen Proudfoot, ‘Fixing the Settlement upon a Savage Shore: Planning and Building,’ in Graeme Aplin (ed.), A Difficult Infant: Sydney Before Macquarie, Sydney, NSW University Press, 1988, pp. 55–71. 83 Karskens, The Colony, pp. 79–82; ‘Phillip to Grenville,’ 17 July 1790, HRNSW, vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 362–363; Watkin Tench, A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson . . ., London, G. Nicol & J. Sewell, 1793, pp. 78–79; Terry Kass, Carol Liston and John McClymont, Parramatta: A Past Revealed, Parramatta, Parramatta City Council, 1996, chap. 2. 84 Bentham, 2nd Letter to Pelham, pp. 26–27, 41, 50, 60–61. 85 Bentham, 2nd Letter to Pelham, pp. 24–25.

5 Surveillance on the assembly line Communist resistance to modern production at the Stollwerck Chocolate Factory, 1924–1930 Sara Ann Sewell German employers have eagerly studied American exploitation methods in order to implement them here in all their brutality. . . . The American automobile factory of Henry Ford today is the most refined exploitation system in the world . . . Characteristic of this production is the assembly line. . . . The parts to be assembled flow past the worker at an exactly-calculated speed. The worker has to perform only a single, particular act on the parts, which he must perform quickly and skilfully. The entire shift goes by at this speed without interruption, so that every second of the shift is used up. Through this uninterrupted, exhausting work, the body is already ruined after a few weeks. Your strength dies out, and sickness sets in. Because of this, Ford has his own hospital, his own cemetery, and even his own coffin factory.1

This critique of Fordism was published in the September 1926 issue of Stollwerck Gold: All that Glitters isn’t Gold. The Organ of the Stollwerck Communist Factory Cell, a paper penned by communists and sympathizers who worked at the Stollwerck Chocolate Factory in Cologne, Germany. The article disparages assemblyline production, time-and-motion principles, and the surveillance of employees, which, it asserts, started on the factory floor and followed workers to the grave. Founded by Franz Stollwerck in 1839, Stollwerck Brothers Incorporated grew from a small family firm that produced confectionery products to one of Germany’s largest chocolate manufacturers by 1900.2 The First World War halted its expansion, as the company rode the tide of economic uncertainty and political upheaval.3 With the stabilization of the economy by 1925, however, Stollwerck took advantage of Germany’s promising economic forecast to revamp its production process by adopting Taylorist and Fordist techniques and technologies, many of which were piloted at the Cologne plant. In the 1920s, a fundamental transformation of manufacturing took place across the German industrial landscape as businesses embraced new methods based on the standardization of every element in the production process. This was referred to as “rationalization,” described by Lindy Biggs as “the introduction of predictability and order – machinelike order – that eliminates all questions of how work is to be done, who will do it, and when it will be done.”4

88  Sara Ann Sewell Stollwerck’s new production methods had an array of consequences beyond the reduction in per-unit costs, for rationalization fundamentally transformed factory culture.5 It atomized the workforce into separate spaces and departments, dismantling traditional social networks.6 The assembly line also circumscribed workers’ movements, demanding subordination “to a centrally controlled technical system,” as Michael Torigian explains.7 Workers resembled extensions of machines, consummately depicted in Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis. In the end, rationalization increased the surveillance of employees, which frequently extended beyond the factory gate. As Mary Nolan maintains, manufacturers sought to cultivate “a new worker who would embrace the idea of productivity in the factory and restructure his private life according to the principles of discipline, order, and efficiency.”8 This investigation of surveillance at Stollwerck not only situates surveillance within a larger enterprise to institute modern manufacturing techniques, but it also approaches surveillance as a cultural practice. Torin Monahan observes, “[S]urveillance systems attain presence as negotiated components of culture and accrete meaning by tapping a culture’s immense symbolic reservoirs.”9 A microcosm of social organization, the factory both reflects and shapes behaviours, social hierarchies, and power relations. Its surveillance systems function as cultural signs whose power is (re)negotiated and (re)interpreted in everyday life, springing from the understandings that historical actors ascribe to the surveillance practices. The question of power is central to a socio-cultural approach of surveillance, for as individuals construct or challenge surveillance practices, they inherently attempt to (re)negotiate power. Michel Foucault’s theories on power, the panopticon, and discipline provide insight into the discrepant ways that power operates within surveillance systems. On the one hand, he hypothesizes that surveillance, through the panopticon, functions as “one of the great instruments of power.”10 Accordingly, discipline is neither “an institution” nor “an apparatus,” but “a type of power” that is exercised by both external forces and internal self-disciplining.11 Self-governmentality is at the heart of power relations for Foucault, although surveil­lance studies have not fully considered the ways that self-disciplining is intrinsic to surveillance practices.12 On the other hand, Foucault postulates that power is decentred and destabilized; it “function[s] outside, below, and alongside” institutional “apparatuses” on a “minute and everyday level.”13 In other words, there are limits to power, which opens up space for resistance. Social history methods are also pivotal to examining surveillance from the perspectives of communists and sympathizers who worked at Stollwerck. Founded in December 1918, the German Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, KPD) was a key political player in Weimar Germany. In the November 1932 Reichstag elections, it rallied nearly 17 per cent of the electorate, making it the third-most popular party behind the German Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD) and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei, NSDAP). This study of grassroots activism at Stollwerck is informed

Surveillance on the assembly line 89 by Klaus-Michael Mallmann’s monograph on Weimar communism. Anchoring communist politics in working-class communities, Mallmann gives a prominent voice to those beyond the KPD’s “avantgarde.” He argues that communists on the ground operated with considerable autonomy, routinely resisting party directives when they found them to belie their realities.14 Given that over 75 per cent of Stollwerck’s workforce was female in 1926, this research is additionally concerned with gender relations and how they informed surveillance practices and communist resistance.15 Although surveillance studies have largely sidestepped gender analysis, scholars show that gender dynamics shape workplace cultures in infinite ways.16 The workplace both embodies and constructs the gender hierarchies, norms, and assumptions of the society. It is, as Linda McDowell contends, the site of “[f]ormal organisational structures and informal workplace practices [that] . . . are saturated with gendered meanings and practices that construct both gendered subjectivities at work and different categories of work as congruent with particular gender identities.”17 A growing body of scholarship demonstrates that gender relations influence a wide array of workrelated issues, including gender segregation, wage disparities, the construction of workspaces, and the use of coercion to promote preferred behaviours.18 Drawing on this literature, this chapter discusses communists’ allegation that Stollwerck deployed surveillance against female employees and how employees experienced and resisted surveillance.

Stollwerck gold To investigate the experience of factory surveillance, this chapter relies upon articles penned by communists and sympathizers who worked at Stollwerck. In 1924, the KPD began to refashion itself into a mass movement. Previously, the Party had advocated revolutionary struggle during an era of acute political and economic upheaval. As the Weimar government moved to stabilize the economy and the polity at the end of 1923, however, the revolutionary atmosphere dissipated, and leaders overhauled the Party to shift its base from a revolutionary cadre to a broad constituency. A key element in the KPD’s restructuring was the creation of a host of ancillary organizations designed to appeal to members, sympathizers, and their families. One initiative was the Worker Correspondent Movement, which the Party founded in 1924 to encourage workers to write about their daily lives. These “worker correspondents” submitted articles on a wide range of topics to party organs.19 Simultaneously, the KPD organized itself into factory and neighbourhood cells, many of which published their own papers. KPD leaders instrumentalized the Worker Correspondent Movement and cell papers to integrate supporters into party work. The writers were to serve as megaphones for the KPD by linking everyday issues to party platforms. For instance, party dailies regularly included a section entitled “From the Lives of Workers,” which featured a series of individual worker correspondences that were typically accompanied by an editor’s analysis and the latest party slogans. Cell papers were similarly influenced by party leaders, for

90  Sara Ann Sewell many included both KPD slogans and the same artwork. A close perusal of these sources, in fact, reveals instances of editorial heavy-handedness. But there were also moments of authorial independence. Indeed, it would be short-sighted to dismiss the writers as simply the pawns of party leaders, especially because most of them submitted only a single report and never joined the KPD. Furthermore, both worker correspondences and cell papers were published erratically. This is especially true for cell papers, which were largely amateurish publications due to the fact that the KPD did not possess the staff to oversee them. But it was precisely the lack of editorial oversight that provided cells with the autonomy to tailor their papers to their own interests. This body of sources, thus, presents a more complex picture of grassroots communism than viewed from above. Although certainly influenced by party platforms, these writers were not merely sloganeers for the KPD, for daily life also shaped their politics, and, in many cases, it was the experiences of everyday life that prompted them to pick up a pen. Across Germany, communists and sympathizers gathered in small groups to report on the day-to-day happenings in their workplaces and neighbourhoods. At the forefront were activists at the Cologne Stollwerck plant. In fact, Stollwerck Gold was one of the first cell papers that was consistently published.20 This investigation analyses their writings to explore the experience of surveillance. Admittedly, these authors were not typical workers, for the mere fact that they identified with the communist movement and wrote about their lives made them exceptional. Nevertheless, these writers often testified to experiences that were common to many. As Alfred Kelly maintains, “Lower-class people certainly write less, but the greater uniformity of life imposed by poverty warrants wider generalization from each single work.”21 Given the dearth of sources from the popular classes, worker correspondences and cell papers offer rare glimpses into everyday working-class life during the Weimar Republic, albeit from a communist perspective. Writing from the Stollwerck factory floor, these authors detailed the company’s surveillance techniques, describing how workers experienced and responded to surveillance at the modern chocolate factory. An examination of surveillance practices at Stollwerck, as viewed by communist employees on the assembly line, provides insight into the ways that the company deployed rationalization to gain control over its workforce. In the 1920s, Stollwerck revamped its Cologne facility to increase production and efficiency, creating a shop floor culture that severely circumscribed workers’ autonomy. Communists excoriated the new production methods, which, they charged, led to work speed-ups, lay-offs, and injuries, echoing the KPD’s general stance on rationalization. Reporting from the factory floor, however, activists’ cardinal criticism was based on an issue that the KPD generally overlooked: they opposed rationalization, above all, because they believed that it provided management with a tool to subject employees to a system of intense surveillance. They were especially alarmed about the policing of female employees. Asserting that Stollwerck used surveillance to render women obedient, they detailed the scrutiny that women faced. Communists responded by politicizing the shop floor. Their acts of resistance included reporting on the surveillance, using

Surveillance on the assembly line 91 surveillance themselves to inveigh against the policing, and publicly denouncing supervisors and alleged informants.

Contesting rationalization on the shop floor Contending that rationalization caused long-term structural unemployment, eroded working conditions, and undermined workers’ rights, communists were among the loudest critics of the new production methods.22 A KPD leader summarized the Party’s view: “Ford admonishes capitalists to strive for profits above all. . . . The attainment of profits is not only a prerequisite for the maintenance of capitalist production, it is its sole purpose.”23 Writing from the Stollwerck shop floor, communists frequently echoed the Party’s position, but at the same time, they translated party platforms through the prism of their own experiences. Indeed, KPD rhetoric resonated on the assembly line only to the extent that real developments at the factory confirmed the ideology. For example, one of the KPD’s core critiques was that assembly-line production increased unemployment. In 1926, when Stollwerck laid off over 50 per cent of its workforce, communists championed laid off co-workers by denouncing rationalization.24 In this instance, the real consequences of rationalization convinced activists that modern production caused unemployment. Based on their everyday experiences, communists developed a litany of criticisms against rationalization. They argued, for instance, that rationalization had deleterious effects on workers’ health. Of particular concern was the heat in certain departments. For example, an August 1926 Stollwerck Gold cartoon depicted Stollwerck’s “sweat chocolate.” It featured a worker sweating profusely as he stooped over a kettle of boiling chocolate. With probable hyperbole, the cell described the working conditions: In the chocolate-melting room, where the mass of chocolate is prepared under extreme heat – in a room temperature of 50 degrees – the workers are tapped of enough sweat so that large amounts of it unavoidably gets mixed in with the chocolate since the workers are forced to bend over the containers to fill and empty them.25 Communists reported that such working conditions caused injuries and illnesses. For instance, they claimed that women suffered high rates of nervous disorders, anaemia, abdominal pains, miscarriages, and tuberculosis.26 In their opinion, workers paid the price for high production quotas. The sweat that dripped off their bodies into the kettles of hot chocolate was emblematic of the physical toil the company extracted. That communists believed that employees sustained injuries due to rationalization was illustrated in another August 1926 Stollwerck Gold sketch that depicted five injured workers sitting outside company physician’s office. One worker is so severely injured that he holds his head in his arm. According to the cell, workers were disposable in the modern factory. After irrevocably injuring workers, Stollwerck discarded them.

92  Sara Ann Sewell Key to Stollwerck’s effort to boost production was the introduction of Taylorism. Communists reported that supervisors carefully studied employees’ movements to devise more efficient production systems, perfectly depicted in an August 1926 cartoon that featured Manager Kuhlmann closely studying the movements of a female employee as she works on an assembly line. The cell complained that Kuhlmann spent “the entire day running around the factory to examine where someone can be eliminated.” It continued: He is occupied with preparations for rationalization. This means he observes everything – tries out and calculates everything you do, everything you can do. He determines if, on this or that machine, one person alone can complete that which two did before – if you can operate two machines at the same time if the two were moved together.27 Asserting that Taylorist methods were designed to speed up production and reduce the workforce, the cell denounced the scrutiny that went hand in hand with Taylorism.28 Communists similarly condemned Stollwerck’s piece-rate system, which, they complained, increased the work pace to such a degree that employees could not even take “time to seek out the restroom during the workday.”29 According to the cell, Stollwerck’s piece-rate schemes created both external- and internalregulating pressures whereby employees self-monitored for higher wages. Since the publication of E. P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class, scholars have shown that factory systems regularized workers’ time, both inside and outside of the factory gate, transforming factory culture and instilling a new temporality upon the working classes.30 From the employer’s perspective, timediscipline was essential to regularize production. The entire factory – its layout, its departmental organization, and its machines – was increasingly organized to produce efficiently. The overall impact was that machines controlled the production speed, including the work tempo of the employees, which altered factory culture in infinite ways. With the adoption of Taylorist and assembly-line techniques, work grew monotonous, and continuous supervision was required to ensure quality control.31 But the goal of time-discipline was not merely to achieve efficient production, for employers also used it to shape employees’ character. Indeed, many employers hoped that time-discipline on the factory floor would spill over to workers’ daily lives, instilling in employees a strong work ethic based on the efficient use of time.32 At Stollwerck, communists reported that surveillance extended to the highest echelons of the factory. For example, in Stollwerck Gold, they drew Director Harnisch in his office, perched above the shop floor, using binoculars to keep a vigilant eye on employees. Such cartoons reflected the growing uneasiness with centralized surveillance, particularly as it was embedded in factory structures. Originally proposed in the eighteenth century by Jeremy Bentham, such panopticon designs were intended to enhance surveillance and to exert disciplinary power over those under observation. The objective was to create a “new mode of obtaining power

Surveillance on the assembly line 93 of mind over mind in a quantity hitherto without example.”33 Emblematic of Bentham’s panopticon was a central tower that enabled an observer to monitor subordinates. Bentham hypothesized that the observer “is perceived as an invisible omnipresence.” In contradistinction, the observed are watched, but without necessarily seeing the observer, thus rendering the observer’s gaze ubiquitous and unremitting. This mysterious surveillance “sustains perfect discipline,” for from the observed’s vantage point, “the inspector is all-seeing, omniscient, and omnipotent,” even when the inspector is absent.34 Ironically, however, the central tower also has the capacity to empower the observed. As Foucault theorizes, the panopticon makes it “possible to observe the director himself,” thus inverting power relations.35 By targeting Harnisch in the cell paper, communists at Stollwerck did just that – they challenged Harnisch’s authority by casting him as the chief spy. Scholars affirm that architectural layouts modelled after Bentham’s panopticon promote surveillance cultures that shape the attitudes and behaviours of the observed through both disciplinary and self-disciplining processes.36 Indeed, panopticon structures function as cultural signs of social relations: they establish “arenas” where power relations are “(re-)created and contested” on a daily basis, explains Gillian Rose.37 Physical spaces shape social relations, as individuals negotiate power within the quotidian spaces.38 This understanding of the panopticon’s potency invokes Foucault’s theories on discipline. Although Foucault largely overlooked industrial organization, he did stress that “simple instruments,” including “hierarchal observation” akin to Director Harnisch’s surveillance, are sufficient to discipline or to instil self-disciplining among the observed.39 Originally integrated into nineteenth-century prison construction, Bentham’s panopticon design was widely applied to factories by the end of the century, structuring factory space as a form of disciplinary power. Many industrialists adopted surveillance features, especially the spatial division of manufacturing processes that atomized both production steps and labour, in an effort to discipline a larger and less-skilled workforce.40 Fashioning itself as a modern company, Stollwerck, too, introduced the latest design and production techniques, including a director’s office that functioned “as a centrifugal surveillance point in the panoptic style.”41 At the factory, the architecture dovetailed seamlessly with Fordist and Taylorist production methods.

The surveillance of working women Given that the majority of Stollwerck’s workforce was female, gender relations categorically informed surveillance practices at the factory. According to communists, the company enacted an invasive system of surveillance that targeted female employees. Scholars maintain that surveillance strategies are informed by historically specific gender assumptions, many of which are grounded in a sense of uneasiness among men about the presence of women at the workplace. To reduce their anxiety, male managers deploy surveillance to preserve the gender order. As Patricia Cooper and Ruth Oldenziel explain, it was precisely at moments when the social order was disrupted that employers used surveillance to maintain

94  Sara Ann Sewell society’s “cherished classifications” that “separated and ranked” workers according to prevailing social categories.42 Other scholars concur, arguing that women have been subjected to more aggressive surveillance than their male colleagues.43 Given the contemporary perception that Weimar Germany was defined by disorder, embodied in the eyes of many in the “New Woman,” Stollwerck’s policing of women represented an effort to preserve the patriarchal order, even though the company’s own hiring of women paradoxically contributed to the perception of gender disorder.44 That communists believed that Stollwerck’s female employees faced the panoptic gaze of the employer who sought to regulate their every move was no more evident than in their reports on the women’s restrooms. In Stollwerck Gold, they drew attention to the company’s use of lavatory attendants to observe women’s most private bodily functions. For instance, a September 1926 cartoon depicted three female employees in restroom stalls that are equipped with half doors. A female attendant closely watches them to ensure that they do not steal chocolates. In fact, the sign posted above the stalls says “Warning! Theft!” According to communists, rationalization led to the monitoring of the most intimate bodily functions: The drudgery has increased so much that the girls don’t have time . . . to go to the restroom. . . . The restroom attendant is instructed to make sure that no one stays too long in this lovely place. Just a few days ago a girl was kicked out of the restroom because she was there more than three minutes.45 For communists, Stollwerck’s policing of restrooms was emblematic of the intense surveillance to which female employees were subjected in the modern factory. “You must realize to your amazement that also here rationalization has already made its entry,” Stollwerck Gold charged. “[T]he restroom attendant ensures that no one lingers too long on the toilet. For this reason, the doors on the stalls have not been mounted so that no chocolate can be eaten up or hidden.”46 While the cell’s rebuke of Stollwerck’s restroom policing provides a glimpse into how workers experienced rationalization, its reports also reveal how surveillance was informed by assumptions about normative class and gender roles. Read as texts, lavatories are fraught with symbolic meanings. They are saturated with cultural beliefs, practices, and meanings. They function as sites where questions about gender roles, class relations, sexuality, and privacy have all played out. Cordoned off from the male gaze, women’s restrooms, in particular, have been sites of men’s anxieties, mysterious spaces that warranted a special scrutiny. At a first glance, Stollwerck’s restroom monitoring appeared to be prompted by the belief that employees used the facilities to take unsanctioned breaks and that the lavatories were sites of theft. One woman described the suspicion: “In Germany, supervisors keep a strict eye on the confectionery workers so that not one of the sweets destined for the gentlemen with large wallets disappears in the workers’ stomachs.”47 According to historians, employers widely believed that working-class women were uniquely predisposed to theft. In his investigation of

Surveillance on the assembly line 95 Yorkshire spinners, for example, Richard Soderund demonstrates that employers thought that women innately lacked “the capacity for self-governance,” which prompted employers to police female workers stringently.48 Surveillance of female employees in lavatories, however, raises a series of critical questions beyond productivity and theft – questions about power, privacy, class, and gender. Stollwerck’s restroom surveillance was, as Foucault observes, a mechanism of control. Building upon Foucault’s theory, scholars show that toilets are “revealing sites for discussions of the construction and maintenance of . . . power relations,” as Olga Gerhenson and Barbara Penner elucidate.49 Lavatories are socio-cultural signs that elites fashion to preserve the social order. In one of the few studies on women’s workplace restrooms, Patricia Cooper and Ruth Oldenziel maintain that the Pennsylvania Railroad management saw both white women’s and African American women’s restrooms as sites “to tame female behaviour and regulate access to their bodies.”50 That Stollwerck’s bathrooms, similar to those at the École Militaire in Paris, were equipped with half-doors was evidence of an “infinitely scrupulous concern with surveillance” in the words of Foucault, and this surveillance was enhanced by the lavatory’s architecture, which was designed to keep Stollwerck’s female workforce obedient and moral.51 A second issue that was evident from Stollwerck’s restroom monitoring was that the lack of privacy of the employees stood in stark contrast to contemporary sensibilities. From the late eighteenth century through the twentieth century, urination, defecation, and menstruation were generally viewed in the Western world as delicate matters that were best attended to in strict privacy. In an effort to cultivate respectability, women denied the existence of bodily functions. The corporeal was seen as polluted, and toilets came to be linked to immorality.52 Given the increasing negative psychological and social attitudes associated with bodily functions, public lavatories, particularly those for women, were largely concealed from public view, usually situated underground or in the back of buildings.53 By erecting woman’s lavatories with half-doors, Stollwerck, thus, violated prevailing attitudes regarding privacy, and this lack of privacy likely humiliated female employees.54 It is true that the working classes often shared privies with others in their domiciles in the early twentieth century.55 Nonetheless, Stollwerck’s policing of its employees at one of their most vulnerable moments demeaned the women, and, as scholars remind us, toilets have been repeatedly used to degrade members of marginalized social groups.56 Stollwerck’s lavatory surveillance raises a third critical issue: by regulating women’s behaviour in its restrooms, Stollwerck sought to stabilize class and gender norms. The aim was to preserve the social order by policing the restrooms.57 In the lavatories, class and gender differentials were patently obvious: the middle-class male management devised a system to observe working-class women attending to intimate bodily functions, and this was an exercise of power intended to maintain the social order.58 In the end, Stollwerck’s restroom surveillance underscores the fact that women’s lavatories themselves are based on a host of gendered assumptions. A cultural construct, the restroom does not merely reflect beliefs about women, along

96  Sara Ann Sewell with their morality, hygiene, bodies, and sexualities. Rather, the lavatory itself shapes beliefs. Historians argue that the “secret realm of the restroom” sparked widespread anxiety among the male bourgeois classes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.59 Middle-class men worried that women’s restrooms promoted gender, class, and sexual disorder. As Barbara Penner explains, the restroom’s “intimate association with the female body, as the container of its natural functions . . . evoked the spectre of sexuality” in the eyes of middle-class men.60 Restrooms, men widely believed, were places where prostitutes and lowclass women engaged in nefarious activities, and therefore, elite males sought to regulate them in a broader effort to discipline women, particularly workingclass women.61 Inscribed with sexual overtones, women’s restrooms became sites of “gendered power relations in which men’s dominance over women [was] expressed and recreated,” according to Linda McDowell.62 That Stollwerck monitored its female employees in restrooms was evidence of this long-standing patriarchal effort to control working-class women by monitoring their most private activities. Even more disconcerting to communists were the body inspections that Stollwerck’s female employees faced, as described by one woman: Each working woman must, before she goes into the locker room, turn a control knob. Then the light goes on, and the word “Control” appears. Then each girl must subject herself to a body search. This happens often in the most shameful manner. Nonetheless, no one may refuse or she will be fired immediately.63 Scholars have produced a substantial body of literature on late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century efforts to control women by policing their bodies. Of special note is Judith Walkowitz’s seminal study on female sexuality in Victorian England, which broke new ground in the study of gender, sexuality, and body politics. According to Walkowitz, the monitoring of women’s bodies was not simply a matter of controlling their bodies and their perceived “disorderly sexual conduct,” for regulating women’s bodies was intended to control women in their entirety – their “work, life-style, reproductive strategies, fashion, and self-display.”64 In this context, the female body constituted a site of power and discourse in both public spaces and the modern factory. As Kathleen Canning argues, working women’s bodies were marked as a locus of “intervention for the moralizing and regulatory regimes of industrial paternalism.”65 Stollwerck’s monitoring of female bodies was evidence of the belief that women, particularly working-class women, were inherently unruly and ungovernable, and, therefore, their bodies required surveillance and disciplining. To be sure, Stollwerck’s surveillance of women’s bodies was, at its core, an effort to control working-class women, for body inspections were to serve as deterrents against disorderly behaviour, whether that be eating chocolates or organizing coworkers. On the shop floor, communists saw this surveillance as an attempt to render employees docile to the modern factory by scrutinizing and humiliating them.

Surveillance on the assembly line 97

Resistance to surveillance Thus far, this analysis has examined communist workers’ experiences with and critiques of surveillance, emphasizing the disciplinary features of rationalized production at Stollwerck. Taking methodological cues from Foucault, it has painted surveillance largely as a coercive disciplinary strategy that leads to selfregulation. And yet, there were limits to the surveillance, for employees did resist the monitoring. The mere fact that Stollwerck Gold was distributed underlined the ways that activists challenged Stollwerck’s disciplinary measures. This interpretation is consistent with other research that shows that even under the most restrictive industrial regimes, workers devised ways to resist, often resorting to small subversive practices that had little to do with organized labour.66 Examining power relations at Stollwerck, this study draws attention to the incongruous ways that power operated on the shop floor. On the one hand, it situates Stollwerck’s surveillance strategies within Foucault’s disciplinary paradigm; on the other hand, it recognizes that power relations were more dynamic than Foucault’s theory on discipline acknowledges. By decentring power and situating power dynamics within workers’ everyday experiences, moments of resistance come to light. Stollwerck’s disciplinary systems handed communists compelling issues to politicize co-workers, which yielded some political successes. In fact, the Stollwerck cell was one of the few KPD cells that could credibly boast of a successful Worker Correspondent Movement, peaking precisely during the years when Stollwerck implemented rationalization. Communists’ claims of success were epitomized in a report detailing their distribution of Stollwerck Gold on 23 March 1929. According to the cell, co-workers were eager to get a copy of the paper. “The distributor could hardly protect himself from the rush” of workers who ripped the paper out of his hands. Suddenly, the factory started to bustle. “What was that?” Inspector Bauknechte asked. “More and more [employees] are coming in and all have this paper? What in the world is up? The damn communists wouldn’t dare. . . ?” Suddenly, a street boy (Achtgroschenjunger) exclaimed, “Look at this, Herr Inspector!” With his eyes wide open, he read: “All that glitters isn’t gold!” The Inspector shouted: “Oh God, Oh God, what a cursed mess!” He rushed to the telephone and yelled: “Fast, Fräulein! Stollwerck here. Quickly! [Send] the riot squad!” Soon afterwards, the police arrived. “But who was even faster?” the article rhetorically posed. “Naturally, the communists were. They had already distributed their papers when the police arrived. And from a distance, they watched with grins as the clods struggled in vain” to collect the paper.67 This report offered telling insight into the nature of communist resistance at Stollwerck. Having published numerous exposés on the company, communists were emboldened. They intrepidly confronted management, risking arrest and certain termination. In addition, this article illustrates the rhetorical moves that communists made to challenge management. They depicted themselves as the fearless champions of their co-workers; conversely, they characterized Inspector Bauknechte as so inept that he had to rely upon a boy of dubious character to learn what was happening in the factory. More clever than the manager, communists

98  Sara Ann Sewell rendered both Bauknechte and the police impotent when confronted with an agitated workforce. Such character attacks were at the heart of communist resistance, for the cell routinely denounced employees whom they suspected actively opposed workers’ interests. Among their most prominent targets were the company’s alleged moles. According to communists, Stollwerck planted spies as part of an extensive surveillance system. They warned co-workers, “Each of you will be watched by these bums, and every word and everything you do will be immediately reported to management.”68 To expose the moles, Stollwerck Gold featured a column, entitled “Warning – Spies,” which listed the names of suspected moles. Throughout 1926 and 1927, the cell reported extensively on two alleged moles, Jakob Senden and Mathias Roth, who testified against four employees whom Stollwerck had fired for stealing chocolates. According to communists, Senden’s and Rothe’s testimonies confirmed that Stollwerck hired informants. “We can prove a whole series of cases where “workers” were employed at Stollwerck who obtained mole instructions just before starting.”69 Stollwerck’s alleged employment of moles, its termination of the workers, and the court hearings provided communists with a fortuitous opportunity to politicize the shop floor. In fact, the cell claimed that its exposés resounded throughout the factory. “[A]fter we exposed Stollwerck’s mole apparatus,” it asserted, “Stollwerck’s house of lies collapsed and the court had to acquit.”70 In July 1927 when the same case went before the trade court, additional evidence was submitted that suggested the impact of the cell’s reporting. During the proceedings, the terminated workers entered into evidence a September 1926 letter from Rothe to Inspector Brücker in which Rothe complained that Brücker had not paid him for his testimony, as promised. Most revealing was Rothe’s statement about the cell. “Herr Inspector,” he wrote, “It is surely uncomfortable for a company to be constantly denounced in the [communist] paper.” Aware that communists’ denunciations politicized the shop floor, Rothe reportedly threatened to provide the cell with additional information about the mole network if payment was not forthcoming.71 Communists denounced other employees in an effort to resist rationalization, along with its attendant surveillance and disciplinary measures.72 Seeking to discredit certain managers and co-workers, the cell accused some employees of activities that undermined workers’ rights. The most common denunciation tactic was the charge of Nazi membership. Labelling Stollwerck a “fascist company,” communists asserted that Stollwerck employed Nazis to weed out labour activists.73 Accordingly, communists charged that management positioned Nazi employees as their agents on the factory floor. For example, in March 1930, Stollwerck Gold published a cartoon that featured a Nazi employee leading workers in Stollwerck’s company choir. The sketch featured an omniscient and omnipotent factory director who moves the arms of the puppet conductor, as the automatous employees submissively follow the cues of the Nazi marionette. Such cartoons visualized communists’ accusation that Stollwerck employed Nazis as intermediary disciplinary agents who kept an eye on co-workers.

Surveillance on the assembly line 99 Defaming employees as Nazis was a favourite manoeuvre used by the communist cell to denounce those who allegedly did management’s bidding on the shop floor. Among communists’ favorite targets was Supervisor Fräulein Ahrends, whom they asserted aggressively policed labour activists. An April 1930 Stollwerck Gold cartoon featured Ahrends, brandishing a large swastika on her bottom. She is depicted as physically grotesque with a pronounced posterior, knock-knees, and grimacing facial expression. This rendering was clearly informed by understandings of gender. Specifically, it indicates that communists did not believe that Ahrends’ apparent antipathy towards workers and Nazi affiliation were sufficient to defame her because it also portrayed her as decidedly unattractive to suggest the negative effects of both power and Nazism. Such a portrayal stood in stark contrast to the cell’s depictions of male managers who were not caricaturized as unattractive. In essence, the cell insinuated that Ahrends, by assuming a management position and affiliating with the Nazi Party, violated gender norms. She had become masculinized, which communists sought to accentuate by manipulating her physical features, and underscoring the contested nature of gender relations on the Stollwerck shop floor.

Conclusion This examination of surveillance at the Stollwerck factory provides a compelling case study to show how workers experienced the surveillance associated with rationalization. With the improving economy in the mid-1920s, Stollwerck overhauled its Cologne facility to integrate modern techniques into the production process. As part and parcel with the restructuring came an effort to gain greater control over employees through a comprehensive surveillance system. Writing from the assembly line, communists detailed their experiences with rationalization and surveillance, excoriating the new production methods because they resulted in unemployment, work speed-ups, adverse working conditions, and injuries. Such arguments were consistent with the KPD’s stance on rationalization. However, in their critique of rationalization, communists shed light on an issue that received scant attention from party leaders: namely, factory surveillance. Surveillance on the shop floor looked different than KPD propaganda described, and it was from this vantage point that communists and sympathizers formed their politics. Writing from the assembly line, they depicted surveillance as ubiquitous, emanating from the director’s office, so that nowhere in the factory could employees steal a moment of privacy. Given that Stollwerck’s workforce was predominantly female and that some communists presumably were women, it is not surprising that the cell reported on the ways that surveillance uniquely shaped the experiences of female employees. They charged that women were targeted with unrelenting monitoring, which included scrutiny of their work performance, restroom observation, and body inspections. At one level, it appeared that Stollwerck successfully established a comprehensive surveillance system based on systematic monitoring. Indeed, the writings and sketches in Stollwerck Gold pointed to Stollwerck’s adoption of Bentham’s

100  Sara Ann Sewell panopticon design and the relevance of Foucault’s discipline theory. At another level, however, communist resistance underscored the limits of the surveillance. Denouncing fellow employees and exposing alleged moles, the cell subverted Stollwerck’s surveillance by deploying its own surveillance tactics.

Notes 1 Stollwerck Gold, Es ist nicht alles Gold was glänzt: Organ der kommunistischen Betriebszelle Stollwerck (hereafter SG), Berlin, September 1926. 2 A. D. Chandler and T. Hikino, Scale and Scope, the Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1994, pp. 300–404; A. Epple, Das Unternehmen Stollwerck. Eine Mikrogeschichte der Globalisierung, Frankfurt/M, Campus, 2010; G. D. Feldman, ‘Thunder from Arosa: Karl Kimmich and the Reconstruction of the Stollwerck Company, 1930–1932,’ Business & Economic History, vol. 26, no. 2, Winter 1997, pp. 686–695; T. Junggeburth, Stollwerck 1839–1932: Unternehmerfamilie und Familienunternehmer, Stuttgart, Franz Steiner, 2014; B. Kuske, 100 Jahre StollwerckGeschichte 1839–1939, Cologne, Stollwerck, 1939; G. W. Pohle, Probleme aus den Leben eines industriellen Großbetriebs, Naumburg, Lippert & Co., 1905; W. Schäfke and T. Pape (eds.), Das Mmmuseum: Die Schokolandenseite der Kölner Museen, Cologne, Stollwerck Museum, 1993; Verband der Nahrungsmittel- und Getränkearbeiter Deutschlands (ed.), Die deutsche Kakao- und Schokoladenindustrie. Darstellungen und Untersuchungen einzelner Zweige der Nahrungsmittel- und Getränkeindustrie, Berlin, Verband der Nahrungsmittel- und Getränkearbeiter Deutschlands, 1931, pp. 21–33. 3 Schäfke and Pape, Das Mmmuseum, p. 62; Kuske, 100 Jahre Stollwerck-Geschichte, p. 121. 4 L. Biggs, The Rational Factory: Architecture, Technology, and Work in America’s Age of Mass Production, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, p. 6. 5 A number of scholars have examined rationalization during the Weimar Republic, focusing on its economic impact, technological developments, and labour leaders’ views. T. von Freyberg, Industrielle Rationalisierung in der Weimarer Republik: Untersucht an Beispielen aus dem Maschinenbau und der Elektroindustrie, New York, Campus, 1989; M. Nolan, Visions of Modernity: American Business and the Modernization of Germany, New York, Oxford University Press, 1994; E. C. Schöck, Arbeitslosigkeit und Rationalisierung: Die Lage der Arbeiter und die kommunistische Gewerkschaftspolitik 1920–1928, New York, Campus, 1977; G. Stollberg, Die Rationalisierungsdebatte 1908–1933: Freie Gewerkschaften zwischen Mitwirkung und Gegenwehr, New York, Campus, 1981. 6 U. Stolle, Arbeiterpolitik im Betrieb: Frauen und Männer, Reformisten und Radikale, Fach- und Massenarbeiter bei Bayer, BASF, Bosch und in Solingen, 1900–1933, Frankfurt/M, Campus, 1980, pp. 251–252. 7 M. Torigian, Every Factory a Fortress: The French Labor Movement in the Age of Ford and Hitler, Athens, Ohio University Press, 1999, p. 8. See also Biggs, The Rational Factory, p. 131; A. McKinlay and P. Taylor, ‘Through the Looking Glass: Foucault and the Politics of Production,’ in A. McKinlay and K. Starkey (eds.), Foucault, Management and Organization Theory: From Panopticon to Technologies of Self, London, Sage, 1998, pp. 173–190; K. Uhl, ‘Giving Scientific Management a “Human” Face: The Engine Factory Deutz and a German Path to Efficiency, 1910–1945,’ Labor History, vol. 52, no. 4, November 2011, pp. 511–533, esp. p. 513. 8 Nolan, Visions of Modernity, p. 6. 9 T. Monahan, ‘Surveillance as a Cultural Practice,’ The Sociological Quarterly, vol. 52, no. 4, 2011, pp. 495–508, 499.

Surveillance on the assembly line 101 10 M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Alan Sheridan, trans., New York, Vintage Books, 1995 (1977), pp. 183–184. 11 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 215. 12 G. Elmer, ‘Panopticon – Discipline – Control,’ in K. Ball, K. D. Haggerty and D. Lyon (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, New York, Routledge, 2012, pp. 21–29. 13 M. Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 by Michel Foucault, Colin Gordon, ed. and C. Gordon, trans., New York, Pantheon, 1980, p. 60. 14 K. M. Mallmann, Kommunisten in der Weimarer Republik: Sozialgeschichte einer revolutionären Bewegung, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1996. Mallmann challenges an earlier historiography that emphasizes the cadre’s subordination to KPD leaders. See H. Weber, Die Wandlung des deutschen Kommunismus: Die Stalinisierung der KPD in der Weimarer Republik, Frankfurt/M, Europäische Verlagsanstalt, vol. 2, 1969. 15 Since the end of the nineteenth century, Stollwerck’s workforce was composed largely of women. In the 1890s, women represented 60 to 70 per cent of the workforce. This high percentage of women was representative of the German chocolate industry. In 1925, for example, almost 77 per cent of all DENAG members working in the chocolate industry were women. DENAG (ed.), Jahrbuch 1925, Hamburg, J. Diermeier, 1926, p. 316. 16 H. Koskela, ‘ “You Shouldn’t Wear That Body,” the Problematic of Surveillance and Gender,’ in K. Ball, K. D. Haggerty and D. Lyon (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, New York, Routledge, 2012, pp. 49–56. 17 L. McDowell, Capital Culture: Gender at Work in the City, Oxford, Blackwell, 1997, p. 25. 18 O. Betts, ‘Female Workers, the Confectionery Industry, and the London Labour Market c. 1880,’ Cultural & Social History, vol. 13, no. 3, 2016, pp. 323–337; K. Canning, Languages of Labor and Gender: Female Factory Work in Germany, 1850–1914, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1996; P. Cooper and R. Oldenziel, ‘Cherished Classifications: Bathrooms and the Construction of Gender/Race on the Pennsylvania Railroad During World War II,’ Feminist Studies, vol. 25, no. 1, 1999, pp. 7–41; D. J. Cox and B. Godfrey, Policing the Factory: Theft, Private Policing and the Law in Modern England, London, Bloomsbury, 2013; A. McIvor, A History of Work in Britain, 1880–1950, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001; J. Newbery, ‘Space of Discipline and Governmentality: The Singer Sewing Machine Factory, Clydebank, in the Twentieth Century,’ Scottish Geographical Journal, vol. 129, no. 1, pp. 15–35; C. Morgan, ‘Work for Girls? The Small Metal Industries in England 1840–1915,’ in M. J. Maynes et al., (eds.) Secret Gardens, Satanic Mills: Placing Girls in European History 1760–1960, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2005, pp. 81–98. 19 On the Worker Correspondent Movement, see M. Kley, ‘Industrieliteratur Reconsidered: Weimar Communists on Labor and Rationalization,’ Focus on German Studies, vol. 15, 2008, pp. 81–104; C. Hempel-Küter, ‘Die kommunistische Presse und die Arbeiterkorrespondenten-bewegung in der Weimarer Republik. Das Beispiel der Hamburger Volkszeitung,’ PhD dissertation, Hamburg, Lang, 1987 and Frankfurt/M, Lang, 1989; G. Moser, ‘Zwischen Autonomie und Organisation. Die Arbeiterkorrespondentenbewegung der “Roten Fahne in den Jahren” 1924 bis 1933,’ PhD dissertation, Vienna, University of Vienna, 1988; S. A. Sewell, ‘From the Lives of Workers: Worker Correspondents in Cologne, 1924–1933,’ PhD dissertation, Madison, University of Wisconsin, 2000; B. Simms, ‘The Workers Correspondents’ Movement in Württemberg During the Weimar Republic: 1928–1933,’ European History Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 4, 1991, pp. 481–514. 20 By 1926, the cell had been regularly producing a paper and continued to do so through 1929, making it one of the few consistent cell papers in Germany. Zur Lage im Bezirk

102  Sara Ann Sewell Mittelrhein, Berlin, Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der ehemaligen DDR im Bundesarchiv, n.d. (hereafter, SAPMO-BA): RY1/I 3/21/11; ‘Bericht über den Stand der Reorganisation der Ortsgruppe Köln,’ 22 February 1926, SAPMOBA: RY1/I 3/21/19; ‘Agitprop-Arbeit im Betriebe,’ Parteiarbeiter, April 1926, 118; ‘Mehrarbeit, Lohnabbau, und Massenentlassungen,’ SR, 8 October 1926. The most complete collection of Stollwerck Gold is located at the Bundesarchiv, Berlin-Lichterfelde. 21 A. Kelly (ed.), The German Worker: Working-Class Autobiographies from the Age of Industrialization, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1987, p. 4. 22 Kley, ‘Industrieliteratur Reconsidered,’ in passim; Nolan, Visions of Modernity, pp. 41, 96, 168, 178. 23 J. Walcher, Ford oder Marx. Die praktische Lösung der sozialen Frage, Berlin, Neuer Deutscher Verlag, 1925, p. 78. 24 Employment at Stollwerck’s Cologne plant vacillated in the mid-1920s. In fall 1925, Stollwerck employed 3,000, its largest workforce during the Weimar Republic. One year later, it laid off 2,000 employees, but then increased its workforce again in 1927. Report to the Zentrale der KPD (Or-Büro) from the BL MR, Org.-Abtlg., 31 July 1924, SAPMO-BA: RY1/I 3/21/28; ‘Stollwerck,’ Sozialistische Republik (hereafter SR), 9 July 1926; ‘Mehrarbeit, Lohnabbau u Massenentlassungen,’ SR, 8 October 1926; ‘Provokation der Firma Stollwerck AG,’ SR, 5 May 1927; Der Arbeiter. Gewerkschaftsbeilage der Rheinische Zeitung, 31 December 1929; Rheinische Zeitung, 27/28 February 1932; ‘Fließbandarbeit bei Stollwerck,’ SR, 12 March 1932; Kuske, 100 Jahre Stollwerck-Geschichte, 136; Pohle, Probleme aus den Leben, 77. 25 ‘Was Theobromina Schnüffler über Rationalisierung zu erzählen weiß,’ SG, August 1926. 26 ‘Stollwerck terrorisiert den Betriebsrat,’ SR, 23 July 1926. Historians generally concur that rationalization resulted in increased illnesses and injuries. Nolan, Visions of Modernity, pp. 167–168. 27 ‘Was Theobromina Schnüffler über Rationalisierung zu erzählen weiß.’ 28 Such complaints were echoed by other factory cells, which reported that as the new production methods were introduced, supervision increased. Nolan, Visions of Modernity, p. 178. 29 Zelle Stollwerck, ‘Die bitteren Pillen der süßen Stollwerck A.G. für die Belegschaft,’ SR, 23 January 1926. 30 E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, New York, Vintage Books, 1966 (1963). Also Biggs, The Rational Factory, pp. 132–133; Newbery, ‘Space of Discipline,’ pp. 21–24; Nolan, Visions of Modernity, pp. 167–168; J. Stein, ‘Time, Space and Social Discipline: Factory Life in Cornwall, Ontario, 1867–1893,’ Journal of Historical Geography, vol. 21, no. 3, 1995, pp. 278–299; N. Thrift, ‘Owners’ Time and Own Time: The Making of a Capitalist Time-Consciousness 1300–1800,’ in J. Agnew, D. Livingstone and A. Rodgers (eds.), Human Geography: An Essential Anthology, Oxford, Blackwell, 1996, pp. 552–570; Uhl, ‘Giving Scientific Management a “Human” Face,’ pp. 518–523. 31 Biggs, The Rational Factory, pp. 50, 135. 32 Newbery, ‘Space of Discipline,’ p. 21. 33 J. Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, Miran Božovič, ed., London, Verso Books, 2010, p. 15. 34 M. Galič, T. Timan and B. J. Koops, ‘Bentham, Deleuze and Beyond: An Overview of Surveillance Theories from the Panopticon to Participation,’ Philosophy & Technology, vol. 30, no. 1, 2017, p. 12. 35 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 204. 36 P. Fraile and Q. Bonastra, ‘Sharing Architectural Models: Morphologies and Surveillance from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries,’ Asclepio, vol. 69, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1–22, p. 18; M. Huxley, ‘Geographies of Governmentality,’ in J. W. Crampton and

Surveillance on the assembly line 103 Stuart Elden (eds.), Space, Knowledge and Power: Foucault and Geography, London, Routledge, 2016 (2007), pp. 185–204; D. R. Sack, Human Territoriality: Its Theory and History, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986. 37 G. Rose, Feminism and Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1993, p. 17. 38 B. Penner, ‘A World of Unmentionable Suffering: Women’s Public Conveniences in Victorian London,’ Journal of Design History, vol. 14, no. 1, 2001, pp. 35–51, 37. 39 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 170. 40 Biggs, The Rational Factory, pp. 51–52, 128–129; Newbery, ‘Space of Discipline,’ pp. 19–26; Stein, ‘Time, Space and Social Discipline,’ pp. 278–299; E. M. Wainwright, ‘Dundee’s Jute Mills and Factories: Spaces of Production, Surveillance and Discipline,’ Scottish Geographical Journal, vol. 121, no. 2, 2005, pp. 121–140. 41 Fraile and Bonastra, ‘Sharing Architectural Models,’ p. 10. 42 Cooper and Oldenziel, ‘Cherished Classifications,’ pp. 8, 17. 43 Betts, ‘Female Workers,’ p. 329, 332; R. Fitzgerald, Rowntree and the Marketing Revolution, 1862–1969, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 225–230; G. Wagner, The Chocolate Conscience, London, Chatto & Windus, 1987, pp. 1–20. 44 R. Graf, ‘Anticipating the Future in the Present: “New Women” and Other Beings of the Future in Weimar Germany,’ Central European History, vol. 42, no. 4, 2009, pp. 647–673; A. Grossmann, ‘Eine “neue Frau” im Deutschland der Weimarer Republik?’ in Helmut Gold and Annette Koch (eds.), Fräulein vom Amt, Munich, Prestel, 1993, pp. 136–161; K. Sykora (ed.), Die Neue Frau. Herausforderung für die Bildmedien der Zwanziger Jahre, Marburg, Jonas, 1993; C. Usborne, ‘The New Woman and Generation Conflict: Perceptions of Young Women’s Sexual Mores in the Weimar Republic,’ in M. Roseman (ed.), Generation in Conflict: Youth Revolts and Generation Formation in Germany 1770–1968, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 137–163. 45 ‘Gebr. Stollwerck A.G., Köln,’ SR, 9 July 1926. 46 ‘Was Theobromina Schnüffler über Rationalisierung zu erzählen weiß.’ 47 ‘Eine Kölner Arbeiterin in Moskau,’ SR, 18 September 1926. 48 R. J. Soderund, ‘Resistance from the Margins: The Yorkshire Worsted Spinners, Policing, and the Transformation of Work in the Early Industrial Revolution,’ International Review of Social History, vol. 51, no. 2, 2006, pp. 217–242, 230–231. 49 O. Gershenson and B. Penner, ‘Introduction: The Private Life of Public Conveniences,’ in O. Gershenson and B. Penner (eds.), Ladies and Gents: Public Toilets and Gender, Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 2009, p. 9. 50 Cooper and Oldenziel, ‘Cherished Classifications,’ p. 32. 51 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, pp. 172–173. 52 A. Brown-Mae and P. Fraser, ‘Gender, Respectability, and Public Convenience,’ in O. Gershenson and B. Penner (eds.), Ladies and Gents: Public Toilets and Gender, Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 2009, pp. 81–85. Also, Penner, ‘A World of Unmentionable Suffering,’ p. 45; J. Plaskow, ‘Embodiment, Elimination, and the Roles of Toilets in Struggles for Social Justice,’ Cross Currents, vol. 58, no. 1, 2008, pp. 51–64, 57. 53 A. Cooper et al., ‘Rooms of Their Own: Public Toilets and Gendered Citizens in a New Zealand City, 1860–1940,’ Gender Place and Culture, vol. 7, no. 4, 2000, pp. 417–434, 422–425; Brown-Mae and Fraser, ‘Gender, Respectability, and Public Convenience,’ pp. 81–87; Penner, ‘A World of Unmentionable Suffering,’ p. 45. 54 Cooper et al., ‘Rooms of Their Own,’ p. 422. 55 Penner, ‘A World of Unmentionable Suffering,’ p. 41; A. von Saldern, Häuserleben: Zur Geschichte städtischen Arbeiterwohnens vom Kaiserreich bis heute, Bonn, Dietz, 1995, pp. 65, 133. 56 Gershenson and Penner, ‘Introduction,’ p. 9. 57 Cooper and Oldenziel, ‘Cherished Classifications,’ p. 8.

104  Sara Ann Sewell 58 Koskela, ‘ “You Shouldn’t Wear That Body”,’ 51. 59 Canning, Languages of Labor, p. 298. 60 Penner, ‘A World of Unmentionable Suffering,’ p. 45. 61 M. Flanagan, ‘Private Needs, Public Space: Public Toilets Provision in the AngloAtlantic Patriarchal City: London, Dublin, Toronto and Chicago,’ Urban History, vol. 41, no. 2, 2014, pp. 265–290, 270–275. 62 McDowell, Capital Culture, p. 27. 63 Eine Stollwerckarbeiterin, ‘Die Frau um Betrieb Stollwerck,’ SR, 1 March 1928. 64 J. Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late Victorian London, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1992, p. 6. 65 Canning, Languages of Labor, p. 14. 66 Betts, ‘Female Workers,’ pp. 331–344; Biggs, The Rational Factory, p. 135; C. J. Cowton and S. Dopson, ‘Foucault’s Prison? Management Control in an Automotive Distributor,’ Management Accounting Research, vol. 13, no. 2, 2002, pp. 191–213; Newbery, ‘Space of Discipline,’ pp. 23–33; Soderund, ‘Resistance from the Margins,’ pp. 218–219. 67 Betriebskorrespondenz, ‘Stollwerck mobilisiert Polizei gegen Betriebszeitung,’ SR, 26 March 1929. 68 ‘Der Stahlhelm bei Stollwerck,’ SG, July 1926. Across Germany, communists complained of spy networks that monitored their activities at work. E. D. Weitz, Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1997, pp. 147–148. 69 ‘Enthüllungen über den Spitzelsumpf bei Stollwerck,’ SR, 14 September 1926. 70 Betriebszelle Stollwerck, ‘Bevorstehende gewaltige Niederlage der Firma Stollwerck am Gewerbegericht,’ SR, 2 April 1927. 71 The letter was printed in the KPD organ. ‘Sumpfblüte Stollwerck,’ SR, 29 July 1927. 72 Since the December 1996 landmark issue of the Journal of Modern History (‘Practices of Denunciation in Modern European History, 1789–1989’), denunciation has been the subject of considerable historical scholarship. 73 For example, ‘Aus der Stahlhelm-Stollwerck-Fabrik,’ SR, 26 June 1926; ‘Gebr. Stollwerck A.G., Köln,’ SR, 9 July 1926; Betriebszelle Stollwerck, ‘Die StollwerckArbeiter demonstrieren,’ SR, 15 July 1926; ‘Stollwerck terrorisiert den Betriebsrat,’ SR, 23 July 1926; ‘Niederlage der Firma Stollwerck,’ SR, 2 May 1927; ‘Der Stahlhelm bei Stollwerck,’ SG, July 1926. The Rheinische Zeitung corroborated the cell’s assertion that Stollwerck was a centre of Nazi organization in Cologne. ‘Die Leute von Speise und Trank,’ Rheinische Zeitung, 27–28 February 1932.

6 Securing the state The First World War and the birth of the modern surveillance state in Scandinavia Nik Brandal, Eirik Brazier and Ola Teige The British historian A.J.P. Taylor famously wrote that before August 1914, a “sensible law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state” and that a foreigner could spend his or her entire life in Britain without “a permit and without informing the police”.1 As Jon Agar has noted, the European governments knew very little about their states and people before the outbreak of the First World War.2 While it is a fact that the demands of total war fundamentally transformed the role of the state in Britain and other belligerent societies concerning levels of surveillance and social control, research is absent into the effects on neutral countries. This chapter explores how the impact of the First World War contributed to and accelerated the rise of modern surveil­ lance structures in Scandinavia, and how this evolution affected state policy on border control, migration, foreign espionage, and other external threats to the state. Norway is the main case, but the chapter also addresses the development in Denmark and Sweden in a comparative perspective of the three kingdoms. The Scandinavian countries did not fight a physical calamitous war, but their societies and states were not immune to the conflict. The context of total war, with its scarcity of resources, increased migration, and economic instability, intensified a need for the state to define and defend those considered part of the nation. This echoes Toni Weller’s findings that a dichotomy of welfare and warfare was part of the emerging modern surveillance state. But few, however, have explored how this development affected the Scandinavian countries.3 In a long-term perspective, the emergence of Scandinavian surveillance states during wartime also became an integrated part of budding welfare states, which relied on the government having access to precise and comprehensive information about the citizenry to design its social policies, and dovetailed with James C. Scott’s concern with the ideology of high modernism in a Scandinavian context.4 As such, this approach allows for further investigations of the modern state project as it emerged in the Scandinavian countries at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The surveillance state The modern surveillance state, as created in the First World War-era in both belligerent and neutral countries, provided the Scandinavian governments with tools

106  Nik Brandal, Eirik Brazier and Ola Teige that, in combination with a rationale for the design of social order, were to have wide-ranging consequences for those who were defined as “others”, be they political opponents, national minorities, or other outsiders.5 In the inter- and post-war era, the new laws and surveillance techniques introduced during the First World War were used to monitor and control minorities, as policing took on the added dimension of social control. As stated in the preamble to the Norwegian Police Law of 1920, modern policing was of a “deeper and more wide-ranging character” than the mere criminal investigations of the past. In a well-adjusted society, the police force was a “necessary and important part of the local and central administration”, tasked with implementing or controlling “a large number of public provisions and arrangements”.6 Among these tasks were controlling social and ethnic minorities. Whereas forced assimilation of especially Sami and Romani people had taken place in Norway and Sweden since the mid-1800, the policies were supercharged by the new tools provided by the war and a new ideology that has been described by the American anthropologist and political scientist James C. Scott as High Modernism.7 According to Scott, it was born out of the economic mobilisation especially in Germany during the war, as an attempt to shape everything according to a uniform and rational design. This approach required that the state must have intimate knowledge of its citizens, and to gain such knowledge, society had to be made more transparent and standardised. The modern state consequently introduced standardised techniques to measure, tax, and monitor its citizens and mobilise its social resources to the maximum, measures that in peacetime transformed into becoming a goal in themselves. While Scott does not deal with surveillance at any detail, he touches on it briefly in the introduction when he states that the social simplifications through standardisation and rationalisation of the modern state were a requirement for discriminating interventions “of every kind, such as public-health measures, political surveillance, and relief for the poor”.8 Furthermore, a feature of the modern state, according to Scott, was the expansion of the state space to maximise the available resources. Whereas the classical state envisaged a concentrated population where the state space expanded through providing roads, irrigation, and so on within a limited physical space, the modern state has therefore developed means to transform even the peripheral non-state spaces into state spaces.9 This feature of modernity thus links to the Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s two concepts of The Gardening State and Liquid Modernity. According to Bauman, the political gardening impulse was not exclusive to the totalitarian regimes of Soviet Union and Nazi Germany but could be found even within scientific, academic, political, and cultural elites of early twentieth-century liberal democracies.10 As Roger Griffin has pointed out, modern states incorporated the Enlightenment dream of founding a civic religion and creating a new breed of men “purged of doubt” and attempted to temporalise utopia by treating society as a legitimate object of what Bauman calls “design, manipulation, management, engineering”.11 Modernity is hence expressed through various forms of social engineering in planning, public health, welfare, and so on in projects that swing between two extremes – optimism and future beliefs and fears about the decay

Securing the state 107 and disintegration of society.12 The modern state then acts as the gardener trying to keep the garden pristine by weeding out everything that does not fit into the garden’s design to ensure its survival. As Véronique Mottier has identified, the motif of a gardening state was a key rationale in the Swiss use of eugenics as a social policy between 1920 and 1960.13 Similarly, a feature of liquid modernity was increased “[u]ncertainty about the future, frailty of social positions, and existential insecurity”, which has led to a growth in security systems, including increased surveillance of public spaces.14 While Bauman attempted to describe the post-World War Two society and does not expand his concept to include surveillance, David Lyon has used it to show how the modern state is characterised by data-flows, mutating surveillance agencies and the targeting and sorting of everyone, and how understanding this function of the surveillance of “the other” is especially important for “times of terror”.15 The existing literature concerning the surveillance of internal and external enemies in the Scandinavian countries in the First World War era and the following years, and the organisations that conducted this, is somewhat underdeveloped. Furthermore, the focus on what exists is narrow and national, not Scandinavian. This is also the case for the related fields of intelligence history, which focuses on one specific type of such enemies. In Norway, the two-volume book Den hemmelige krigen: Overvåking i Norge 1914–1997 by Trond Bergh and Knut Einar Eriksen investigates the development and history of the Norwegian state surveil­ lance apparatus. However, the authors are mainly concerned with the Cold War and the modern Norwegian Police Surveillance Service, founded in 1937. The First World War and the following years are discussed in a few pages.16 Other than a few, older biographies and non-academic books, the only work that engages with Norwegian intelligence history in this period is Nik Brandal and Ola Teige’s chapter “The Secret Battlefield. Intelligence and Counter-intelligence in Scandinavia during the First World War” in an anthology about Scandinavia in the First World War, published in 2014. They are concerned with the development of surveillance and counter-intelligence organisations in Norway, as well as events during the war, but are focused more on espionage than surveillance as such.17 The role of surveillance as a means of controlling and defining minorities was first discussed by Nik Brandal and Eirik Brazier in the chapter “De fremmede og staten” (Aliens and the State) in an anthology investigating minorities and indigenous peoples in Norwegian politics after 1900.18 In Sweden, Jenny Langkjaer’s Ph.D. Thesis Övervakning för rikets säkerhet (Surveillance for the security of the state) gives us a good overview of the development of surveillance organisations in Sweden in the period and how they operated.19 In Denmark, however, the research literature is scanter. Kristian Bruhn’s Ph.D. Thesis Den hemmelige stat (the secret state) covers the period up to 1914. But no such study exists for the First World War and the following period.20 One exception, in both its theme and Scandinavian scope, is Andreas Marklund’s article Listening for the state: censoring communications in Scandinavia during World War I, which deals with technological aspects of the flow, control, and surveillance of information in Scandinavia during wartime. He concludes that the Great War in

108  Nik Brandal, Eirik Brazier and Ola Teige this facet of surveillance history served as a “game changer”.21 Is this also the case for other aspects of Scandinavian surveillance history?

Strangers and aliens At the start of the twentieth century, the Scandinavian surveillance regimes were fragmented, decentralised, and deficient. In his memoirs, a Norwegian police officer labelled the international border control in the region before the First World War as “a complete state of innocence”.22 As in most of Western Europe, border control in Denmark, Sweden, state and Norway had been relaxed and there were few requirements for people to carry a passport when crossing a national border. Restrictions on domestic travels and mandatory internal passports had also been abolished. In 1860, the Norwegian and Swedish parliaments had rescinded legislation making it mandatory for foreigners to carry a passport, followed by similar legislation in Denmark two years later. As the aforementioned police officer pointed out, passports were neither required nor controlled at the border.23 A growing concern with transient workers from neighbouring countries and regions, however, had resulted in some migration restrictions due to the wish of protecting the domestic labour market. In Denmark, legislation authorised the police to expel any foreign worker who could not provide sufficient documentation in 1875.24 The Norwegian Aliens Act of 1901 was similar in its aim and was envisaged as a tool to limit the influx of poor Swedish labourers. While these laws resulted in the expulsion of many transient workers, they were not rigorously enforced. The reasoning for such a relaxed approach was the fact that Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were net exporters of migrants before 1914. Politicians, media, and the public were far more concerned with the mass exodus of people and the alleged damages of this demographic drain, rather than with new arrivals. A renewed focus on immigration and the physical and “moral” state of the existing populations, however, was slowly beginning to enter the public discourse. The outbreak of war in 1914 energised and accelerated this shift in focus. The closing of important travel routes across mainland Europe placed more pressure on the neutral states in the European periphery. In the first few months of the war, the Norwegian capital of Kristiania received more than a thousand foreigners each day, and in the Danish capital of Copenhagen, the influx of foreigners was even greater. And in Sweden, authorities were deeply concerned with the thousands of Russians, Germans, and Austrians who descended on the small town of Haparanda at the Swedish–Finnish border, as belligerent states expelled enemy Aliens. In September, Sweden was the first of the Scandinavian countries to respond to this groundswell of migration by introducing a legislation that made it easier to expel foreigners, with Denmark following shortly afterwards.25 For Denmark and Sweden, placing checks on migration was a matter of expanding pre-war legislation; in Norway, it led to a more fundamental revision of existing legislation. Nevertheless, before this could be done, the Norwegian parliament

Securing the state 109 hastily approved amendments to the existing Aliens Act 1901, which required foreign citizens to register with authorities within 3 days of arrival. The war also led to a swift but significant reorganisation of the Norwegian police, including an attempt to centralise immigration control under the Kristiania detective department led by Johan Søhr. The pre-war Norwegian police organisation mirrored in large parts its Scandinavian siblings as a mixed force, where the police commissioners and chiefs were employed by and responsible to the central government, while the municipalities employed the personnel, making national coordination difficult. While the police department in Kristiania often took a de facto coordinating role, it was frequently challenged by the local police, who was unwilling to submit to the authority of the capital.26 The new role of the Kristiania CID was emphasised in early 1915 through a circular letter from the Department of Justice to local authorities on how the changes to the Aliens act were to be enacted. The local police chiefs were to collect the foreigner’s registrations using issued standard printed forms, and each police chief was to set up an alphabetical card register of foreigners in their area. Most importantly, “so as one could be able to have lists collected in one place”, all police chiefs were instructed to report monthly to the Kristiania CID “in consideration of the security of the state”.27 The letter thus authorised the Kristiania police as the leading organisation in the national policing of foreigners, a role that was expanded by Johan Søhr beyond merely being an archival depository to a de facto national coordinator. Furthermore, situated close to the political power and the national media in the capital, he also took on a leading role in formulating state policy. Despite these legislative changes, control with foreign citizens entering, travelling across, or leaving Norway remained relatively relaxed during the first winter of the war. The situation, however, was to change in January 1915, when the Norwegian government proposed substantial changes to the Aliens Act of 1901, including a more rigorous system for registering foreign citizens, which required keeping a separate register for those foreigners who wanted to trade or do business and a register of any foreign citizen intending to seek employment or settle in Norway. Police authorities also received extended privileges concerning the expulsion of foreign citizens. Søhr had been a strong proponent of stricter immigration legislation to prevent Norway from becoming the destination for what he termed “the dregs of Europe”. His efforts were a two-pronged defence designed to both limit the activities of foreign intelligence services and stop the influx of groups he labelled “undesirables”. The new legislation reflected his views by arguing for the limitation of “physically and morally weak individuals” and brought the country in line with similar Danish and Swedish efforts.28 In an age of growing state control and ethnical exclusivity, groups like the Roma, Jews, and others deemed to be “undesirable” were under increasing pressure to assimilate into Norwegian society or face exclusion from it. Hence, the consequences of the Aliens Act in 1915 were twofold: first, it put limits on and curbed the arrival of foreign citizens to Norway. Second, it marked an important step towards a state policy intent on strengthening social cohesion

110  Nik Brandal, Eirik Brazier and Ola Teige and ethnic exclusivity, which was to become an increasingly important feature of the Norwegian police in the interwar period. The Aliens Act of 1915 met but minor opposition in the Norwegian parliament, and most of the amendments were adopted unopposed. The parliamentary debate reflected growing concern over the effects of the war and the consequence that mass migration would have on Norway and its society. Minister of Justice Lars Abrahamsen (Liberal) was forthright about the rationale behind the government’s proposals. He observed that stricter migration legislation existed across Europe and argued that Norway would have to follow suit to protect its society. There was a threat, he argued, that if Norway did not amend its legislation, the country would be the recipient of all unwanted migrants from the rest of the continent. It would not be wise, he stated, to turn Norway into “the sewer of Europe” by allowing all kinds of “thieves, bandits, and murderers” to enter the country. Abrahamsen’s language might have been blunt but resonated with large sections of Norwegian, and indeed Scandinavian, society, who increasingly felt the impact of the war.29 The effect of increased migration was not only a growing concern among the Norwegian public, it was also mirrored in all three Scandinavian countries. Port and capital cities were struggling to handle the vast influx of foreign citizens seeking passage between the eastern and western fronts. The war at sea and especially the activities of German submarines often caused severe delays to departing ships, and passengers were frequently forced to stay for days or weeks awaiting safe passage. Increasingly, the presence of foreign citizens was seen to place an unduly strain on local resources and on leading newspapers in both Sweden and Norway to advocate for the introduction of a tax on foreigners. The scarcity of resources and brutality of modern war coarsened the public discourse about both the foreign and domestic “stranger”, as media and opinion-makers took to describing the increase in people travelling through and settling in Norway with derogative terms. Newspapers described the influx of migrants as “a flood”, “a human wave”, “a torrent”, or “an invasion of strangers” (fremmedinvasjonen). Certainly, these descriptions echoed Abrahamsen’s statement in parliament.30 Furthermore, it enhanced the depictions of the strangers as a dehumanised mass. They were not individuals but rather part of a larger and ominous whole that threatened Scandinavian society militarily, socially, and culturally. Aftenposten, the leading conservative Norwegian newspaper, concluded that people should not be naive and “allow foreigners [to] misuse [their] trust and hospitality”.31 Hence, the war had not only introduced a new sense of urgency and energy into the debate about migration, but also given the state new tools to deal with it. An uncontrolled increase in the arrival of foreigners to the region, however, did not only influence immigration legislation; it also raised security concerns, as authorities feared that several spies lurked among the many newly arrived foreigners.

Norwegian counterintelligence Even before the outbreak of war, Norwegian authorities had perceived foreign espionage as a challenge, and especially the period 1910–1914 saw a Russian spy

Securing the state 111 scare directed against itinerant Russian saw-grinders, partly fuelled by parallel events in Sweden, who appeared in large numbers. The Norwegian public suspected that they were part of an extensive intelligence network, a fear that was fed by public statements from the General Staff and the Norwegian police that seemed to confirm the allegations, even though no evidence was ever produced so support these claims. However, while work had started on revising Norwegian legislation with a new spy act in late 1913, it was incomplete when war broke out in August 1914. It took, however, just a few days before the Norwegian parliament passed the “The Defence Secrets Act” (the “Spy Act”), which throughout the war provided the main authorisation for the police in matters of espionage, largely modelled on a similar pre-war Swedish law. The Spy Act criminalised all espionage activity on behalf of a foreign power on Norwegian soil, made military areas off-limits, and forbade the drawing of sketches and maps as well as photographing. The purpose was to calm the public’s fears that the government was unable to deal with the menace of foreign spies and giving the Norwegian police the necessary tools to counteract the subversive activities of foreign powers and their agent endangering Norway’s status as a neutral country.32 Søhr used the 1915 circular letter from the Justice Department to gain a leading position also in Norwegian counterintelligence efforts, and the Kristiania police department Aliens office subsequently expanded its influence in this field early in the war. As Norway lacked a centralised state police force, counterespionage also fell to this office, especially since the Intelligence Office of the General Staff, Generalstabens Etterretningskontor, manned by only two officers, were limited to collecting information without any real operational capacity to investigate, conduct surveillance, or apprehend suspects. Furthermore, military intelligence also lacked jurisdiction to act independently of local police authorities. On the other hand, in the rural areas, especially in Northern Norway, the local army posts were often the only government agencies with the capacity to investigate reports of suspicious alien activities. This situation not only led to an increasingly close cooperation between the Kristiania police and the military intelligence, but also showed the limitations of both offices. Søhrs build-up followed a two-pronged approach: On the one hand, he maintained an extensive correspondence with local police forces, especially in the larger cities, and the General Staff. On the other hand, he influenced the media, cultivating the image of himself as a vigilant fighter of subversive alien forces.33

Swedish counterintelligence The organisation of counterintelligence and surveillance efforts in Sweden followed the same broad lines as in Norway. The collection of intelligence was done by a rather small department of the General Staff, Underättelsesbyrån, which lacked the necessary means to carry out counterintelligence. It had to rely upon the cooperation with the police, especially Eirik Hallgren from the Stockholm police. Surveillance and counterintelligence against suspicious foreigners were the responsibility of the Detective departments of the police, with the one in the

112  Nik Brandal, Eirik Brazier and Ola Teige capital of Stockholm having the most important role, while a separate Aliens office dealt with immigration. As in Norway, there was close cooperation between the General Staff and the police, but unlike Norway, where it developed only after the outbreak of war, it had been established as early as from c. 1908. In May 1914, it was developed further through the establishment of a small unit in Stockholm with personnel drawn from the police, which was to be placed at the disposal of the state, “for the execution of police services in the interest of the armed forces”, that is surveillance and counterintelligence. The unit became known as Polisbyrån, the Police Bureau. The costs were shared between the army and the police, and its existence was kept secret. The bureau grew throughout the war, from six to ten constables. The General staff was to give the Police Bureau any information about aliens and spies, while the Bureau was to give the General staff any information it discovered that was relevant to the military.34 Before 1913, Sweden had no law explicitly outlawing foreign espionage, only laws that punished treason against the state. Accordingly, while Swedish citizens could be punished for revealing classified information, the foreign agents receiving this information or gathering it for themselves could not. At the initiative of the general staff, work to rectify this began in 1908, and a new chapter in the Common Criminal Code was introduced in 1913, outlawing passing of state secrets to foreign agents, as well as putting in place restrictions on access to military bases, sketching of maps, and so on. As we have seen, this legislation served as the main influence for the Norwegian Spy law of 1914. The reasoning behind the law was also broadly similar, a sense that it was necessary to protect the state and its neutrality in an increasingly volatile international situation, especially against Russian agents. The spy panic in Norway 1910–14 directed against travelling Russian saw-grinders had started even earlier in Sweden, which shared a long border with Russia, and on the account of historical reasons tended to look at Russia as a more concrete security threat.35

Danish counterintelligence As in the other Scandinavian countries, there was no national intelligence or counterintelligence organisation in Denmark. Furthermore, like in the Norwegian and Swedish cases, the collection and analysis of the information were carried out by the intelligence section of the General Staff, Generalstabens Efterretningssektion (GE), staffed by a small number of officers. However, unlike Sweden and Norway, the GE had a counterintelligence service with operational capacity and jurisdiction, established as early as 1898. Accordingly, the leading personality of counterespionage and aliens policing was not a civilian but a military officer, the head of the preventive intelligence service in the General Staff, Captain Eirik With. Like Søhr and Hallgren, he used the situation to build and expand his role and importance as the principal-agent in collecting information as well as directing state surveillance and the expulsion of suspicious foreigners and/or spies. Even after he was transferred to a position as a battalion commander in the province following a conflict with the defence minister, Captain With managed to maintain

Securing the state 113 the de facto leadership of GE for the duration of the war through intermediaries and meetings with his successor. The Danish intelligence service, however, was not as formally developed as an organisation but rather an umbrella designation for all counterintelligence activities in the country. As in the other Scandinavian countries, the local police forces and their Alien offices did the legwork of surveillance and arresting suspects, but the Danish General staff had a much more active role than in Sweden or Norway and performed tasks that were under sole police jurisdiction in these countries. It archived all investigations of suspected foreigners and spies and set up a name directory, which in 1918 had over 1,000 entries. The information came from both agents in the domestic intelligence service and the postal and telegraph services. During the war, both the GE and the police had the power to request telephone wiretaps and the interception of letters and telegrams. Denmark also differed when it came to legislation. While the pre-war legislation was broadly similar to the Norwegian and Swedish spy laws of law 1913/14, foreign espionage was legal before the war. It was a topic discussed by a commission working on a new Criminal law before 1914, but this was not enacted until 1930. While both the civilian and military penal codes rendered espionage illegal during wartime and punished treason, that is the giving out of state secrets by Danish citizens, there were no prohibitions or punishment for foreign agents operating on Danish soil in peacetime. After the outbreak of war in 1914, a special decree established that foreign spies could be prosecuted in peacetime, but only on the orders and discretion of the Minister of Justice. The power to punish spies was thus a political rather than a legal weapon, and the Danish government pursued a policy of only filing charges in the serious cases. As a result, only 48 foreigners were convicted and 64 expelled from Denmark for espionage during the war.36

“Spy mania” Outbreaks of “spy mania” or “spy fever” continued to sweep through the population of the belligerent nations during the war, even reaching neutral states such as the Scandinavian countries.37 And as it fed into the imagination and anxieties of the citizens, it also came to deeply affect social attitudes towards foreigners as well as shaping governmental policies of surveillance. Public fears of foreign agents and collaborators equipped with sinister plans to cause harm reached a high watermark in the Scandinavian countries during the spring and summer of 1917. But it was now directed against Germans and not Russians. Feeding the fever was, among other things, the discovery of German espionage networks in several Scandinavian cities such as Gothenburg, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Bergen, and Kristiania.38 The subsequent arrest or expulsion of German agents resulted in newspaper reports that underpinned public fears, as the counterintelligence services discovered secret maps, explosives, and information concerning the movement of neutral shipping. The most notable of these German intelligence activities was the arrest of the Finnish-German Walter von Rautenfels (a.k.a. Walter von Gerich) and other

114  Nik Brandal, Eirik Brazier and Ola Teige Finnish exiles in Norway. German intelligence services had recruited several Finns to carry out sabotage operations against British and Russian targets in both Norway and Finish Russia. In 1917, Nachrichten-Abteilung-N of the German navy had established an office in Stockholm under the cover of a supplies company. The personnel were largely Finnish exiles who, among other duties, smuggled explosives to Kristiania, where they were to be stored before being used to disrupt Allied supply routes to Russia. What was labelled as “the Rautenfels bombs” by Scandinavian newspapers was uncovered after a tip-off from British intelligence to Norwegian and Swedish police. The revelations that foreign agents, such as Rautenfels, had been operating rather unhindered shocked the public and prompted demands for a stricter control with foreigners and migration. In Norway, authorities responded by expanding a surveillance regime by further revisions of the Aliens Act, which added two important pieces of legislation to the existing law. One of them restricted the movement of foreigners within Norway and gave authorities the power to prevent foreign citizens from settling in certain geographical areas. Another part of the new legislation reintroduced a requirement for all foreigners to carry a passport and to obtain a visa to enter the country. Other amendments to existing legislation included a stricter requirement of any foreign citizen to notify police officials within 3 days of arrival and expanded the police’s power to expel foreigners with a criminal record.39 Sweden and Denmark also strengthened their border control and tightened existing migration legislation. In August, Denmark and Sweden re-introduced a requirement for foreigners to carry a passport or obtain a visa to enter the country. At the same time, local authorities received instructions to conduct interviews with foreigners under the age of 12 to ascertain what and why they were in Sweden.40 Compared to previous instructions, the official questionnaires that accompanied these instructions were far more comprehensive and gathered large amounts of information on individual foreigners.41 In addition to providing officials with their name, nationality, and date of birth, the interviewees would also have to answer questions concerned with their employment in Sweden, any persons they had been in contact with, and who had issued their identity paper.42 Norwegian authorities also gathered an increased amount of information on foreign citizens through interviews conducted by a growing number of officials dedicated to surveil­ lance. The government’s apparatus of control grew, as the police and counterintelligence services expanded both their fields of operation and staff. These changes included the creation of a central registry of foreign citizens (fremmedregister) and the establishment of a centralised office to deal with the applications for visas to the country (Centralpasskontoret). The spy-mania of 1917 thus led to the Scandinavian states establishing new regimes of control and monitoring of foreigners, which in turn generated masses of new information from thousands of printed forms distributed throughout the countries to collect information. This manifested itself as statistics, tangible evidence for governments about the number of foreign citizens within the country’s borders. The re-introduction of passports and visas also extended the

Securing the state 115 states’ geographical power. These latter changes moved the border control checks beyond the national border, requiring foreign citizens to produce valid papers before entering the country. It was a new control regime that found its legitimation in the war and the perceived chaos that accompanied the conflict. The end of 1917, however, brought more chaos and potential for new internal and external threats, as the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia.

Post-war The end of the war in 1918 meant that the raison d’être of the police–military constellations changed, even if the laws and decrees passed during the war, both regarding foreigners and espionage remained in place. As the winding down of the war transformed into revolutions, civil wars, and small-scale conflicts, the fear of a communist revolution following the Bolshevik coup d’état in Russia increased. The threat of a communist revolution was felt most strongly in Norway, as the revolutionary faction within the Social Democratic party acceded to power at the party’s national convention in 1918.43 The counterintelligence thus shifted its focus from German spies towards internal and external enemies of revolutionary socialists. As the threat of a Bolshevik revolution replaced the fear of subversive pro-German espionage, the trifecta imagery of German=Jew=spy that had developed since 1914 was seamlessly replaced by Bolshevik=Jew=spy, and the police resources channelled toward the new danger. Russians were again seen as the main threat.44 As the Alien office of the Kristiania police lost most of the extra officers who had been assigned to it, however, the leading role in cases of espionage and counterintelligence passed to the Intelligence office of the General Staff, which did not wind down its activity in the same manner. It used military units and resources in the surveillance of revolutionary contagion and Norwegian communists and labour activists. Throughout the spring of 1918, the General Staff received numerous reports that the social democrats had entered into a clandestine agreement with Soviet Russia and agreed to submit to its authority in exchange for receiving financial and political support.45 As in many other European countries, the fear of revolution, “the red scare”, was the starting point of a large political surveillance. This, however, had clear antecedents in the fear of foreigners and spies in the preceding war years. In 1928, the then Head of Detectives in Oslo (the new name of Kristiania) therefore established a new sub-office charged with monitoring and investigating antidemocratic and/or pro-Bolshevik elements. A similar office was established in the CID in Norway’s second-largest city, Bergen. Thus, the police started to take back from the General Staff a leading role in the Norwegian surveillance and counterintelligence efforts. This coincided with a larger emphasis on external threats. In 1937, these two local offices were merged into a national organisation, the Police Surveillance Service, Politiets overvåkningstjeneste.46 In Sweden, the close military–police cooperation continued, and, like in Norway, the legislation introduced during the war was kept in place. Polisbyrån

116  Nik Brandal, Eirik Brazier and Ola Teige continued to exist. In 1918, still under the leadership of Eric Hallgren, it was transformed from a clandestine organisation to an official office of the Stockholm police with national jurisdiction. In addition to counterespionage, it was given a responsibility for overseeing and registering aliens, based on information from local authorities, including how long they were allowed to stay in the country and what kind of visas they possessed. Hallgren also tried to extend the bureau’s remit to the surveillance of domestic political activity, but these efforts were rebuffed. In 1923, the name was changed to the State Police Bureau for the Surveillance of Foreigners in the Realm, Statens Polisbyrå för övervakande av utlänningar i riket. In 1933, it was subsumed in a new national State Police, Statspolisen.47 Denmark followed more or less the same pattern as Norway, even more so as the Danish General Staff already had the leading role that its Norwegian counterpart gained post-1918. When the war ended, however, surveillance became a joint responsibility of the local police forces’ Alien offices and the General Staff. In 1927, a security office was added to the CID in the capital Copenhagen. The local police forces were to send in information about suspicious foreigners to it, and in 1939 this was expanded to a national Security Police, Sikkerhedspolitiet, directly under the National Police Director. The development within the Scandinavian domestic intelligence services was reflected in the activities of the German and British intelligence agencies, which also turned their interest towards Russia and Bolshevik activities. Scandinavia was in many regards seen as a gateway to the east. A case in point is the arrest of a Norwegian-Dutch businessman sent by German intelligence to Bergen in April 1918, equipped with a detailed questionnaire concerning communist activities.48 Spring and autumn of 1918 saw a more polarised public debate than possibly at any other time in Scandinavian history, and a large-scale collection of information was initiated by the civilian and military intelligence services across the Scandinavia, including increased transnational cooperation and information exchanges between the agencies. However, the most striking feature is that very much of the material gathered was of rather poor quality. It was an eclectic mix of rumours, ideologically motivated claims, revolutionary boasting, and exaggerations, which went from what has been described as “pure madness” on the one hand, to information that most likely came from informed sources or in connection with the labour movement, on the other.49 At the same time, it is also striking that the line that was followed was a non-confrontational one. For example, the allegations that the Norwegian Labour Party had engaged in a secret agreement to subordinate itself to Soviet Russia do not appear to have spawned any major investigation, beyond the activity that the services otherwise conducted. The increase in political surveillance after the war was thus a natural consequence of the build-up of counter-intelligence agencies during the conflict. The low-key response from the intelligence services can be explained through several factors. One is the organisation of the intelligence gathering, where the investigations were carried out by local police on a case-to-case basis rather than a central agency. The result was that the various cases were, mainly, handled fairly and calmly by local authorities with knowledge of the people involved. The

Securing the state 117 intelligence services drew up lists of suspected communists in the trade unions, based on domestic information gathering and information received from intelligence services in other countries. However, this work was mostly characterised by a lack of systematisation that rendered it less effective than it could have been. A second factor that limited the aggressiveness of the intelligence services is that the greatest attention was not directed towards domestic revolutionaries; in fact, it was directed against foreigners, especially Russians and people of other Nordic nationalities.50 The immediate fear of revolution disappeared gradually in the early 1920s. This, of course, was also about the fact that the social democratic parties largely came to marginalise the pro-Bolshevik fringes. What remained of the fear of revolution throughout the 1920s was mostly about the danger that anti-militarism could undermine national defence capabilities and that individuals on the left could act as a fifth column for Soviet Russia.51 In hindsight, the efforts in monitoring the far left were double ineffectual in as much as they led to the failure to notice the very real threat posed by the subordination of the Scandinavian far right movement to the ideological lure of Nazi Germany.

Surveillance, welfare, and minorities The concepts of high modernism and the piecemeal engineering gardening state captured central features of the relationship between the three Scandinavian states and their citizens, which started to form during the First World War, and as such the very foundation of what was to become the Nordic Model. It was, initially, to become especially visible in two areas: political surveillance and the treatment of minorities. In this chapter, it is only possible to give a tentative overview of a subject that is yet to be fully explored and researched within the context of the Nordic Model.52 The Scandinavian states’ policy towards minorities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries moved along two axes: Assimilation and Exclusion. Most minority groups were exposed to these policies at different times but different degrees. While the Sami and Romani people of Norway and Sweden suffered more or less coordinated attempts at assimilation, the Roma were more likely to be excluded.53 Although Jews were not expelled from the Scandinavian countries during the interwar period, many within the police and the judiciary actively tried to prevent Jews who fled from persecution in Eastern Europe of Nazi Germany from gaining access to Scandinavia.54 Furthermore, during the Nazi occupation during 1940–45, close to half of the Norwegian Jews were sent to the death camps in Eastern Europe. Several Danish Jews met the same fate.55 A common feature across the exclusion and assimilation policies is the Nordic states’ comprehensive registration of individuals and families, underpinning the attempts at monitoring and controlling their lives. The police and judicial authorities for a long time, in Norway until the 1970s, kept detailed registers of both Roma and Scandinavian travellers– and in the interwar period also Jews – who lived of peddling and often lacked a permanent residence. The records made of

118  Nik Brandal, Eirik Brazier and Ola Teige these population groups for such and other purposes before the war could be abused for persecution and arrests during the Nazi occupation. Not only for several Jews, but also for Norwegian Romani, this had fatal consequences, especially during the Second World War.

Conclusion The outbreak of the First World War had unleashed a social and economic crisis that legitimised a level of state intervention in society that had been unthinkable before 1914. The necessity of total warfare also provided new technological and bureaucratic tools to control civil society, which in itself led to a dramatic increase in state intervention – not only in civil society, but also into the private sphere – and control over the lives of citizens within state borders. In this way, the First World War fundamentally changed the relationship between the citizens and the state, even in neutral countries.56 In Scandinavia, the war gave several what may be termed bureaucratic entrepreneurs in the police (Søhr and Hallgren) and the army (With), the possibility to build or expand bureaucratic fiefdoms, based on the real or perceived danger posed by immigrants and spies to the security of the state. New laws were enacted, giving the Scandinavian police forces a new and enhanced role in society. New organisations were created, and existing organisations, especially within the General staffs, expanded. Some of the new organisations survived into the post-war era, while others did not. The ones that survived kept their expanded missions, even if they had to search for new enemies. Moreover, the new laws, targeting aliens and foreign spies and the powers they provided, were kept in place. The end result was a transformation of the relationship between the Nordic states and their citizens, similar to the one described by A.J.P. Taylor with regard to the UK. The increased acceptance among the people for state intervention in what had been regarded as the private sphere and the strengthening of the centralised executive power were prerequisites for both the social-democratic breakthrough in the interwar period and the universal welfare state after the Second World War. The most poignant expression of the piecemeal engineering in Scandinavia is the development of the welfare state, which relied on the governments having access to a vast trove of information about its citizens to design tailor-made policies. The goal of the new social policies was to move away from degrading and stigmatising means-testing, aimed at separating “worthy” and “unworthy” claimants, and replace it with universal social security. A key principle in the Scandinavian welfare state was that universal schemes provided a system of shared risk, where anyone who paid into the system in principle could also benefit.57 Although these schemes did not require homogeneity, they did not produce diversity, and “otherness” became directly linked to the welfare state’s funding – to do one’s duty and claim one’s rights, as it was formulated in one of the Norwegian Labour Party slogans. The order was hardly random. The duty was to engage in paid labour and pay one’s taxes, and the tools the state used were scientific social engineering based on standardisation and information gathering to mobilise community

Securing the state 119 resources to the maximum. This approach came into direct conflict with the new rights’ regime that was born out of the Second World War, most visible through the UN Declaration of Human Rights. The welfare state and human rights were simply based on two contradictory logics: the first on receiving benefits based on citizenship and paying taxes and the latter on having rights by the virtue of being a human being, regardless of whether one had earned it.58 The interwar exclusion of minorities was thus replaced in the post-war era by an integration line based on the premises of high modernism. The other should no longer be on the outside of society but become an integral part of the welfare society. Thus, the Nordic states came a long way in gardening out poverty, which had been the objective of the 1950s and 60s social policy. However, the conflict between the welfare state’s instruments of gathering information to produce tailor-made policies and human rights as the ideals for minority policy remained.

Notes 1 A. J. P. Taylor, English History 1914–1945, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 1. 2 J. Agar, The Government Machine: A Revolutionary History of the Computer, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2003, p. 127. 3 T. Weller, ‘The Information State: A Historical Perspective on Surveillance,’ in K. Ball, K. Haggerty and D. Lyon (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, Abingdon, Routledge, 2012, p. 61; A. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1996, pp. 57–58. 4 J. C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1998; R. Hobson, T. Kristiansen, N. A. Sørensen and G. Åselius, ‘Introduction – Scandinavia in the First World War,’ in C. Ahlund (ed.), Scandinavia in the First World War: Studies in the War Experince of the Northern Neutrals, Lund, Nordic Academic Press, 2012, pp. 9–57. 5 Scott, Seeing Like a State, p. 3–5; N. Brandal and E. Brazier, ‘De fremmede og staten,’ in N. Brandal, C. A. Døving and I. T. Plesner (eds.), Nasjonale minoriteter og urfolk i norsk politikk fra 1900 til 2016, Oslo, Cappelen Damm Akademisk, 2016, pp. 39–41. 6 Stortingsforhandlinger, Ot.prp. no. 59 (1920), Om lov om politiets ordning m.v., p. 51. 7 Scott, Seeing Like a State. 8 Scott, Seeing Like a State, p. 3. 9 Scott, Seeing Like a State, pp. 186–187. 10 Z. Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1991, p. 29. 11 R. Griffin, Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a New Beginning Under Mussolini and Hitler, London, Palgrave MacMillan, 2007, p. 184; Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence, p. 7. 12 E. R. Dickinson, ‘Biopolitics, Fascism, Democracy: Some Reflections on Our Discourse About “Modernity”,’ Central European History, vol. 37, no. 1, 2004, p. 2. 13 V. Mottier, ‘Eugenics, Politics and the State: Social Democracy and the Swiss “Gardening State”,’ Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, vol. 39, no. 2, 2008, pp. 263–269. 14 Z. Bauman, Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2007, p. 77. 15 D. Lyons, ‘Liquid Surveillance: The Contribution of Zygmunt Bauman to Surveillance Studies,’ International Political Sociology, no. 4, 2010, pp. 325, 336.

120  Nik Brandal, Eirik Brazier and Ola Teige 16 T. Bergh and K. E. Eriksen, Den hemmelige krigen. Overvåking i Norge 1914–1997. Oslo, Cappelen akademisk forl., 1998. 17 N. Brandal and O. Teige, ‘The Secret Battlefield: Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence in Scandinavia during the First World War,’ in C. Ahlund (ed.), Scandinavia in the First World War, Studies in the War Experience of the Northern Neutrals, Lund, Nordic Academic Press, 2012. 18 Brandal and. Brazier, De fremmede og staten. 19 J. Langkjaer, ‘Övervakning för rikets säkerhet: Svensk säkerhetspolisiär övervakning av utländska personer och inhemsk politisk aktivitet, 1885–1922,’ PhD thesis, Stockholm, Stockholm University, 2011. 20 K. Bruhn, ‘Den hemmelige stat. Rets- og administrationshistoriske studier i den danske efterretningstjeneste fra de slesvigske krige til tiden omkring 1. Verdenskrig,’ PhD thesis, København, København University, 2017. 21 A. Marklund, ‘Listening for the state: censoring communications in Scandinavia during World War I,’ History and Technology, vol. 32, no. 1, 2016. 22 K. Spanser, – Og så kom politiet. Av en Oslodetektivs opplevelser, Oslo, Forlagshuset, 1942, p. 19. 23 Stortingsforhandlinger, Ot.prp. no. 9 (1915), Om forandringer i fremmedloven og folkeregisterloven, p. 9; U. Mörkenstam, ‘”Önskvärda folelement». Den normativa argumentationen i svensk invandringspolitik 1900–1950,’ Historisk tidskrift för Finland, vol. 91, no. 3, 2006, p. 29; M. Thing, De russiske jøder i København 1882–1943, København, Gyldendal, 2008, p. 35; Spanser, Politiet, pp. 12–27. 24 Ot.prp. no. 9 (1915), pp. 9–32. 25 Ot.prp. no. 9 (1915), pp. 35–37; Langkjaer, ‘Övervakning för rikets säkerhet,’ pp. 95–96. 26 C. Kaveh, ‘Omstreiferuvæsenet: Politiets og domstolenes behandling av tatere og sigøynere 1900–1960,’ PhD thesis, Oslo, University of Oslo, 2016. 27 Generalstabens efterretningskontor, Lov om forsvarshemmeligheter m.v. samt lover, resolutioner og skrivelser tilknyttet denne og foranlediget ved krigsforholdene. 18. august  1914–1. juni 1918, Kristiania, Generalstabens efterretningskontor, 1919, pp. 52–54. 28 Brandal and Brazier, De fremmede og staten, p. 34; Bergh og Eriksen, Den hemmelige krigen, vol. 1, pp. 26–69. 29 Brandal and Brazier, De fremmede og staten, p. 34. 30 Brandal and Brazier, De fremmede og staten, p. 35. 31 Brandal and Brazier, De fremmede og staten, p. 36. 32 Brandal and Teige, ‘The Secret Battlefield,’ pp. 85–88. 33 J. Søhr, Spioner og bomber. Fra opdagelsespolitiets arbeide under verdenskrigen, Oslo, Tanum, 1938, p. 24. 34 Langkjaer, Övervakning för rikets säkerhet, pp. 49–61 and 96–115. 35 Stortingsforhandlinger, Ot.prp. no. 49 (1914), Om utfærdigelse av lov om forsvarshemmeligheter, pp. 19–21; G. Åselius, The “Russian menace” to Sweden: The Belief System of a Small Power Security Elite in the Age of Imperialism, Stockholm, Almqvist and Wiksell International, 1994, pp. 117–119, 257–285, 303. 36 Ot.prp. no. 49 (1914), pp. 18–19; K. Bruhn, ‘Intelligence and Espionage (Denmark),’ in U. Daniel, P. Gatrell, O. Janz, H. Jones, J. Keene, A. Kramer and B. Nasson (eds.), 1914–1918-Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/publications/finnish-civil-war-1918 (accessed 5 January 2020). 37 D. French, ‘Spy Fever in Britain, 1900–1915,’ The Historical Journal, vol. 21, no. 2, 1978, pp. 355–370. 38 Brandal and Teige, ‘The Secret Battlefield,’ pp. 85–88.

Securing the state 121 39 Stortingsforhandlinger, Ot.prp. no. 7 (1917), Om utferdigelse av 1) en lov om anmeldelse av reisende med skib og 2) en lov om tillegg til lov om anmeldelse av reisende og fremmede av 4. mai 1901, pp. 1–6. 40 Langkjaer, Övervakning för rikets säkerhet, p. 96. 41 Langkjaer, Övervakning för rikets säkerhet, p. 101. 42 Langkjaer, Övervakning för rikets säkerhet, p. 101. 43 Ø. Sørensen and N. Brandal, Det norske demokratiet og dets fiender 1918–2018, Oslo, Dreyers forlag, 2018, pp. 21–23; N. Brandal, Ø. Bratberg and D. E. Thorsen, The Nordic Model of Social Democracy, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, p. 41. 44 Brandal and Teige, ‘The Secret Battlefield,’ pp. 102–103. 45 Sørensen and Brandal, Det norske demokratiet og dets fiender, pp. 42–44. 46 Bergh, Den hemmelige krigen, pp. 29–41; Søhr, Spioner og bomber, pp. 130–131; K. Jeffery, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service, 1909–1949, London, Bloomsbury, 2010, pp. 87–109, 134–138, 172–178, 193. 47 Bruhn, ‘Intelligence and Espionage (Denmark)’; Justisministeriet, PET-kommissionens beretning, bind 1 Indledning, København, Justisministeriet, 2009, pp. 68–71. 48 Brandal and Teige, The Secret Battlefield, pp. 101–102. 49 F. Olstad, ‘ “Til siste kamp der gjøres klar”: Planer om revolusjon i Norge i 1921,’ Arbeiderhistorie, 1998, p. 35. 50 Sørensen and Brandal, Det norske demokratiet og dets fiender, pp. 47–48. 51 Sørensen and Brandal, Det norske demokratiet og dets fiender, pp. 168–171. 52 Brandal and Brazier, De fremmede og staten, pp. 27–44. 53 J. A. Brustad, M. Rosvoll and L. Lien, “Å bli dem kvit”. Utviklingen av en «sigøynerpolitikk» og utryddelsen av norske Rom, Oslo, HL-Senteret, 2015; E. Niemi, ‘Fornorskningspolitikken overfor samene og kvenene,’ in N. Brandal, C. A. Døving and I. T. Plesner (eds.), Nasjonale minoriteter og urfolk i norsk politikk fra 1900 til 2016, Oslo, Cappelen Damm Akademisk, 2016, pp. 131–152; M. Ericsson, Historisk forskning om rasism och främlingsfientlighet i Sverige: en analyserande kunskapsöversikt, Stockholm, Forum för levande historia, 2016, pp. 67–82, 93–130. 54 Ericsson, Historisk forskning om rasism och främlingsfientlighet i Sverige, pp. 50–62; P.O. Johansen, Oss selv nærmest: Norge og jødene 1914–1943, Oslo, Gyldendal, 1984, pp. 73–104. 55 B. Bruland, Holocaust i Norge: Registrering, deportasjon, tilintegjørelse, Oslo, Dreyers forlag, 2017. 56 Brandal, Bratberg and Thorsen, The Nordic Model of Social Democracy, pp. 36–43. 57 Brandal, Bratberg and Thorsen, The Nordic Model of Social Democracy, pp. 144–178. 58 L. Trägårdh, ‘Scaling Up Solidarity from the National to the Global: Sweden as Welfare State and Moral Superpower,’ in N. Witoszek and A. Midtun (eds.), Sustainable Modernity: The Nordic Model and Beyond, Abingdon, Routledge, 2018, pp. 79–101.

7 Civil liberties, state police wartime measures, and the case of “the Six” Ville Okkonen and Tiina Lintunen

The focus of this paper is on the civil liberties, legislation, and activities of the Finnish State Police (Valpo in Finnish) during the Second World War, when Finland waged two wars against the Soviet Union. The first was the Winter War, which took place between November 1939 and March 1940. The second took place after the interwar year of 1940–1941, when the Continuation War erupted, lasting from June 1941 until September 1944. We will examine the activities of the State Police through six Members of Parliament (MPs) who represented the opposition and were against the war. The six social democratic MPs were filer Mikko Ampuja, principal Väinö Meltti, journalist and author Kaisu-Mirjam Rydberg, journalist Yrjö Räisänen, dentist Cay Sundström, and journalist and previous Social Democratic Party secretary Karl Harald Wiik. In addition, former MP Johan Helo was also associated with this group.1 After the Winter War, these six MPs composed a political group of their own within the Finnish Social Democratic Party (the SDP). This opposition criticised the policies of the party for restricting civil rights. Exceptionally harsh criticism was directed at the party executives, who they saw as leading Finland into excessively close contact with Nazi-Germany. They considered the party to have abandoned the traditions of the united labour movement and its internationalism by restricting civil rights in the quest for national unity. There had already been a great deal of controversy before the wars about civil liberties, for instance in connection with the debates on the death penalty, the restriction of suffrage in municipal elections, and the limitation of the power of Parliament. As the expanding authoritarian systems in Europe raised questions of the rights of the far Left and their co-operation with social democrats, the leadership of the SDP ended up in a challenging situation. The struggle within the party culminated with the six MPs being discharged from the party in the summer of 1941. They formed their own parliamentary group known as “the Six”. Soon thereafter, these MPs were detained and sentenced. They had been under surveillance by the Finnish State Police since the early 1930s, some even earlier. After the ideological rift with the party leaders, Valpo’s former conception of the Six as being communists could be legitimated. During the period 1940–1942, one of the most important tasks of the State Police was to prove that those politicians who endangered the politics of war were, indeed, communists. With its new

The case of “the Six” 123 powers, Valpo strove to prove that the Six had already followed the instructions of Comintern for a decade, had colluded with other communists, and in the end, in 1940, were ready to change the government under pressure from the Soviet Union.2 The most central question of this study is how the wartime period restricted civil liberties in Finland and how the State Police’s powers were expanded. Further, the question of the grounds on which Valpo considered this small group of MPs so dangerous is intriguing. The premise of our article is that the case of the Six reveals something essential about the political nature of Valpo. Even though the Six was a small group as such, they brought together several supporters. One reason for this was that communist activities were forbidden. Furthermore, some of the social democrats in Parliament also sympathised with anti-war activities. The victory of the Allies made it possible for the six MPs to return to politics and reveal their experiences in public, as in the Parliament’s plenary sessions, Leftist newspapers, and their own memoirs. However, the history of the six MPs has been largely overlooked by research since it did not fit into the nationalist narrative that was established in Finland in the late 1940s. This case also offers us an important perspective on the relationship between the State Police and the judicial system. One could also ask what kind of competence the State Police had to define communism. In popular literature, there is still a strong narrative that understands the means of the wartime political leaders and disregards the opposition. We want to broaden this perspective by introducing the views and actions of the opposition. Our source material consists of the State Police’s Archives, the personal archives of the Six in People’s Archives, and the Finnish Parliament’s records. Sweden provides us with an intriguing parallel during the First and Second World Wars, and we will compare our results in some perspectives with Swedish studies.3 In order to reconstruct the political and societal importance of Valpo, we must examine the grounds on which the MPs were subjected to preventive detention and their status as MPs removed in 1941. The focus of this article is not on the image that the documents of the State Police, court of appeal, and the High Court of Justice create of the six MPs but on the question of what these documents reveal about the methods of the State Police as well as about the zeitgeist.

Methodological and theoretical aspects In the existing research literature concerning the security policy, it has been stated that source criticism must be practised extremely conscientiously.4 In order to reconstruct the societal nature of Valpo, we have carefully investigated their political sentiments. This requires a critical attitude towards Valpo’s own sources. With the methods of historical research, researchers can find hidden agendas and their recurrence.5 John A. Gentry has emphasised that the largest obstacle to developing a theory of intelligence action is “incomplete information about the breadth of intelligence activities and how intelligence services help the states they serve to generate policy successes.” Our research indicates that a state of emergency further problematises the interplay between intelligence and policymaking.

124  Ville Okkonen and Tiina Lintunen Gentry has also contended that the functionality of warning messages depends upon the relationship between intelligence officers and their consumers.6 In the literature, the concept “policymaker–intelligence relationship” refers to intelligence as a service provided to the policymakers. In this respect, it is a significant part of the policymaking process.7 The interaction between the Six and Valpo exhibits the indirect political power that the security police exercised. Historian Peter Jackson has pointed out that the most common way in which intelligence becomes politicised is “the tendency for intelligence assessments to be formulated to complement prevailing orthodoxies and predetermined policies.” The concept of “systematic ideological bias” refers to a situation wherein “members of the same policy making community tend to hold similar ideological convictions”.8 Naturally, serious and multivoiced historical research requires that the intelligence procedures are observed more widely than by merely summarising the materials of the State Police. In this research, we utilise sources produced by opposing sides. Kimmo Rentola in particular has emphasised the importance of a comparative vantage point.9 As stated before, the destinies of the Six have been marginalised in previous research. An exception is Kimmo Rentola’s dissertation, Kenen joukoissa seisot (1994), but even in this book the focus is on Finnish communism more widely. In addition, studies on the co-operation between the State Police in Germany and Finland during the Second World War have filled in some gaps in the research on Valpo’s intelligence methods.10 However, the political trials have been approached almost exclusively from the sphere of legal science, even though these trials are also highly relevant in the sphere of political history. This does not apply to the war guilt trials after the Second World War, which have been a frequent topic in earlier research. According to legal scholar Hannu Tapani Klami (1977), the attempts to forget the political administration of justice during the 1920s and the 1930s dominated historiography for decades.11 Legal scholar Paavo Kastari has determined that “the sword of the law was sharper and more sensitive to hit on the Left” during those years.12 In addition, legal scholar Antero Jyränki has characterised the administration of law by stating that the court system did not take the constitutional protection of freedoms seriously.13 It is important to remember these starting points when evaluating the relationship between the State Police and the judiciary. According to legal scholar Jukka Lindstedt, there were several procedures that were problematic from the juridical angle. Among other matters, political expediency influenced the court proceedings, and the courts were pressurised in their verdicts. Moreover, sentences were changed and made unreasonably harsh.14 Political theorist Judith N. Shklar has pointed out that “just because political trials fall outside the range of easy legalistic generalizations, they often bring some of the most important theoretical issues to the surface.”15 This is also the case in Finland: the political trials reveal something substantial about the nature of the State Police. Shklar describes a trial as political when “the prosecuting party, usually the regime in power aided by a cooperative judiciary, tries to eliminate its political enemies.”16 This is an essential observation. Hannu Tapani Klami has

The case of “the Six” 125 also characterised political trials as an instrument by which the ruling classes, parties, cliques, and dictators have preserved idealised societal order and political dominance.17 The destinies of the Six also shed light on the problems of the reliability of the material produced by Valpo. They also reveal how important a role the friends and relatives of the Six played in proving some parts of the evidence unrealistic. In the end, it is also important to define what we mean here by civil liberties. We share the definition by Ewing and Gearty, who have stated: “The main purpose of civil liberties is to promote political participation and that as such it is a discipline which encourages the development of an active political culture.”18 As such, the most important liberties include freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, the right to privacy, the right to equal treatment under the law and due process, the right to a fair trial, the right to security and liberty, and the right to life.

The powers and methods of the State Police The Civil War between the socialist Reds and the conservative Whites broke out in January 1918, shortly after Finland had gained independence. The war only lasted for less than 4 months, but its brutal aftermath divided the nation in two for decades. The State Police (originally abbreviated to EK, later to Valpo) was a security police founded in 1919 shortly after the war in order to keep an eye on and prevent all treasonous attempts against the sovereignty of the state, the security of the state, or social stability. They particularly concentrated on the Leftist movement that had started the rebellion in order to prevent all new attempts at a coup d’état.19 It focused on detecting communists, preventing their activity, and monitoring those who were claimed to be unpatriotic activists. Apart from the communists, they watched many socialist associations, such as worker’s associations, Leftist youth and children’s organisations, the League of Human Rights, and the writers’ group Fire bearers (in Finnish Tulenkantajat). Valpo used agents and moles who infiltrated organisations and construction sites. The most useful agents were those who could be recruited from inside the labour movement.20 Previous studies have demonstrated that the legacy of the Finnish Civil War in 1918 had an impact on every sector of society.21 The legacy of the White winners was also to be seen in the attitude of Valpo: the Valpo of the 1920s and 1930s has even been called “the White Valpo” because of its political standpoint. Between 1919 and 1944, nearly 4,500 people were convicted of either high treason or of planning to commit it. Valpo produced the material for prosecution in these cases. Thus, the six expelled and convicted MPs – the main object of this study – were not exceptions but serve as an interesting example. Communism was prohibited in Finland, and even before the Winter War, the conservative faction had already proposed a legal initiative in order to extend the political restrictions on communists to the moderate Left. The stricter attitude towards the Leftist socialists was a continuation of that.22 During the war, subversion was defined more widely.

126  Ville Okkonen and Tiina Lintunen In wartime, the State Police had wide-ranging powers. The Law Protecting the Republic, which was enacted on 6 September 1939, was essential for Valpo’s authority.23 According to the law, the president could use his presidential powers to issue any decrees that were necessary in order to defend state security, to maintain order, or to prevent agitation against the state.24 The last point “prevent agitation against the state” was the most relevant to the Six. It was considered to be an emergency law which could also be used in order to restrict freedom of assembly and freedom of the press. The phrasing of the law was made as broad as possible so that the president and the government could interpret it as they wished in the light of the situation. Through this law, constitutional civil rights and liberties were infringed. The defenders of the law saw it as self-defence of democracy. It meant that the government countered attacks against democracy by using undemocratic means.25 According to Mikko Uola, the self-defence of democracy was one of the most important political themes of the 1930s.26 There was a great deal of controversy about this law in Parliament. 12 rightwing MPs rejected the government bill, claiming that it was so loose that it could be used against legal activity and thus would violate civil rights.27 The law was validated by reference to external threats, but it could also be applied to internal problems. The representatives of the government explained that civil rights do not only mean liberties but also responsibilities to protect the nation against enemies. They considered that there were citizens who did not act in the interests of the nation and misused their liberties, causing political unrest. The restrictions were aimed at these citizens in order to protect the democratic social system.28 In 1939, the law was directed against the hard Right party known as the Patriotic People’s Movement (in Finnish Isänmaallinen kansanliike), but later it was used against the communists and socialists. Adversaries of the law criticised it for giving the government a form of legal jurisdiction that should be reserved for the courts of law. Now, the government was allowed to define what was illegal. These opponents asserted that this was against Montesquieu’s principles about the division of power. Furthermore, they claimed that the government sought to silence opposition in order to look after its selfish interests.29 Legal protection was also seen as being threatened. An MP of the Patriotic People’s Movement, Bruno Salmiala argued: An incarcerated person could not defend himself against the arbitrariness of the government. He could not appeal to the court. He could not demand an investigation of his case. He would not even have the right to know the reason for his arrest and for his loss of freedom.30 It is interesting that both the supporters and the opponents of the law were pleading on the basis of democracy, civil liberties, and the common good but these concepts were used for different purposes. The balancing act between civil rights and state security was extremely challenging, since both sides had strong opinions on how the politics of the nation should be run.31

The case of “the Six” 127 On 30 November 1939, the day the Soviet Union attacked Finland and the Winter War erupted, a statute on the restrictions of personal liberty was promulgated: A person who has pursued or who probably will in the future pursue activities that harm national defence or worsen the nation’s relations to other countries, could be obliged to move out from their place of residence or obliged to reside in a given region or stay in a certain place and could be set under surveillance, or if these measures are not considered adequate, taken into preventive detention.32 According to this statute, it was possible to keep a person in preventive detention for an undefined time without pressing charges. People could be arrested before they had broken the law, as a mere suspicion was sufficient. The president also promulgated two other statutes. The first ordered that mail, telegram, and telephones were to be under surveillance, and the second concerned publications which were seen as harmful to the nation.33 Similar statutes had been seen in other countries during time of war. For example, in the United States, the Sedition Act and the Espionage Act limited civil liberties remarkably during the First World War. They provided punishments for, for example, disloyal and abusive speech of the government and for opposing the cause of the nation. Carl Swisher stated: “Concern for the preservation of civil liberties declined with the speed of war fervor.”34 Further, Geoffrey R. Stone has argued that during several wars, the United States has unduly restricted civil liberties, especially free speech, in the name of national security.35 In Great Britain, the First World War affected political freedom and entailed restrictions on civil liberties as well.36 David Lyon has stated that during the Great War in Britain, “the protection of citizens from external threats involved the erosion of some long-cherished civil liberties, particularly assembly, movement and provision of information.”37 In the non-belligerent countries, too, the unsettled times had an influence on the laws concerning intelligence. For instance, in Sweden, the powers of the State Police, Säpo, were extended and the Security Service established. Bugging telephones and monitoring the mail of dubious citizens were allowed during the Second World War. Suspects could also be taken into custody for longer periods. The Swedish General Security Service also violated the decree ensuring the freedom of the press since it was permitted to confiscate and censor printed materials.38 In Finland, the authority to take action was in the hands of the chief of Valpo and the provincial government. In cases of emergency, other public authorities, who had the power to arrest, could also step in.39 The State Police had overseen politically questionable and potential threats since its establishment; however, this new law was an extension to the wide powers given to Valpo in 1930 that had strengthened the political significance of the police. Because of their political connections and speeches, the Six were considered a threat to national security. The State Police was authorised to bug their phones, monitor their mail, and spy on their doorstep. In addition, Valpo followed them at cafés, observed their rallies, and kept a record of other people’s attitudes towards

128  Ville Okkonen and Tiina Lintunen the Six. As the suspicions grew, the State Police started to conduct house searches in order to find communist literature and treasonable writings. Valpo also utilised open sources, such as newspapers, in gathering information. Furthermore, the State Police had informants. Among these people were regular informers, but every once in a while ordinary neighbours, too, came to the police with their information.40 An illustrative example is Mrs Lyyli Olin. This 29-year-old woman came to a police station in autumn 1941 to say that one of the Six, MP Mikko Ampuja, had been accommodating a refugee family from Czechoslovakia in his apartment for three years. She stated: This foreigner has lived with Ampuja all the time he has spent in Finland without noticeable employment. . . . Now the informer has heard that those living with Ampuja are planning to travel to Sweden and she wondered whether Valpo knows about their travel plans and their living with Ampuja and about their plans to leave before the Germans come to Finland.41 Later, the same woman continued informing. She returned to the police station to report how MP Ampuja had propagandised against the war.42 Although strangers were eager to give denunciations, the circle of acquaintances of the Six remained loyal. The Six were experienced major political players, who were conscious of their being watched. The surveillance was not limited only to the Six themselves – their families were also monitored.43 Valpo’s methods were quite universal. The same ways of collecting data on potentially risky people were used elsewhere, too.44 For example, in Sweden, the security service checked more than 50 million postal items during the Second World War. As a non-belligerent country, Sweden was a real nest of spies from all the belligerents.45 The Finnish State Police cooperated with its counterparts in Sweden, Germany, and the Baltic countries before the war, and the methods they used were quite similar.46 Such collaboration then increased, especially with Germany, from 1940.47 In the interwar periods, it was a general custom in Finland and in Sweden to pay for informants. In both countries, such paid sources were also used against the political Left.48 The prospect of financial reward also drew unreliable witnesses. For example, according to Yrjö Räisänen’s circle of friends, there was insufficient evidence against him, and his friends were convinced that the police used fabricated evidence. The police had a key witness, who said that Räisänen had given him a bundle of membership application forms for the Finland–Soviet Union Peace and Friendship Society. Räisänen denied this.49 Due to various initiatives by Räisänen’s inner circle, it came out that the witness had previously been involved in criminal activity and had been judged guilty for perjury in court of appeal in 1935.50 The circle of Räisänen’s acquaintances considered this case a provocation and as “a perfect illustration of the methods of the police.”51 Yrjö Räisänen wrote to his friend that this witness in question had been under the influence of alcohol when arrested, and he had received the incriminating documents from elsewhere than the editorial office of their newspaper.52

The case of “the Six” 129 In court, Räisänen’s solicitor was able to prove the untrustworthiness of this testimony, and it was disregarded.53 During the legal proceedings, the spouses of the defendants assisted the defence. For example, on 6 February 1942, Räisänen’s wife Kerttu wrote to several MPs. She told the MPs that the incriminating evidence against her husband was fabricated and asked for help in her despair: “I am not a detective nor a lawyer and least of all a politician, and both my sons are fighting at the front and can’t help me, I don’t know how to save my husband who has become a victim of this witness.”54 The severity of Valpo’s methods was interfaced with the activities of the communists. During the Winter War, the communists were quite dormant. Yet, between the wars their activities revived, and Valpo also became more brutal. Interrogations became more violent, and some people in Valpo had adopted the German idea of a war of annihilation in which nearly all means were justified. This particularly concerned those who were commanded to help the German secret police in Lapland. However, even though the violence conducted by the State Police became harsher, it was still not common.55 Janne Flyghed has stated that if executive authorities – such as the State Police – gain greater power during a crisis, it will be difficult or even impossible to control it. Then they could easily exceed their authority and still not be prosecuted. For example, according to Flyghed, the Swedish government extended police powers substantially in 1940, since the new law “made it possible for the police to arrest and detain persons suspected of subversive activities on rather flimsy grounds.”56 Before the Second World War, an arrested person could only be detained for four days without public arraignment in Sweden. After the outbreak of the war, the maximum permitted time for detention without knowing the reason of the arrest was extended to 60 days.57 Thus, as in Finland, the protection of national security was considered more important than civil rights and liberties in Sweden.

The political usage of intelligence “Intelligence’s role is to collect the information and build up the special knowledge to understand ‘them’ and not ‘us’.”58 Michael Herman

After the Soviet Union had occupied the Baltic countries in the summer of 1940, Finland found itself in a difficult situation. The Soviet Union had increased its intelligence gathering in Finland, especially in Finnish Lapland. The Soviet secret police were creating an intelligence network throughout Finland by utilising the communists who had been members of the Finland–Soviet Union Peace and Friendship Society.59 Valpo aimed to uncover these connections, and, having been close to this society, the Six were even more strictly under surveillance. As stated before, it was in the interest of the State Police to prove that the Six were communists and thus dangerous to the state. Cay Sundström wrote on 14 May 1942 to his

130  Ville Okkonen and Tiina Lintunen Swedish lawyer Sven Hultman that State Police wanted to see his previous legal activities as now criminal and as implemented via Comintern’s instructions.60 He emphasised that Valpo particularly tried to find evidence about his alleged communist ideas.61 As early as the beginning of the 1930s, the State Police had already examined whether some of Sundström’s speeches or acts could be judged to be communist. In those days, his speeches at the social democratic rallies were characterised in Valpo’s reports as “communist by nature”.62 The reports were very spontaneous. The speeches and poems were easily defined as “blatant” or were seen “to mock justice”.63 According to the examination records, Valpo tried to connect the Six to the political chain of events that led to the occupation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. In addition, the Six were accused of producing texts that “tore national unanimity apart and weakened the will to defend one’s country.” In particular, in the records of K. H. Wiik, the paragraph in which it is stated that he wanted to “summon up and highlight the fulfilment of socialism” is underlined. Thus, socialism was seen in principle as subversion. Wiik made an effort to explain to his interrogators that the Six tried to achieve socialism through legal procedures: according to him, Finnish legislation allowed a democratic path to socialism. Another sign, according to Valpo, of the Six being involved with communism was their demand to abolish the death sentence. The Six were also seen as dangerous to the system of government due to their striving for the release of the state prisoners.64 These accusations by Valpo were open to interpretation and also were attitudinal. When Valpo justified the use of the Law Protecting the Republic against the Six to the Ministry of the Interior on 2 July 1941, it combined both old and new data. Valpo observed the 1930s from the point of view that was relevant in the summer of 1940. As some Estonian socialists had become communists in 1940, this gave Valpo grounds to claim that they had already been communists earlier. Therefore, Valpo used the contact that these people had with the Six back in the 1930s as evidence of the Finnish group’s communist contacts. For example, Valpo accused Cay Sundström of being a courier between Comintern and the communists in the Baltic countries.65 The concreteness of the accusations varied. In the case of Yrjö Räisänen, Valpo defined that when acting for the well-being of the state prisoners, he had “promoted criminality”. Further his speeches on “fake patriotism” were incriminating. The closing words were that in his speeches and writings, “Räisänen had always been so careful that it is hard to take measures against him on the grounds of a specific detail”. Nevertheless, it was stated that by following his writings for a longer time, a special tone can be noticed, and there is no doubt about his actions being detrimental to the state. He had never brought forward anything “constructive, anything that would benefit the nation and its existence”. Valpo tried to lay the blame for the most incriminating offences on the entire group of the Six. For example, the police did not have anything special against Väinö Meltti but wrote in the records “as a member of this group he is responsible for the publications that have been damaging for the nation and its defence.”66

The case of “the Six” 131 During the war, civil liberties would no longer be guaranteed. This was the case especially with political dissidents. As the social democrats removed from the Six the right to publish in the party’s newspaper, the Six lost their channel to the masses. They decided to set up a newspaper of their own in the summer of 1940. It was called Free Word (in Finnish Vapaa Sana). Valpo observed it very closely and soon defined the newspaper as dangerous since it was seen as a mischief-maker which created discord.67 In this newspaper, not only the writings of the Six but also writings by workers were published who were embittered by the war. Here is an example: If only the mothers wanted to, they could prevent their men, sons and spouses from going to war. But they should hate those who orchestrate wars. . . . I am only a mother. I’m not a “leader”, but I have the right to forbid anybody to take my son or my husband. I would not hesitate for a second to fight in every way possible on their behalf.68 Valpo felt that writings like these were damaging to the collective will to protect the nation. For this reason, it was allowed to be published for only a short while. The printing houses were intimidated by the State Police, and they thus refused to co-operate with the Six. The Six turned to their ideological comrades in Sweden for help, but soon the Swedish Security police collaborated with their Finnish colleagues and prevented them from publishing overseas.69 Valpo’s agents regularly questioned the owners of printing houses who took up with the Six.70 Valpo had information and evidence regarding the fact that there were ideological differences within the group of Six. Nonetheless, Valpo lumped them all together in the same category. Wiik and Sundström were somewhat nonchalant about how their actions appeared from the outside, whereas Räisänen, for example, was more cautious and did not want to make himself an easy target. The most problematic article was the one written by the Estonian foreign minister Nigol Andresen entitled “Estonia on the threshold of a new life”, which was published in 1940 in the Free Word. Even people who sympathised the Six criticised this article. For example, professor of political science Yrjö Ruutu excoriated the text because it gave the impression that the newspaper endorsed the occupation of Estonia. Valpo tapped their phones and heard when Ruutu talked with Räisänen about this and knew that Räisänen was not content with the situation. Thus, Valpo was aware of the fact that the article aroused mixed feelings within the group. Räisänen said that there was a danger that “we will be hit by a train” if Finland came to share the destiny of the Baltic countries.71 On 18 August 1940, when Räisänen was asked about the relationship between Free Word and the Soviets, he stated that the newspaper did not operate with roubles and that “Finland is Finland, the Soviet Union is the Soviet Union”.72 When analysing the activity of suspicious persons, Valpo had to interpret their speeches and writings. The examination records reveal that Valpo also tried to carry out a philosophical analysis of socialism. For example, Wiik was

132  Ville Okkonen and Tiina Lintunen characterised as a person who “indirectly and with metaphors” served treasonous purposes and tried to evoke sympathy for a social system based on communism.73 The hearings of Kaisu-Mirjam Rydberg also turned into semantic arguments as the interrogator and the person being questioned discussed the use of the term “home country” in political speeches.74 Rydberg was accused of administrating an unpatriotic Reader’s Letters section in the newspaper. Valpo and the prosecutor claimed that the purpose of this section was to weaken social stability. Rydberg denied such accusations. According to her, the section published children’s writings which by no means could contain such intentions.75 The writings concerned wartime experiences and the misfortunes the families had confronted. The interpretations made by Valpo when analysing the material can be seen as quite biased. This can be observed especially in the internal police reports. For example, the evaluation of Räisänen on 19 November 1940 was very prejudiced: A bird of ill omen like Räisänen is much more dangerous with his rumours and defamation than some sharp-tongued blabbering hag, because he methodically undermines the confidence of the nation. Thus, he works to undermine and destroy the people’s will to defend their country. It is weird that such behaviour is allowed and cannot be hindered.76 The conviction of the Appellate Court on 24 February 1942 was based on the examination records and on the communication of the prosecution counsel. The most damning factors concerning K. H. Wiik were his membership in the Alliance of Human Rights and the fact that he had objected to the increase of the military establishment’s appropriation. These were both regarded as a Comintern tactic. Sundström was seen as protagonist of the popular front’s policy, and also he was a member of the Alliance of Human Rights. Räisänen was considered a political firebrand.77 Based on the penal code, the Six and Helo were sentenced to penal labour for planning high treason, Sundström for eight years, Wiik for seven years, Räisänen and Rydberg for four years, Meltti and Helo for three years, and Ampuja for two years. The Supreme Court mitigated the sentences on 15 September but nevertheless agreed with the appellate court that the defendants had deliberately participated in actions that “aimed to subvert violently the system of government and the social system”.78 According to historian Mikko Majander, the evidence against the Six was feeble. The verdicts were clearly politically motivated. Only against Sundström did Valpo have any real evidence since he had politically suspect contacts in Estonia.79 The case of Sundström was so complex and open to various interpretations that we will scrutinise it more closely in the next section. Valpo’s societal leverage was based on its politically strong powers to interpret which literature, writings, or speeches were subversive. Valpo also created the preliminary investigation documents and reports which were used as prosecutor’s evidence in the court. Therefore, Valpo also played an important role in the judicial system.

The case of “the Six” 133 The verdicts had political importance. This became clear at the latest when the Six had served a certain period of incarceration, and it was time to contemplate whether or not they should be released on parole. The Council of State took this question onto its agenda, which was exceptional as normally the Ministry of Justice was charged with such responsibilities. After long discussions, the Council decided to delegate the question to the Bureau of Prison Administration.80

Incriminating international contacts – Sundström, Säre, and Meerits As the political standing of the Six was being questioned, Valpo’s contacts with their German colleagues strengthened.81 This developed the principal context for the imprisonment of the Six. In January 1941, the Ministry of the Interior organised a negotiation to resolve the issue of Communism.82 On 30 January 1941, the Patriotic People’s Movement put forward an initiative banning the socialist opposition on the grounds of its “communism” and its pursuit of “the proletarian dictatorship”.83 Similarly, on 9 September 1941, the newspaper of the National Coalition Party Uusi Aura had stated that the removal of “communism” from public life should not be half measured. According to Uusi Aura, it was also time to examine the status of the supporters of Communism. With respect to the narrowing of rights and freedoms of the Left, Cay Sundström’s activities and contacts were eventually significant for the allegations against the Six. It was above all he who entangled the Six with the fate of the Baltic States. In the summer of 1940, a Soviet-friendly government was arranged in Estonia. Sundström’s acquaintance, Left-wing socialist Nigol Andresen, took office as the new Foreign Minister. Sundström had also been in contact with other Baltic and Nordic Left-wing socialists – some of them also became communists, or their position was unclear – and these contacts were thus also used against Sundström. It must also be remembered that in Sweden the co-operation of the left was above board; however, from Valpo’s perspective, these contacts too indicated evidence of Soviet influence. According to Sundström’s record, it was also regarded as an aggravating factor that Wiik had requested Andresen to compose an article about the new situation in Estonia for their newspaper. It was also known that on Sundström’s initiative, a congratulatory message had been sent to Andresen. Personally, he stressed that the compliment took place before the occupation.84 For the most part, Valpo examined communism vaguely. This also manifested itself in Valpo’s emphasis on the occurrences in Estonia. On 5 September 1941, Valpo acknowledged that Anna Wiik, as an administrator of the Labour Archives, had forwarded communist literature to Andresen.85 In Sundström’s record, Valpo referred to celebrations at the Soviet embassy (9.4.1941) which some of the Six attended with their spouses. It must be emphasised, however, that figures from various sides of the SDP attended the event. The State Police procured information regarding the conversations and spirit of the event from a butler, who said that

134  Ville Okkonen and Tiina Lintunen in the kitchen one “ryssä” (a disparaging expression about a Russian) “harped on” about how “after the Baltic States it was Finland’s turn.”86 In contrast to the accusations based on Leftist activities of the 1930s, in Sundström’s case the serious accusations concerned the summer of 1940, especially his meeting (2.7.1940) with the Estonian communists Karl Säre and Johannes Meerits. Throughout the investigation, Valpo insisted that the meeting was initiated by Sundström. However, Sundström denied even being acquainted with Johannes Meerits. Valpo believed that Sundström sympathised with the critical development in Estonia that resulted in occupation. Since the July meeting is the most revealing example of Valpo’s activities, it is essential to analyse it. Valpo’s deductions deriving from the secret encounter raises considerable theoretical issues concerning intelligence. The case indicates that Valpo concealed essential information from the appellate court. Such evidence as was supplied was also poorly assembled. According to Kimmo Rentola, several quarters also had an interest in forging sources concerning this peculiar case.87 It appears evident that the premise for this was political. Säre’s record and his alleged report about the meeting were focal for the accusations. In addition to these, the third important piece of evidence was a report by an anonymous person about the meeting who could only have been Meerits. This last document gains significant context from Eirik Nørgaard’s discovery that in February 1939, Meerits had secret contact with the Swedish State Police as he was in need of money and a residence permit.88 According to Kimmo Rentola, Säre contacted Meerits in Stockholm and asked him to return to Estonia. Meerits was reluctant to travel back and suggested that they could meet in Helsinki at Sundström’s place instead. Meerits was afraid of travelling to Estonia because if he were to be exposed as a Säpo informant he would be killed. Säpo allowed Meerits to travel but he was given instructions to report to Valpo.89 The Finnish Security Police did indeed receive a report about the meeting. Because Sundström’s home was not wiretapped, the Swedish summary of the meeting must be reported by Meerits. According to this summary, Sundström exhibited a fascination towards Comintern’s activities in Finland.90 Sundström’s personal file also contains “an excerpt by Meerits’ story” dated on the same day as the meeting, which supports this interpretation. According to the excerpt, Sundström and the Wiik couple were particularly interested in Comintern. The questionable nature of the description, however, becomes more evident considering the fact that the excerpt also associated liberal writer Erkki Vala with communism.91 Valpo also utilised against Sundström a report about the meeting that was allegedly written by Säre to his comrades. The document’s identification tag is simply “July”, with a handwritten note observing Valpo had no idea how the paper had been procured. According to the paper, Meerits had informed Säre that he wanted to meet “our old acquaintance, Cay Sundström”. During the discussion, Sundström had “accepted the Soviet invasion of the Baltic States and praised Soviet policy in every respect.” However, Säre found it possible that the attitude was just pretence. He also questioned whether the presence of Valpo outside Sundström’s apartment was merely a coincidence. According to this paper in Säre’s name, the

The case of “the Six” 135 issue was Meerits, whose opinion could not be checked. Säre concluded that in future one must exercise “extreme caution” with Sundström until Meerits could provide clarification for the occurrence.92 As observed before, the material used against Sundström was anything but unambiguous. Sundström wrote to his legal assistant, Sven Hultman, that the Court of Appeal had declared Säre’s report to be inauthentic. It is likely that Valpo’s representative saw the original document while interrogating Säre, who had ended up in the hands of the Germans. Sundström emphasised the discrepancies in the evidence and requested Hultman to examine them critically.93 On 6 January 1942, Sundström’s interrogator wrote to the prosecution counsel, saying that “of course” the evidence was convincing. It seems evident that the court had no truthful knowledge of Meerits. Instead, Valpo notified the prosecution counsel that it was not reasonable to suspect Säre’s report and emphasised that discrepancies in the material derived from memory errors.94 Thus, it is justified to claim that Sundström’s apartment was not bugged during the meeting. Through Hultman, Sundström attempted to gather witnesses. Valpo also noticed Sundström’s attempts to question the credibility of the testimonies. On 28 January 1942, Valpo obtained information from Säpo about significant persons in Sundström’s records, which “the defendant might seek to explain as social democrats or bourgeois”. According to established practice, it was emphasised that even if the persons were not members of any communist party, they were probably communists. Meerit’s absence from the list was also notable.95 When Sundström attempted to contact Meerits via Hultman, Valpo reported to prosecution counsel (27.1.1942) about the document in question: “I don’t think they will get a witness from him.”96 Hultman soon learned that Meerits had been expelled from Sweden and faced a murder charge in Denmark.97 Hultman wrote to Sundstrom that he had conversed with Meerits, who refused to give a statement. However, Hultman was able to contradict other claims made against Sundström, for example the alleged meeting of Sundström, Säre, and Meerits in 1937.98 Valpo sought to take an active role in the legal process and demonstrated these ambitions in a letter to the prosecution counsel (6.1.1942). Sundström’s contacts with Säre and Meerits were also defined as decisive for his accused comrades. The letter openly remarked that Sundström’s activities should place blame on other members of the group: “By the way, wouldn’t it be appropriate to pull Sundström’s attitude and sins as much as possible into the group’s account”.99 It is likely that this sort of thinking was based on confidence that the triumphant war would create a new societal order wherein the Left would be non-existent.100 Thus, the fate of the Six would not arouse any annoying interest. In the middle of investigation procedure, Sundström’s legal protection was systematically violated. On 4 August, he attempted to write to a judge, the social democratic politician (and post-war Minister of Justice) Eino Pekkala, and tell him that “unknown forces had prevented my correspondence with a Stockholm lawyer.”101 Yet Sundström’s appeals to the Supreme Court with Hultman were confiscated in the mail.102 On 2 April 1942, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Sven Hultman’s visa had been rejected.103 After being asked on 6 June 1942

136  Ville Okkonen and Tiina Lintunen by the Ministry of Interior Affairs about the confiscation of the correspondence, Valpo announced that Sundström’s lawyer was politically unreliable. According to Valpo, the confiscations were based on the correspondence’s subversive nature and disdain for the judicial system.104 However, on the basis of the correspondence, Valpo was aware that one of Sundström’s acquaintances had on 6 November 1941 commended Sven Hultman because he stood outside political conflicts and was “a true friend of Finland.”105 There were other international connections as well that were seen as incriminating by Valpo. The indictment against the Six also raised connections with the Spanish Civil War, that is to say support for the Republic. In her appeal to the Supreme Court, Kaisu-Mirjam Rydberg stated that she took an active part in fund-raising to support humanitarian aid. She emphasised that the purpose was to help innocent victims of the Civil War, namely children, mothers, and the elderly. She also pointed out that in Sweden, the share of similar humanitarian aid to Republican Spain had been many times greater, with bourgeois groups involved. She admitted that her personal sympathies were on the side of the Republic but retorted that this was not a crime. Like other members of the group, Rydberg was also accused of socialising with communists and Comintern agents in Stockholm, which she strongly denied.106

The aftermath of national uncertainty When one interprets the proposals and actions of the Six, it is essential to remember that Finland was travelling under the Nazi German umbrella.107 One had good reason to contemplate that in the Nazi-led New Europe, the endgame of “Marxism” would be devastating. Books and articles were published on the topic. For example, Alfred Rosenberg’s speeches and writings were translated into Finnish and published in 1942. The fate of the Six could be seen as indicating serious attempts to limit the scope of legitimate political stances. In his Promemoria (26.6.1943), conservative politician and former president P. E. Svinhufvud understood the despair of the Minister of Social Affairs, socialist K. A. Fagerholm: the New Europe would leave no Lebensraum for socialism.108 The political Left was extremely anxious as they realised what had happened to the Labour movement in those countries occupied by the Germans. For example, in Norway their comrades languished in prison. The threat, however, lay not only upon communists, but also upon social democrats.109 The editorial of the newspaper Uusi Suomi ambiguously declared on 12 December 1943 that the New Europe was going to differ essentially from Stalin’s, Churchill’s, and Roosevelt’s systems. It was from these alternatives that the Six began to gain a broader sympathy among the Left. It was evident that the political system was evolving in the direction of oligarchical discipline and command. These political restrictions cannot solely be seen as a consequence of the state of emergency but rather as preparation for the future societal order. During the wartime years, the majority of the political establishment had supported harsher conditions for political prisoners. However, only a minority

The case of “the Six” 137 (although exiguous) advocated for the most callous forms in the Parliament. For example, in 1942, the Parliament accepted legislation enabling political prisoners to be dispossessed of their special rights. The Minister of Justice Oskari Lehtonen was especially harsh towards those who had been convicted for crimes against the state. He declared that these people were “public enemies number one” and should not be pampered with special rights. The law was enacted for one year.110 It drew attention abroad, especially in Sweden. On 25 November 1942, a group of Swedish professors, lawyers, and writers sent a letter to president Risto Ryti and criticised the brutal treatment of political prisoners: “Imprisoned Social Democratic MPs and other prisoners are held in conditions that are in obvious conflict with the most basic principles of humanity.”111 Nonetheless, the following year on 13 December 1943, the Parliament upheld the decision after a tight vote. In the plenary session (15.12.1943), Minister Lehtonen justified the decision defiantly: “Some narrow circles are vocal about the political prisoners and spread groundless horror stories to foreign countries.”112 The treatment in the prisons was harsh, and, in fact, many young socialists became flaming red communists since they became embittered by the maltreatment.113 When the war policy began to appear hapless, the liberal Right began to criticise the harsh treatment of political prisoners. On 20 August 1943, 33 politicians tendered a letter to president Ryti and demanded peace negotiations. This so-called “opposition for peace” was not communist but consisted of democrats who were pro-Scandinavia and proWestern. The letter was released through Sweden. Thus, foreign countries, too, became aware that the entirety of Parliament no longer supported the war effort unquestioningly. However, they did not suggest a vote of no confidence in the government.114 The ending of the war led to a fundamental political shift. After 1945, the factions of the SDP gradually joined the newly established Finnish Democratic League. On 31 January, the SDP’s chairperson Väinö Tanner noticed that the spirit of capitulation seemed to spread disquietingly fast – especially among the bourgeoisie.115 In the truce agreement, Finland was obligated to release all persons who had been detained for having acted in favour of the United Nations. The statement benefitted the prisoners and weakened Tanner’ position. However, Valpo seemed momentarily to remain unchanged. On 5 October at the Helsinki Worker’s House, Valpo superintended the reception ceremony of political prisoners. Future Minister of Defence Yrjö Kallinen bantered about the fact that he had written his speech on paper “to facilitate the work of those who must report the content of his speech to their superiors.” Valpo’s observer characterised the poems recited by Lullan Helo, a spouse of one of the Six, as completely worthless and downright silly.116 Regardless of the reversal of the war policy, Valpo continued to operate with a conservative mindset. After the war, however, far more people than just those in far-Left circles wanted to displace old-time royalists and conservative persons from the influential positions in society.117 Minister of Justice (and future president) Urho Kekkonen performed an important role in the ideological justification of the political re-evaluation. Practically, this meant utilisation of the thinking that the members of the Six had represented

138  Ville Okkonen and Tiina Lintunen before. Back in January 1944, Kekkonen had already considered Western requirements to replace the head of Valpo and the possible release of Mikko Ampuja.118 The conservative Right considered Kekkonen’s considerations to be strongly unpatriotic.119 In late 1944, at the Helsinki Officer’s Association, Kekkonen commented that communism had become more innocuous and that political prisoners had been treated atrociously.120 Because of the truce agreement of 1944, the anti-war socialists were able to rejoin the Parliament. Johan Helo even became the Minister of Finance as early as 1944. However, the re-entry of MPs presumed a fine-tuning of the Parliament Act, which revitalised the human rights issues of the late 1930s. The conservatives were no longer able to solve communism with the methods of the interwar era. On 21 November 1944 in the plenary session, Yrjö Räisänen critically explored the war-time Finland: “Of course, much has happened that cannot be replaced or compensated for in any way. That is the case with those who have lost their health in prisons and torture chambers, not to mention those executed. . . . False researchers and judges can and must be punished by society and not be allowed to slip out of the country, as has happened now.”121 At the plenary Session on 28 November 1944, Räisänen ironised his opponent’s adaptability to perform as steadfast democrats. According to him, however, the goals of the ruling groups had been “as far from democracy as heaven from earth”.122 In Sweden, too, the methods of the State Police and secret service were dubious during the war. Afterwards, they claimed that they had enjoyed wide support from the executive and legislative authorities. None of the politicians disagreed with this statement after the war. It seems that in Sweden, the paradox was accepted that “the ultimate defense of democracy can only be achieved through undemocratic means”.123 The same “democratic self-defence” argument had been used to justify the weakening of the SDP’s legal position in Finland in the early 1930s.124 Despite the failure of the war policy, the Six were rapidly marginalised. The war politicians retained their hegemonic positions for a few decades more. Nationalist publicist Yrjö Soini canonised the patriotic historiography of the immediate post-war years in the book Kuin Pietari hiilivalkealla  – Sotasyyllisyysasian vaiheet 1944–1949 (1956). It became an influential bestseller and shaped the later understanding of the war policy: the “low aims” of the Finnish post-war communists and the “sincere self-sacrifices” of the patriotic leaders of Finland. Soini emphasised that during the wartime, the “men of independent Finland” had just fulfilled their duty.125 Soini saw the armistice treaty between Finland and the Soviet Union as vile and unjust: it depressed the mood of the people, tore apart earlier “spiritual values”, and debilitated general judgement.126 According to Soini, the societal atmosphere was characterised by the “wondrous, obscure and unclear state of affairs” creating “all kinds of sick phenomena”. This low-mindedness was not defeated until the “constructive forces” of the society had “awakened from the depression”. A crucial feature in Soini’s thinking was the belief that constitutional rights and political conformity to the law were nullified after the war – not earlier. He underlined that the golden era of legality had

The case of “the Six” 139 been replaced by impudent arbitrariness, which of course seemed problematic from the point of view of the Left.127 The turning point in post-war Valpo’s history conforms with Paul R. Pillar’s notion concerning the politicisation of intelligence. According to Pillar, “objectivity is intrinsic to the concept of intelligence”, and thus for an intelligence officer to “politicize their product on behalf of their own political or policy preferences would unavoidably be, to some degree, self-destructive.”128 On this basis, Valpo was questioned after the war and the Ceasefire Agreement. According to Kimmo Rentola, the decisive factors were Valpo’s inability to counter German espionage and investigate the creation of weapon caches.129 Almost the entire staff was replaced with Leftists, and the institution of that era is known by the name Red Valpo.130 The fate of the Six creates an important insight into the war years and the new social order that was emerging. However, this perspective remained marginal as the Cold War broke out and conservatism returned to power. To the anti-war Left, the end of the war denoted a social and political liberation, and to the conservative Right a breakdown of national ideals and strengthening of the vile ideas of socialism. At the level of academic and cultural life, the conservative Right became hegemonic. The eruption of the Cold War rapidly revitalised the self-assurance of the traditional Right and served as a way to reshape conservatism.

Discussion This chapter has two main themes. First, we aim to study what happens when national security clashes with civil rights and liberties. Second, we are interested in how the State Police’s powers, methods, and roles change when a country drifts into war. The premise for our analysis is that the case of the Six reveals something essential about these questions. Our analysis shows that when a country is facing an external threat, it is willing to restrict civil rights and liberties. This seems to be a universal phenomenon and is not typically seen only in Finland. The discussions in the Finnish Parliament reveal that the security and unity of the nation were seen as the priorities at the cost of the liberties. First, the activities of the extreme Right were seen as a threat, but then after the Continuation war broke out, the Leftist doves, too, were thought to be a menace to the nation. Those who opposed such a prioritisation argued that the government wanted to silence the opposition as it did not tolerate any criticism of its war policy. They validated their argument by stating that through freedom of speech, people should have the right to criticise the government’s actions without hindrance. The government was afraid of agitation against the state. The tool to handle the critical voices was the bill for the Law Protecting the Republic which the Parliament passed. It is important to note that the Six, too, voted for this law in 1939 when it was aimed at the extreme Right party. The law and the statutes empowered the State Police, Valpo, to take rigorous methods into use. Control and

140  Ville Okkonen and Tiina Lintunen surveillance became deeper. As in Sweden, in Finland, too, the methods the security service used were not explicitly regulated and had the tendency to expand.131 Janne Flyghed has argued that the legislators, that is the politicians, were responsible for the violence against the people’s liberties: “It was the politicians who placed such legal instruments in the hands of the intelligence services. Therefore, they are the ones who bear the responsibility for the infringements of freedoms and rights.”132 Flyghed’s case is about Sweden, but it resonates well in the Finnish situation. For the Six, their networks were incriminating. The government was especially afraid of the international connections that the Six had. The Soviet secret police was creating an intelligence network throughout Finland by utilising the communists who had been members of the Finland–Soviet Union Peace and Friendship Society. This made Valpo tense, and it sought to identify these connections. Previous acquaintances were labelled as incriminating associations. This concerned Cay Sundström in particular. A remarkable change during the wartime was also the scattering of the jurisdiction. The new law shifted the right to decide what is illegal from court to president, government, and to a certain extent also to the State Police. Since the law was vague, it was at their discretion whether a speech or writing could be construed as communist and thus could be dangerous to the state. The State Police also played an important role in the legal proceedings since their examination records were used as prosecutor’s evidence in court. The sentiments of Valpo’s officials were crucial while giving the sentences. Furthermore, the government’s intervening in the decisions to pardon the Six was unconventional. The case of the Six sheds light on the wartime emergency law and how it was applied by the security police. It reveals the dilemma of the reconciliation of civil liberties and national security in times of war. Above all, it conveys the political atmosphere and zeitgeist of the 1930s and 1940s. It also discloses how the political winds can change drastically, and political prisoners can rapidly return to Parliament and even become government ministers.

Notes 1 J. Lindstedt, ‘ “Sotaväen rikoslaista pärinää” – sota-ajan oikeusministeri Oskari Lehtosen näkemyksien tarkastelua,’ Lakimies, no. 2, 2019, p. 174; J. Nuorteva, Vangit  – vankilat – sota. Suomen vankeinhoitolaitos toisen maailmansodan aikana. Suomen vankeinhoidon historiaa 4, Helsinki, Oikeusministeriön vankeinhoito-osasto, 1987, p. 177. 2 The personal files of the Six, Archives of Valpo I, The National Archives of Finland, Helsinki (henceforth abbreviated as KA). 3 J. Flyghed, Rättsstat i Kris: Spioneri och sabotage I Sverige under andra världskriget, Stockholm, Federativs, 1992; J. Langkjaer: Övervakning för rikets säkerhet – Svensk säkerhetspolisiär övervakning av utländska personer och inhemsk politisk aktivitet, 1885–1922, Stockholm, Stockholms universitet, 2011. 4 K. Rentola, ‘Tiedustelun historian ongelmia,’ Tieteessä tapahtuu, no. 7, 2009, p. 4. 5 See, e.g. Flyghed, Rättstat i kris.

The case of “the Six” 141 6 J. A. Gentry, ‘Assessing Intelligence Performance,’ in L. K. Johnson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 87–91. 7 M. M. Lowenthal, ‘The Policymaker-Intelligence Relationship,’ in L. K. Johnson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 449. 8 P. Jackson, ‘On Uncertainty and the Limits of Intelligence’, in L. K. Johnson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 459–460. 9 For example, K. Rentola, Kenen joukoissa seisot, Suomalainen kommunismi ja sota 1937–1945, Helsinki, WSOY, 1994. 10 O. Silvennoinen, Salaiset aseveljet: Suomen ja Saksan turvallisuuspoliisiyhteistyö 1933–1944, Helsinki, Otava, 2008. 11 H. T. Klami, ‘An assessment of the doctoral dissertation of Lars Björn,’ Lakimies, no. 4–5, 1977, p. 471. 12 P. Kastari, ‘Haasteita oikeudelle ja oikeustieteelle,’ Lakimies, no. 5, 1980, p. 561. 13 A. Jyränki, Lakien laki: perustuslaki ja sen sitovuus eurooppalaisessa ja pohjoisamerikkalaisessa oikeusajattelussa suurten vallankumousten kaudelta toiseen maailmansotaan, Helsinki, Lakimiesliiton Kustannus, 1989, p. 544. 14 Jukka Lindstedt, ‘ “Sotaväen rikoslaista pärinää”,’ p. 170. 15 J. N. Shklar, Legalism: Law, Morals, and Political Trials, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1986, p. 145. 16 Shklar, Legalism, p. 149. 17 Klami, ‘AN Assessment of the Doctoral,’ p. 470. 18 K. D. Ewing and C. A. Gearty, The Struggle for Civil Liberties: Political Freedom and the Rule of Law in Britain, 1914–1945, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 33. 19 M. Lackman, ‘ “Ensimmäisen tasavallan” turvallisuuspoliisi 1918–1944,’ in M. Simola (ed.), Ratakatu 12 Suojelupoliisi 1949–2009, Helsinki, WSOY, 2009, pp. 204, 216. 20 The Swedes had equal principals. See Flyghed, Rättsstat i kris, p. 267. 21 For example, S. Hentilä, Pitkät varjot – muistamisen historia ja politiikka, Helsinki, Siltala, 2018; Lackman, ‘ “Ensimmäisen tasavallan” turvallisuuspoliisi,’ pp. 219–220. 22 V. Okkonen and V. Laamanen, ’Kansalaisuus, politiikka ja laillisuus Mäntsälän kapinan jälkeen,’ Historiallinen Aikakauskirja, vol. 116, no. 1, 2018. 23 The first Law Protecting the Republic had been in effect between the years 1930 and 1935. Originally it had been enacted during the time when the communistic rise was seen as a potential threat, but it had also later been used against the extreme Right-wing movement called Lapuan liike in Finnish. 24 The Law Protecting the Republic, The Finnish code of statutes 307/1939. 25 S. Lammi, Kansalaisvapaudet ja valtion turvallisuus – tasapainoilua demokratiassa. Diskurssianalyyttinen tutkielma tasavallan suojelulaista käydystä eduskuntakeskustelusta vuonna 1939, Pro gradu thesis, Tampere, University of Tampere, 2015, pp. 1, 8. 26 M. Uola, ’Parlamentaarisen demokratian haastajat 1920- ja 1930-luvuilla,’ in V. Vares, M. Uola and M. Majander (eds.), Kansanvalta koetuksella, Helsinki, Edita, 2006, p. 257. 27 Lammi, ‘Kansalaisvapaudet ja valtion turvallisuus,’ p. 13. 28 Lammi, ‘Kansalaisvapaudet ja valtion turvallisuus,’ p. 74. 29 Lammi, ‘Kansalaisvapaudet ja valtion turvallisuus,’ p. 67; Minutes of the Finnish Parliament on 31 May 1939 and on 3 October 1939. 30 Minutes of the Finnish Parliament on 17 May 1939, MP Bruno Salmiala. 31 Lammi, ‘Kansalaisvapaudet ja valtion turvallisuus,’ p. 78. 32 The statute of the restriction of personal freedom based on the Law Protecting the Republic, The Finnish code of statutes 444/1939. 33 Lammi, ‘Kansalaisvapaudet ja valtion turvallisuus,’ p. 17.

142  Ville Okkonen and Tiina Lintunen 34 C. B. Swisher, ‘Civil Liberties in War Time,’ Political Science Quarterly, vol. 55, no. 3, 1940, pp. 321–347, 326. 35 G. R. Stone, ‘Foreword: A Culture of Civil Liberties,’ Rutgers Law Journal, vol. 36, no. 3, 2005, p. 805. 36 Ewing and Gearty, The Struggle for Civil Liberties, p. 36. 37 D. Lyon, Electronic Eye The Rise of Surveillance Society, Minneapolis, University of Minneapolis Press, 1994, p. 29. 38 Flyghed, Rättsstat i kris, p. 519. 39 The statute of the restriction of personal freedom based on the Law Protecting the Republic, The Finnish code of statutes 444/1939. 40 The personal files of the Six, Valpo I, KA. 41 Denunciation on 8.8.1941 of the Czechs living in Mikko Ampuja’s department, Mikko Ampuja’s file, file no. 251, Valpo I, KA. 42 Denunciation 3244 22.8.1941, Mikko Ampuja’s file, file no. 251, Valpo I, KA. 43 For example the phones of their spouses were tapped, and their letters were read. 2688 Suomen sosialidemokratia. Valpo I arkisto. KA. 44 See, for example, Lyon, Electronic Eye The Rise, p. 29. 45 Flyghed, Rättsstat i kris, p. 303, 517. 46 M. Lackman, Esko Riekki (1891–1973). Jääkärivärväri, Etsivän Keskuspoliisin päällikkö, SS-pataljoonan luoja, Helsinki, SKS, 2007, pp. 171–172. About the methods of the Swedish Säkerhetspolis look Langkjaer, Övervakning för rikets säkerhet and Flyghed, Rättsstat I Kris, p. 519. 47 Lackman, ‘ “Ensimmäisen tasavallan” turvallisuuspoliisi,’ pp. 238–246. 48 Langkjaer, Övervakning för rikets säkerhet, pp. 168–169. 49 Yrjö Räisänen’s examination records on 23 August 1941 and 16 September 1941. Ptk K. H. Wiik’s examination records on 30 August 1941 and 15 May 1941.1109 Examination records, Valpo I arkisto, KA. 50 K. Räisänen’s letter on 6 February 1942. 2688 Suomen sosialidemokratia. Valpo 1 arkisto, KA. 51 Report 216/7 February 1942, 2688 Suomen sosialidemokratia, Valpo 1 arkisto, KA. 52 A letter from Yrjö Räisänen to J. W. Keto on 12 May 1942.2688. Suomen sosialidemokratia. Valpo 1, KA. 53 A court order of the Turku Court of Appeal on 24 February 1942, Mikko Ampuja’s file, Valpo 1, KA. 54 K. Räisänen’s letter on 6 February 1942. 2688 Suomen sosialidemokratia. Valpo 1, arkisto. 55 Lackman, ‘ “Ensimmäisen tasavallan” turvallisuuspoliisi,’ pp. 243–245. 56 Flyghed, Rättsstat I Kris, p. 518. 57 Flyghed, Rättsstat I Kris, p. 41, pp. 518–519. 58 M. Herman, Intelligence Power in Peace and War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 140. 59 Lackman, ‘ “Ensimmäisen tasavallan” turvallisuuspoliisi,’ p. 239. The society was a Finnish anti-war propaganda organisation founded in May 1940. It was already banned in December 1940, after having been commonly seen as a front organisation of the illegal Communist Party of Finland. 60 Cay Sundström to Sven Hultman on 14 May 1942, 2688, Suomen sosialidemokratia, The case of the Six, Valpo I arkisto, KA. 61 Cay Sundström to Sven Hultman on 7 February 1942, Cay Sundström’s file d, Valpo I arkisto, KA. 62 Cay Sundström’s file /A2590a, report 1888/22 September 1934, Valpo I arkisto, KA. 63 Cay Sundström’s file/A2590a, report 2209/31 October 1934, Valpo I arkisto, KA. 64 K. H. Wiik’s examination records on 30 August 1941 and on 15 May 1941. 1101, Examination records, Valpo I arkisto, KA.

The case of “the Six” 143 65 2 July 1941 16578 – Räisänen’s file d, Valpo I arkisto, KA. 66 A report of the Six to the Ministry of the Interior on 5 July 1941, the Six, 2686, Suomen sosialidemokratia. Valpo 1, KA. 67 A court order of the Turku Court of Appeal on 24 February 1942, Mikko Ampuja’s file, Valpo 1, KA; Appendices to the case of the Six, appendice 5a, 26 August 1941, K.H. Wiik’s file, 3917b, Valpo I, KA. 68 Appendices to the case of the Six, appendice 5a 26 August 1941, K.H. Wiik’s file, 3917b, Valpo I, KA. 69 Yrjö Räisänen’s file, Valpo I, KA; J. Helo, Vaiennettuja ihmisiä, Helsinki, Tammi, 1965; Appendices to the case of the Six, appendice 5a 26 August 1941, K.H. Wiik’s file, 3917b, Valpo I, KA. 70 A report no. 977 from the department of Kuopio to the head department of Valpo about the Group Wiik-Sasu, 2687 Suomen sosialidemokratia. Valpo 1, KA. 71 Yrjö Räisänen’s phone call to Yrjö Ruutu on 13 August 1940. Group Wiik-Sasu, 2687 Suomen sosialidemokratia, Valpo 1 arkisto, KA. 72 A conversation about the newspaper’s relationship to the Soviet Union on 18 August 1940, personal file 976a, Valpo I arkisto, KA. 73 K. H. Wiik’s examination records on 30 August 1941 and 15 May 1941. 1101 Examination records, Valpo 1, KA. 74 Kaisu-Mirjam Rydberg’s examination records, 1109 Examination records, Valpo I arkisto, KA. 75 Kaisu-Mirjami Rydberg’s appeal to the Supreme Court, Rydberg’s file, People’s Archives. 76 XII a2 a report of a phone call, FK, 19 November 1940. Group Wiik-Sasu, 2686 Suomen sosialidemokratia, Valpo 1, KA. 77 A court order of the Turku Court of Appeal on 24 February 1942, 2688 Suomen sosialidemokratia, Valpo 1, KA. 78 A court order of the Supreme Court on 15 September 1942. 2688 Suomen sosialidemokratia. Valpo 1, KA. 79 M. Majander, ‘Pitkä parlamentti 1939–1945,’ in V. Vares, M. Uola and M. Majander (eds.), Kansanvalta koetuksella, Helsinki, Edita, 2006, p. 300. 80 Lindstedt, ‘ “Sotaväen rikoslaista pärinää”,’ pp. 174–176. 81 Lackman, ‘ “Ensimmäisen tasavallan” turvallisuuspoliisi’, p. 240, 248; Silvennoinen, Salaiset aseveljet. 82 Lackman, ‘ “Ensimmäisen tasavallan” turvallisuuspoliisi’, p. 240. 83 An initiative by Salmiala and Kares on 30 June 1941, 2686 Suomen sosialidemokratia 1c; Sos.dem. oikeisto vasemmisto-oppositiota vastaan, Valpo 1 arkisto, KA. 84 Cay Sundström’s examination records on 23 September 1941 and 26 September 1941, Valpo 1, KA.; Rentola, Kenen joukoissa seisot, p. 229. 85 Anna Wiik’s contacts to Comintern “Inga” 5 September 1941. Cay Sundström’s file d, Valpo 1, KA. 86 Cay Sundström’s examination records on 13 December 1939. 1109 Examination records. Valpo I, KA. 87 Rentola, Kenen joukoissa seisot, p. 230. 88 E. Nørgaard, Mündene fra Estland, Copenhagen, Holkenfeldts Forlag, 1990. 89 Rentola, Kenen joukoissa seisot, pp. 230–231. 90 A document on 5 July 1940. Cay Sundström’s file, A2590c, Valpo 1, KA. 91 Top secret, a summary of Meerit’s report on 5 July 1940. Cay Sundström’s file. A2590c, Valpo 1, KA. 92 A paper containing an account of July 1940 written in Säre’s name, 2590. Cay Sundström’s file A2590c, Valpo 1, KA. 93 Cay Sundström to Sven Hultman on 29 March 1942 and 15 April 1942, 2688, Suomen sosialidemokratia, the case of the Six, Valpo I, KA.

144  Ville Okkonen and Tiina Lintunen 94 A letter from the interrogator of Sundström to the public prosecutor on 6 January 1942; Cay Sundström’s file d, Valpo 1, KA. 95 A letter to Aarne Korpimaa on 28 January 1942; Cay Sundström’s file d, Valpo 1, KA. 96 A representative of the State Police to the public prosecutor on 27 February 1942; Cay Sundström’s file d, Valpo 1, KA. 97 A phone call of Eino Pekkala and Sven Hultman 1778/10.42 Cay Sundström’s file f, Valpo 1, KA. 98 Cay Sundström to Sven Hultman on 20 April 1942, 2688, Suomen sosialidemokratia, the case of the Six, Valpo I, KA; Cay Sundström’s examination records on 23 September 1941 and 26 September 1941. Cay Sundström’s file d, Valpo 1, KA. 99 A letter to the public prosecutor on 6.1.1942.2688 Suomen sosialidemokratia, Valpo 1, KA. 100 Rentola, Kenen joukoissa seisot, p. 461. 101 Cay Sundström’s letter to the judge Eino Pekkala on 4 August 1942. 2688 Suomen sosialidemokratia, Valpo I, KA. 102 Valpo to the public prosecutor on 18 April 1942. Cay Sundström’s file f, Valpo 1, KA. 103 A letter from Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Valpo on 2 April 1942. Cay Sundström’s file d, Valpo 1, KA. 104 State Police’s answer to the enquiry of the Ministry of the Interior on 6 June 1942. Cay Sundströminen mappi f, Valpo 1, KA. 105 A. V. Johansson’s letter to Sundström on 6 November 1941. Cay Sundström’s file. A2590c, Valpo 1, KA. 106 Kaisu-Mirjami Rydberg’s appeal to the Supreme Court, Rydberg’s file, People’s Archives. 107 Lackman, ‘ “Ensimmäisen tasavallan” turvallisuuspoliisi,’ p. 239. 108 P. E. Svinhuhvud, Testamentti kansalleni, Tukholma, Promemoria, 1944 (26 June 1943), pp. 22–23. 109 Majander, ‘Pitkä parlamentti 1939–1945,’ pp. 297–299. 110 Lindstedt, ‘ “Sotaväen rikoslaista pärinää”,’ p. 186. 111 An appeal from Sweden to the president on 25 November 1943. 2688 Sosialidemokratia, Valpo I, KA. 112 Minutes of the Finnish Parliament, Oskari Lehtonen 15 December 1943, 1472. 113 Majander, ‘Pitkä parlamentti 1939–1945,’ p. 310. 114 Majander, ‘Pitkä parlamentti 1939–1945,’ p. 313. 115 Väinö Tanner to Rafael Erich on 31 January 1945, arrived letters, Archives of Rafael Erich, KA. 116 The reception ceremony of political prisoners in Helsinki, State Police’s report no. 2147, 6 October 1944.862, Valpo I arkisto, KA. 117 Urho Toivola to minister Urho Kekkonen on 31 July 1945, UKA 21_11. Rauhansopimukset, rauhanoppositio, valvontakomissio 1940–1948. 118 PM 11 January 1944, likely written by Urho Kekkonen, UKA 21_11. Rauhansopimukset, rauhanoppositio, valvontakomissio 1940–1948. 119 Kekkonen’s notes of his conversations with Zhdanovin on 13 February 1945, UKA 21_11. Rauhansopimukset, rauhanoppositio, valvontakomissio 1940–1948. 120 Urho Kekkonen’s speech to Helsinki Officer’s association of officers in by the end of 1944, UKA 21_11. Rauhansopimukset, rauhanoppositio, valvontakomissio 1940–1948. 121 Minutes of the Finnish Parliament on 21 November 1944, Yrjö Räisänen, 806. 122 Minutes of the Finnish Parliament on 28 November 1944, Yrjö Räisänen, 847. 123 Flyghed, Rättsstat i kris, p. 523. 124 Okkonen and Laamanen, ’Kansalaisuus, politiikka ja laillisuus’. 125 Y. Soini, Kuin Pietari hiilivalkealla. Sotasyyllisyysasian vaiheet 1944–1949, 8th ed., Helsinki, Otava, 1966, p. 7.

The case of “the Six” 145 126 Soini, Kuin Pietari hiilivalkealla, p. 18. 127 Soini, Kuin Pietari hiilivalkealla, p. 19. 128 P. R. Pillar, ‘The Perils of Politicization,’ in L. K. Johnson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 473. 129 After Finland was defeated, a substantial number of Finnish Army weapons were hidden in caches scattered around the country so that in case of a Soviet occupation, an immediate guerrilla war could be launched. 130 K. Rentola, ‘Punainen Valpo,’ in M. Simola (ed.), Ratakatu 12 Suojelupoliisi 1949– 2009, Helsinki, WSOY, 2009, pp. 250–251. 131 Langkjaer, Övervakning för rikets säkerhet, p. 231. 132 Flyghed, Rättsstat I Kris, p. 522.

8 Citizen informants, glitches in the system, and the limits of collaboration Eastern experiences in the Cold War Era Carol Anne Costabile-Heming, Valentina Glajar and Alison Lewis In The Velvet Prison: Artists under State Socialism, Hungarian writer Miklós Haraszti argues that state meddling in the arts was not just used “to silence opposition to the state but to ensure that intellectuals will more effectively perform their proper role”.1 Such state-sanctioned interference in the cultural sphere took many forms. This chapter investigates the ways that secret police agencies intervened in all stages of the creative process in the production of literature and the visual arts in two former Eastern bloc countries: the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Socialist Republic of Romania. Study of the files from the GDR’s Ministry for State Security (Stasi) and Romania’s Securitate reveals that ordinary citizens who were enlisted as covert informants were pivotal actors in state security surveillance in the communist Eastern bloc during the Cold War. The worldwide success of Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s 2005 feature film, Das Leben der anderen (The Lives of Others), familiarised many with the tactics of surveillance within the artist and intellectual community of the GDR.2 The film’s protagonist, a renowned playwright, is subject to surveillance, ostensibly to find out whether he is engaged in suspicious and illegal activity. A loyal Stasi agent, Captain Wiesler, executes the covert surveillance. As the narrative unfolds, Wiesler sheds his loyalty, falsifies reports, and ultimately steals a contraband typewriter in order to prevent the writer’s arrest. The film has entered the popular canon, and as former GDR writer Christoph Hein has complained, viewers are easily deceived into thinking that the film represents the “true” GDR.3 It paints a one-sided view of covert surveillance carried out in the main by officials of questionable political conviction. It largely underplays the role of unofficial operatives or collaborators who gathered information and reported on the activities of their colleagues, friends, and family members, often with traumatic and tragic consequences.4 This essay seeks to dispel these myths through an examination of the Stasi and Securitate’s employment of ordinary citizens as secret informants in three case studies. In the GDR, the combination of foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, and internal security under the aegis of one agency blurred the lines between

The limits of collaboration 147 domestic tracking and foreign espionage. The Stasi’s repression of its own population is legendary, not only in scale but also in intensity. The agency deployed some 180,000 informants in 1989 – as its eyes and ears – to assist with policing citizens the regime deemed to be “negative-hostile”. Like the Stasi, the Securitate also enlisted the services of informants, whose numbers increased to 144,289 in 1989.5 Such informants were unofficial operatives known as IMs (inoffizielle Mitarbeiter) in East Germany and “sources” in Romania. During what was still a pre-digital age for the Eastern bloc, the Stasi and the Securitate relied heavily on such informers to track and monitor citizens in a kind of analogue human-tohuman form of surveillance, adapting and perfecting their techniques of handling informants until the demise of the communist regimes. These citizen informants fulfilled different roles and were assigned different tasks, including censoring, translating, and infiltrating social groups. Ultimately, the goal of such surveillance was to neutralise the party in question.

Stasi informants and censorship: unofficial operatives and party interference in publishing houses The fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of communist regimes in the Eastern Bloc ushered in a period of democratisation. In January 1992, the German Parliament passed the Stasi Documents Legislation, opening the files to the victims of the Stasi, along with making the study of the documents open to journalists and scholars.6 This historic act allowed East Germans, both public figures and private citizens, to confront the injustices that the GDR regime had perpetrated against them. The reading public valued fiction greatly, contributing to the perception that the GDR was a “land of readers”. The general populace tended to view fictional texts as sources of “unofficial” information and free of political propaganda. In contrast, the official press, such as the Party newspaper Neues Deutschland (New Germany), was highly mediated and its content tightly controlled. Dietrich Löffler suggests that fictional works achieved such a high status of accord among average citizens precisely because they occupied a space outside of the official public sphere.7 It is no surprise then that the Party viewed fiction as something dangerous and suspect. From the mid-1970s, GDR cultural politicians grew increasingly mistrustful of the writing elite, viewing them not just as potential saboteurs, but also increasingly as potential or even actual adversaries. In order to protect the GDR’s reputation in the international arena, Stasi Minister Erich Mielke ordered the implementation of subtle forms of influence and subversive measures.8 It was from within this framework of paranoia that unofficial operatives in the cultural sphere approached their tasks. Most GDR writers were aware that they were under some kind of surveillance from the Stasi. Nevertheless, the active and often enthusiastic engagement of publishing house informants enabled a type of censorship that often went undetected until writers were granted access to their files following the opening of the archives. The case of Volker Braun (1939–) highlights how publishing house

148  Carol Anne Costabile-Heming, Valentina Glajar and Alison Lewis editors and high-ranking party officials exerted influence on writers in order to manipulate texts prior to publication. A hierarchical system of controls extending from the Socialist Unity Party (SED) Central Committee and the Ministry of Culture to the individual publishing houses manipulated the production, distribution, and even consumption of literature.9 Publication required an authorisation to print (Druckgenehmigung). In this overt censorship, manuscripts underwent formal commissioned assessments (Gutachten): At least one reader within the publishing house and one external expert evaluated the manuscript and wrote a report recommending or denying publication. The distribution of the authorisation rested with the Hauptverwaltung Verlage und Buchhandel (HV Verlage; Main Authority for Publishing Houses and Book Trade).10 Particularly critical texts also were discussed within the SED Central Committee or even with General Secretary Erich Honecker prior to final approval.11 Likewise, the reception of texts was tightly controlled, with official reviews appearing in party-sponsored publications.12 Gary Bruce argues that the Stasi relied heavily on assistance from the population for information.13 Helmut Müller-Enbergs describes the unofficial operatives, IMs, as the secret connection between the state security system and the rest of society.14 In general, IMs were tasked with gathering information and helping to enforce the policies of the SED Party leadership.15 Their primary function was opposing the enemy, who just as easily was an East German citizen as a provocateur from the imperialist West.16 Additionally, unofficial operatives with special deployment (inoffizielle Mitarbeiter im besonderen Einsatz, IME), a more flexible informant used for specific purposes and occasions, were utilised as experts because of the significant positions they held.17 In his seminal study about the Stasi and the literary sphere, Joachim Walther uncovered that literary IMs did not only collect and deliver information, but also executed specific Stasi directives including interfering in the publication process and influencing opinions.18 Moreover, he noted that IMs within literary and intellectual circles often served deliberately, independently, and willingly.19 IMEs in the literary field occupied important positions such as heads of publishing houses and chief editors, members of the writers’ union, PEN, the Academy of Arts. Officially engaged as scholars and critics, they evaluated manuscripts and wrote separate assessments for the Stasi.20 Surveillance and information gathering occurred primarily through personal contact, which made it possible for them to influence suspicious writers directly.21 Such IMs were the “Stasi’s ‘eyes and ears’ and the ‘main weapon’ in the struggle against the enemy, without whom the full-time officials could not achieve their goals”.22 IMs/IMEs in publishing houses were hybrid informants: because of their official stature, they wielded considerable authority to determine which texts would be published. Additionally, these individuals often were close friends and confidants of the writers whose texts they shepherded, a position that made them privy to private and confidential information unrelated to their primary functions in publishing. They had unprecedented access to the literary elite and thus were able to influence from the inside the building of the GDR literary canon. They also

The limits of collaboration 149 were able to meddle in the financial, physical, psychological, and emotional wellbeing of the writers they mentored. Braun’s case is of particular interest, because he was one of the most important critical voices in East Germany. Though he criticised the GDR’s shortcomings, he nonetheless supported the socialist experiment. His willingness to speak up often resulted in publication delays. For this reason, he sought other avenues to publish, developing a relationship with the West German Suhrkamp publishing house. Beginning in 1975, following the publication of his controversial short novel Unvollendete Geschichte (Unfinished Story) in the West, the Stasi subjected him to constant surveillance, opening the operational file (Operativer Vorgang) “OV Erbe” (heritage).23 The publication records for his 1985 text, Hinze-Kunze-Roman (Hinze-Kunze-Novel), illustrate quite clearly how Stasi IMs and high-ranking cultural officials interfered in the production and publication of literature.24 Hinze-Kunze-Roman presents the story of a functionary (Kunze) and his driver (Hinze), a “master–servant” theme that was pointedly critical of the disparities between the socialist ideal and socialist reality.25 Braun describes what is allowed, an overt critique not just of the restrictive nature of GDR society, but also an implicit critique of censorship. The novel’s production history is a prime example of the challenges that critical texts faced and the levels of negotiation and interference that occurred before a text was authorised for publication. The Mitteldeutscher Verlag submitted Braun’s manuscript to the HV-Verlage on 12 December 1984, requesting a print run of 15,000 copies. The publishing house file contains reports about the text and correspondence between the publishing house and the HV-Verlage regarding the authorisation application. This correspondence reveals that Mitteldeutscher Verlag had multiple discussions with Braun, who proved unwilling to bend on any points of criticism. Additionally, the file contains correspondence between HV-Verlage and the Deputy Minister of Culture Klaus Höpcke, exposing the lengths to which political functionaries were willing to go to prevent a controversial work’s publication. Simone Barck and Siegfried Lokatis have confirmed that Höpcke ordered a negative report about the manuscript in order to delay the book’s appearance until a more propitious moment.26 As the correspondence reveals, such interference occurred without Braun’s knowledge. In a letter dated July 13, 1984, prior to the publishing house’s official request for authorisation, Dr. Klaus Selbig (Head of the Department for Fiction, Art, and Music) explains to Höpcke that an additional and secret reader report was commissioned from Professor Werner Neubert, who recommends rejection for “ideological” reasons. Selbig then asks Höpcke’s advice and notes that Dr. Eberhard Günther, the head of Mitteldeutscher Verlag, can inform Braun about the “rejection”. Höpcke changes “rejection” to “need for additional work”, a strategic decision designed to encourage the publishing house to continue collaborating with Braun. The Ministry of Culture feared that further alienating Braun would tempt him to publish the text in the West or even worse, leave the GDR. Thus, despite the Party’s overall displeasure with Braun’s critical text, it remained committed to

150  Carol Anne Costabile-Heming, Valentina Glajar and Alison Lewis a continued relationship with him.27 Höpcke’s handwritten note (December 13, 1984) asks for confirmation that Braun’s manuscript had been submitted and further advises: “We have to quickly define our position.” The addressee of this note is unclear. The “we” likely refers to the Ministry of Culture, the body responsible for granting the authorisation to print and ensuring that all cultural products adhere to and promote the tenets of the SED. One course of action was the inclusion of an introduction, in which the respected literary scholar Dieter Schlenstedt “explains” the text. Interference continued after the text’s publication: a note from September 12, 1985 ordered delivery stoppage of Hinze-Kunze-Roman to bookstores, libraries, and for export.28 Braun’s work diary confirms this information. In November 1984, prior to the official submission of the request for authorisation, Braun notes that Höpcke had granted the authorisation, but Günther was reluctant, wanting to know what the “others” think.29 This statement confirms that discussions were happening behind Braun’s back. Braun further reveals the extent to which personal relationships played a role: one has to have a lot of patience with his friends. . . . günther . . . sends the novel to the office, but not officially; now the book is authorised, but not submitted . . . perhaps Höpcke is in on it, since he is also my friend.30 At the time, Braun did not know that both Günther and Neubert were unofficial operatives for the Stasi. Günther had signed an agreement to work unofficially for the Stasi under the codename (IM) “Richard” on January 29, 1975.31 His charge was to exploit his connections with HV-Verlage, literary scholars, manuscript reviewers, editors, and writers to gather information about trends contrary to the cultural policies of the day and to utilise his position to clarify, prohibit, and operationally prevent the publication of controversial texts.32 The Stasi tasked him specifically to target Braun and prevent the publication of those texts that were prejudicial to GDR socialism.33 Neubert (IME “Wolfgang Köhler”) wrote the secret reader report advising against the publication of Hinze-Kunze-Roman. As the documents in this case underscore, IMs’ active and enthusiastic engagement within the publishing houses allowed them not only to exert influence over the writers with whom they worked closely, but also their employment sanctioned the Stasi’s interference in the creative process, including manipulating texts prior to publication. Writers were largely unaware of the extent of the surveillance, planning, and interference until the archives were opened, and they gained access to the documentation that the Stasi had compiled against them.

Translation and surveillance: flaws and glitches If access to archives allows us to measure effective democratisation, then the archives of the secret police agencies of the former Eastern bloc countries are a prime example for access and transparency (or of a lack thereof) in the post-Cold

The limits of collaboration 151 War era.34 Facing several obstacles in the long post-communist transition period, Romania finally passed Law Nr. 187 in 1999, according to which it established the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (Consiliul Naţional pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securităţii/CNSAS), which houses and manages files from internal and foreign intelligence agencies and from ministerial and military archives. As some of these institutions were reluctant to release their holdings (claiming national security concerns), the law had to be amended twice, first in 2006 (Law 16/Feb. 22, 2006) and then again in 2008 (Law 24/March 5, 2008). According to the latest CNSAS reports, the archives now hold more than 1.3 million files; CNSAS also claims that 99.9 per cent of files have been transferred from the custody of the SRI (the Romanian Service of Information). However, responding to complaints that only few of the cadre (officer) files have made it to CNSAS, Eduard Hellvig, the SRI Director, has recently declared on public media that hundreds of thousands of additional Securitate files would be transferred to CNSAS by November 2019. On September 19, in a publicised gesture of transparency, the first 1000 cadre and operative files of the announced hundreds of thousands were transferred.35 As part of the files already in the custody of CNSAS, accredited researchers have access to a collection of 46 volumes archived under Fond Documentar (Documentary Fond) and titled “Problema Naţionalişti Fascişti Germani” (The Problem of Nationalist Fascist Germans).36 These files document a skewed history of the German–Romanian minorities who in light of their past allegiance to Nazi Germany became prime targets for the newly instated Securitate. Especially in the Stalinist years, the Securitate scrutinised every move of these minorities in order to prevent any “hostile” actions and to send a warning to their intellectual and spiritual leaders. As a result, several political show trials that involved ethnic Germans took place in the 1950s of which the most publicised were the so-called “Schwarze Kirche Prozess” (Black Church Trial)37 and “Der Schriftstellerprozess” (The Writers’ Trial) that targeted five German-language writers whose writings were deemed treasonous.38 The sentences given in both trials were extremely harsh and included life sentences and hard labour for many of the defendants. While all of them were released and pardoned due to a general amnesty in the early 1960s, the consequences were far-reaching, as the Securitate had realised its intended goal of silencing the German community for the time being. One important obstacle that presented itself for the Securitate when surveilling the German minorities was the language barrier. Since a very low percentage of Securitate officers belonged to the German minorities in Romania, recruiting informers from these communities became imperative. Furthermore, in the case of German-language writers, the Securitate had to employ able and willing translators who could comb these writers’ texts for subversive allusions and then report to their case officers. As of now, there is just one article by Laura G. Laza, “Übersetzung als Mittel der Manipulation” (Translation as a Means of Manipulation), which addresses the role of translation in the surveillance of the German minorities in Romania.39 Laza’s important contribution focuses on the aforementioned German Writers’ Trial and illustrates the practices of the Securitate in the 1950s

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during the Stalinist years. In her analysis of the archival files pertaining to the five German-language writers, Laza identifies how the Securitate manipulated translations executed by court-appointed anonymous translators. As Laza explains, in a preliminary phase translators were instructed to compose summaries of the various incriminating German-language texts in Romanian.40 These summaries selectively highlighted sections of the texts in question that demonstrated specifically and exclusively the counts with which these writers were charged. Interestingly and paradoxically, according to Laza, the investigation officers left out various other parts that were equally incriminating but that did not address the specific charges brought against these writers.41 What Laza’s article highlights remained in fact a common practice for the Securitate until its demise. This case study fast forwards to the 1980s and focuses on the famous case of Nobel Laureate Herta Müller, a writer whose texts, whether fictional or essayistic, are deeply and explicitly anchored in Ceauşescu’s Romania and based on her own experiences or those of her friends with the Securitate. Her file, discovered by a group of researchers in 2008, lends itself to an analysis of what we understand to be the practice of manipulative or conspiratorial forensic translation. This kind of translation is meant to eventually serve as evidence that would uncover and present clear proof of the author’s alleged subversive and unpatriotic intentions. Benjamin Paloff claims that “[t]he tasks of the translator for the most part are to increase the availability of information and to stage that information’s effect in the new language.”42 Both tasks were crucial in the manipulation of texts in the service of the Securitate: the translators allowed the investigators access to the texts in Romanian translation, while at the same time staged the inculpatory effect of these texts in the process of incriminating their authors. At this stage of the process, translation becomes indeed an act of interpretation, yet not in the sense that Paloff views literary translations in which “the translator’s act of reading is recorded and reproduced, word by word and thought by thought, for a new audience.”43 If applied to the case of the Securitate’s manipulative forensic translations, the operative word in Paloff’s definition becomes “audience” – the narrow and restrictive number of intended readers, mainly Securitate officers, who rarely, if ever, read these texts for their aesthetic value but instead read them for their evidentiary potential. In Müller’s file, one can identify several direct or indirect levels of such translation that aided the Romanian Securitate officers in justifying their investigation of Müller. Between 1983, the year Müller’s surveillance file was opened, and 1987, the year of her emigration to West Germany, 19 informers composed 44 reports (“note informative”) on Müller’s life and work. Of these informers, two of them, “Eva” and “Wagner”, were the most prolific, with seven reports each. Among the 19 total informers who spied on Müller in Romania, two were tasked with translating the author’s literary publications, in particular those texts that appeared in the Romanian German-language literary journal Neue Literatur [New Literature]. For this reason, Nicolae Pădurariu, the officer in charge of Müller’s and other Germanlanguage writers’ surveillance in Timişoara, subscribed to this journal for several years. The receipts, paid from some Securitate fund, were conscientiously saved

The limits of collaboration 153 in the surveillance file of Müller’s ex-husband, the writer Richard Wagner.44 It seems paradoxical that the Securitate in Timişoara was interested in Müller’s texts after their publication, and thus after they had already been allegedly censored. Yet, Pădurariu left no stone unturned and recruited translators from among the ethnic German population, preferably college graduates with a degree in Germanistik from the University of Timişoara. The Securitate’s preference for Germanists was justified since these “literary experts” were also acquainted with their targets and could thus inform on both their personal and professional lives. The main task of these translators, however, was to provide amateur translations of Müller’s texts and, in the process, comb these texts for any subversive thoughts that might be veiled in metaphors, simile, or other literary devices such that they would escape the literarily untrained eyes of officer Pădurariu and his colleagues. As such, these translators were also expected to provide text interpretations of sorts or at least highlight the “subversive” parts of a particular text. While “Eva”45 completed most of the translations comprised in Müller’s surveillance file, “Voicu”, her ex-husband, earned notoriety as one of Müller’s most vicious informers/translators. Before “Voicu” emigrated to West Germany in 1983, he penned his code name on this incriminating review of Müller’s first book, the collection of short stories Niederungen.46 In his “expert” opinion, “Voicu” concluded that in Müller’s book, there was just “criticism and more criticism, such destructive criticism, that one has to wonder what the purpose of these texts is”.47 Unlike “Voicu”, a mediocre writer who exhibited clear malicious intent and professional envy towards Müller’s literary success, “Eva” approached her job conscientiously but at times seemed uncomfortable commenting on Müller’s texts. As a literary consultant at the German Theatre of Timişoara at the time, “Eva” must have viewed her new job for the Securitate as a means to supplement her salary as a single mother and sole breadwinner. She reserved her vicious remarks for her reports on “Voicu”, her ex-husband, who left her for a younger woman just months after she had given birth to their son. Yet “Eva’s” translations are by no means harmless. Instructed to look for and translate specific incriminating parts of Müller’s texts, “Eva’s” power of decision and discretion in this respect had far-reaching consequences. Like “Voicu’s” harsh critique of Müller’s texts, “Eva’s” more benevolent inclinations, as expressed in her brief comments on the texts, found numerous reiterations in the intervallic officer reports. These reports summarised the Securitate officers’ findings and progress on their surveillance operations and proposed future plans of action based on the new intelligence and incriminating “subversive” thoughts expressed in the published texts. While the officers in charge consistently demanded information about unpublished completed or in-progress manuscripts, they mostly had to rely on “Eva’s” Romanian translations of already published works when building their case against Müller. Despite the number of informers recruited to spy on her, the officers were always several steps behind the events and could not catch up with Müller’s own conspiratorial activity, as she was able to smuggle two of her manuscripts to West Germany, where Rotbuch ultimately published them.48

154  Carol Anne Costabile-Heming, Valentina Glajar and Alison Lewis Notwithstanding any of the potential moral implications of collaborating with the Securitate, “Eva” apparently agreed eagerly to produce translations of texts she deemed subversive and accepted remuneration for her services.49 In her Romanian translations, “Eva” occasionally added minor words originally missing in Müller’s texts. These additions seem insignificant at first sight, but in the political context of the 1980s, they sharpened the tableau of misery composed by Müller. The officers, who mainly relied on “Eva’s” translations in evaluating Müller’s unpatriotic texts and attitude towards the socialist Romanian reality, attributed these added words to the author herself. Had they known any German, they might have turned the tables on “Eva”, who was inadvertently incriminating herself by accentuating and complementing Müller’s already negative depiction of communist Romania. On January 12, 1984, for example, “Eva” delivered a report to her handler, officer Ioan Adamescu, following his instructions “to convey the content of and interpret” several short stories by Müller that had appeared in Pflastersteine.50 Conscientiously, “Eva” read the text “Oraşul nostru” (Our Town) and drew attention to several “precise findings” that in her opinion were hiding behind Müller’s deceptively straightforward description of this town. Two of “Eva’s” precise findings earned vigorous markings by Adamescu and/or his superiors. Both of these findings have “Eva’s” added words that are not in Müller’s original text, but that increase the desired incriminating factor in the following sentences: “the future is just a threat in a sentence”51 and “Wishes are forbidden in this town, one laughs a lot, cries, and applauds above all” (my emphasis).52 The more restrictive “just” in the first sentence refers to the consequence of an uncensored thought and realises the subversive potential sought for by the ­Securitate. In the second finding, “Eva” chose to translate “geklatscht” as applauded although “klatschen” could also mean to gossip. Yet, as a contemporary of Nicolae Ceauşescu, “Eva” read and reproduced Müller’s text unambiguously against the political background. For her, “klatschen” evoked the prolonged ovations and applause Ceauşescu expected to be met with at any so-called “work visits”, and by inserting “above all” “Eva” distinctly alluded to the dictator’s cult of personality. “Eva’s” translations could be viewed as “an act of interpretation”53 in which she took over the material and recorded it for the new audience. It is, however, a politicised and incriminating act that exposes the hostile intent of both the translator and the Securitate officers. While completing the job she had been recruited to carry out, “Eva” clearly exercised the power and discretion her position inherently entailed, well aware of the detrimental use and destructive effect of her translations. The Securitate continued to recruit translators/informers from among the ethnic German population until 1989, as translation remained a crucial forensic tool in the surveillance of minorities. In a perverse interpretation of Walter Benjamin’s view that “to some degree all great texts contain their potential translations between the lines,” the Securitate focused primarily on the inculpatory potential that translators had to identify “between the lines” of a text.54

The limits of collaboration 155

“Sticky surveillance” and Stasi informers in the German Democratic Republic in the Cold War From 1968 onwards, the brief for citizen informants in the GDR began to expand, as the last two guidelines, Guideline No. 1/68 and Guideline No. 1/79, issued by the Ministry for State Security reveal.55 With the advent of détente, the Ministry moved into a post-Stalinist phase in which terror and open repression took a back seat.56 Instead, the Stasi proceeded to expand its network of informants at the same time as it expanded the roles unofficial operatives could be asked to fulfil.57 The guidelines now included a more demanding regimen for informers, a wider range of more exacting tasks, and far more active service than hitherto required. Informers could now be deployed to carry out crime-prevention measures such as the “crushing” or “destroying” (zersetzen) of so-called “political-ideological diversion” to curtail the influence of hostile persons.58 Occasionally, informers could be utilised in covert operations such as arrests, when this was deemed appropriate or desirable. As John C. Schmeidel writes, a “good IM should be not just a camera lens, but a disrupter and covert action officer in his own right.”59 These more proactive tasks applied especially to the elite category of IMB – described as unofficial collaborators “with enemy contacts” who were directly assigned to observe individuals suspected of subversive activity.60 Collaborators such as these were generally instructed to create entire alternative personas for themselves, replete with life stories and memories, fictive backgrounds, and even parents, in order to go deep undercover. This false identity or Legende was rehearsed and discussed in detail with the handling officer beforehand. These informers’ mission was to collect intelligence by “sticking close” to hostile targets and engaging in normal social interactions with them undercover and under their new Stasi-engineered identity. This type of surveillance relied on a combination of close proximity – both physical and psychological – and visibility. Visibility, or rather “a state of conscious and permanent visibility”, as we know from Michel Foucault’s adaption of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon, is key to the success of disciplinary power. The modern prison guaranteed this through its unique architectural design in which the prisoners were visible to the guards from a central point of observation, which remained hidden from sight.61 What appears to have been overlooked in Foucault’s seminal account of the modern prison is the active role of the watchers, who, according to David Lyon, “matter[] enormously”.62 In the communist panopticon the watching performed by citizen informers was far from fixed or passive as in Foucault’s panopticon. It needed no special technological or architectural apparatus; it needed merely a pair of eyes and ears, a willingness to engage the target in conversation, and an ability to build an attachment. This surveillance required above all the befriending of targets on a naturalistic pretext. We call this a form of bilateral “sticky surveillance” that had both advantages and serious risks for the Stasi. It also had severe impacts for those surveilled, producing collateral damage for the human instruments of surveillance. The following

156  Carol Anne Costabile-Heming, Valentina Glajar and Alison Lewis case study explores some of these impacts in the instance of Stasi informant Maja Wiens. In the late 1970s, Wiens worked on an operation dealing with a citizen suspected of “hostile-negative” (feindlich-negativ) behaviour, which quickly resulted in his arrest. Using eyewitness interviews and the declassified Stasi files, an analysis of this case highlights what this kind of sticky surveillance entailed for both the informant and the target, including for questions of privacy. The case reveals how the strategy eventually came “unstuck” for Wiens and the Stasi. Sara Ahmed has coined the term “stickiness” to explain how things – “bodies, objects, and signs” – accumulate value, in particular emotional value, through coming into contact with other things.63 According to Ahmed, stickiness is the result of past “histories of contact” and what has “rubbed off” onto things in past encounters.64 Among the many things citizen informers were charged to perform was “ideological stickiness,” namely positive political impacts on their targets. This could involve the use of harassment and intimidation and the kinds of mind games that we now refer to as “gaslighting”. The practice of “sticky surveillance” could however lead to unwanted side effects and the very undoing of the security panopticon. In the worst-case scenario, rather than the target, it was the informant who could come “unstuck,” namely through constant exposure to those enemies they were supposed to “stick to”. In these botched or failed operations, we can see some of the limits of the secret surveillance society that the GDR became over time. As Wiens’s case shows, this was especially noticeable when the informant was required to form a “real” or “real-like” attachment to the target. Many things could go wrong, among which was the “contamination” of the informant. In other words, ideas and mindsets of the targets could rub off, and the informant could become “infected” by the source of subversion. Citizen informers in the category of IMB functioned rather like denunciators and vigilantes. They rarely acted as spontaneous denunciators of petty crimes or misdemeanours as in the Third Reich.65 This was because the Stasi was wary of unprompted offers of help, preferring to recruit its own agents to undertake specific tasks of which they had no prior knowledge.66 Once recruited, however, they acted rather like vigilantes. A core requirement of vigilantism, as David Trottier argues, is “private voluntary agency” whereby “vigilante agents must be distinguished from police and state actors.”67 According to this definition, unofficial Stasi informers could be classified as vigilantes mainly due to the spontaneous, partly self-controlling nature of their work. Because of the high degree of independence and creativity required, IMBs were exposed to considerable risks in operations. In general, the Stasi tried to minimise the dangers of relying on an unofficial secret “outsourced” workforce by making informers sign a pledge to maintain secrecy at all times and take a separate oath to work for the Stasi. Despite these precautions, informers of all stripes remained a precarious workforce of a clandestine employer. They had little prospects for betterment or advancement and few rewards. Monetary rewards and gifts of flowers and chocolates were usual but could not really compensate for the dangers of undercover work. Not only could IMBs be asked to perform secret acts – such

The limits of collaboration 157 as procuring or stealing manuscripts or purloining notebooks from their new “friends” – they could also be instructed to lie, dissemble, and fabricate parts of their life stories. They were not only required to concoct a plausible story, they also had to stick to it and act it out consistently. For the targets, this type of surveillance clearly had massive impacts. The first one was an increase in visibility in the communist state panopticon. In relaying targets’ personal information, informers exposed them to secret police scrutiny. From this flowed or could flow a series of effects such as securitisation and the violation of human or civil rights.68 In extreme cases, the target could be subject to incarceration and be convicted of political crimes. Targets of surveillance were also the victims of what Johan Galtung calls “cultural violence”.69 They risked exposure to multiple non-physical harms such as violated trust, the invasion of privacy, smear campaigns, reputational damage, professional discrediting, and criminalisation. For the surveillers or informers there were also substantial risks. The main one was Dekonspiration, or having their cover blown. Victims were often able to trace an information leak back to a small group of friends and more often than not they were able to correctly identify the mole in their circle. This in turn could expose the informant to accusations of betrayal, loss of friendship, and lead to their expulsion from social circles. There were also costs to informers’ mental health of dissimulating and betrayal – having to constantly cover their tracks or deflect attention from themselves. Informers who lived the lifestyle of their target could become compromised and start to sympathise with the so-called “enemy” or want to protect them. They could even “crossover” to the other side and identify with dissident activists. The case of informer Maja Wiens offers a good illustration of these risks of human-to-human surveillance. Wiens was hastily recruited in 1978 as an IMV (the precursor to the IMB category) with the code name “Marion”.70 She was quickly set to work on a major surveillance operation, an Operativer Vorgang. She was thought to be a “stellar recruit” according to her officer, despite the fact that she had misgivings from the very outset.71 She was instructed to inform on Rudolf Kunze, a doctoral student in biology, who was being investigated for possible “incitement against the state” (staatsfeindliche Hetze). He had helped organise an exhibition of surrealist artwork by autodidact Manfred Kastner, who had twice been rejected for membership in the Artists Guild. Kunze was also believed to be writing a political tract, and, it was feared to have the potential to become a major security threat. In order to infiltrate his circle, Wiens was instructed to make first contact with him at his birthday celebration held in a public venue. She rehearsed her roleplay and script as well as her pretext for approaching him well in advance of her mission. Her performance involved a mixture of scripted and extemporising action. She was to await a suitable opportunity in the evening and spontaneously congratulate Kunze offering him a book as a present. Her Stasi files document in extraordinary detail how in the following weeks and months she won Kunze’s confidence and became close to him.72 On her many visits, she conversed with

158  Carol Anne Costabile-Heming, Valentina Glajar and Alison Lewis Kunze freely about books and politics. A key piece of information Wiens passed on was the fact that Kunze was undergoing treatment for cancer and was about to return to the hospital for another round of chemotherapy. Wiens revealed the exact date and time of his next treatment, which enabled the Stasi to arrest Kunze in broad daylight while he was on his way to the hospital.73 He was taken to Hohenschönhausen prison, drugged, interrogated, and held in custody until his trial a year or so later.74 Wiens proved extremely useful in this covert operation. She was able to confirm the Stasi’s suspicion that Kunze was working on a manuscript75 and to spread misinformation about his true whereabouts after his arrest.76 She also facilitated the arrest of his close friends, the Simons, who were taken into custody. They were released, it transpired, while Wiens was in their apartment, having broken in through the window to steal an address book. Wiens’s cover was effectively blown, and although she denied any involvement with their arrest, she never fully regained their trust.77 Needless to say, she continued to mix in their circles until Kunze’s trial so as not to awaken further suspicion. Kunze survived his 18-month sentence and his cancer and later worked as a guide at Hohenschönhausen.78 From the Stasi’s perspective, the operation was a success, but for Wiens it was the start of a gradual process of disenchantment with the regime. On her next assignment in 1979, she became understandably anxious that her target, singer Bettina Wegner, might be arrested. Wiens stipulated that she wanted to be fully informed if an arrest was imminent.79 During the early 1980s, Wiens also started to sympathise with Wegner’s circle of dissident friends. We read in her file that she started to see them as the “true peace activists” and was angry at how they were being persecuted by the Stasi.80 Judging by all accounts in her file, the Stasi was unable to prevent Wiens from eventually being turned by her dissident friends. She became increasingly difficult to handle, and by 1985 the Stasi decided to place her under surveillance, opening a file named “Dream” on her.81 In the process of performing her work as an informer, something enduring from her targets had rubbed off on to her, and something of their mindset and their politics had stuck and become transferred from target to source. Permanent traces of the sustained contact and the joint history of Wiens and her dissident friends remained, which eventually saw her become estranged from the Stasi. The Stasi’s plan effectively came “unstuck,” and no amount of soft or hard power could remedy the situation. Wiens no longer simulated her engagement with peace and underground politics – even in her informer Stasi files she appears fully committed to their cause. The Stasi continued to experiment with forms of sticky surveillance throughout the 1980s, even trying to create simulated members of the underground who could neutralise the movement from inside. This largely failed, as did less risky strategies of infiltrating peace groups with rank-and-file members who were allowed to participate but not lead.82 In both these kinds of cases, something inevitably stuck or rubbed off onto the informant from their joint experiences and shared histories. Many informers became dissidents, and the Stasi lost its wager to undermine civil rights and artistic circles from within. Losing informers meant it lost its most

The limits of collaboration 159 valuable weapon in the Cold War, which was eventually to cost the regime dearly in 1989 when not even the Stasi could halt the tide of rebellion that swept the country.

Conclusion Each of the cases presented here challenges the image of the benign communist operative propagated in the film Das Leben der anderen. Though the regimes of the GDR and Romania have ceased to exist, the documents left behind by the Stasi and the Securitate continue to illuminate how surveillance interfered in and shaped the cultural sphere in their respective countries. These unique archives are able to shed unprecedented light on how the Eastern bloc enlisted citizen informers as their “eyes and ears” whereby these regimes succeeded in massively magnifying the visibility of cultural producers and hence amplifying their vulnerability to state persecution, repression, and censorship. State security apparatuses such as the Stasi and the Securitate recognised that visibility itself was not a sufficient condition for controlling free speech and expression. In the last two decades of the Cold War, citizen informers, working as undercover operatives, were deployed not merely to observe and provide intelligence on suspicious persons. They were also engaged in a far wider range of roles and professional capacities, as manuscript reviewers, literary and linguistic experts, as book translators, and as agents provocateurs. They performed this work on the whole willingly and often with a high degree of autonomy and discretion. What makes their collaboration even more efficacious in the policing of critical dissent is the fact that they fulfilled these tasks for the secret police often in a professional capacity. This in turn meant their covert value judgements wielded disproportionate influence and power. Their expertise and sometimes simply their biased and destructive opinions became weaponised by these regimes to discriminate and ultimately to censor critical voices. When this degree of influence is accompanied by an uncomfortable degree of familiarity and proximity to the targets under surveillance – whether this be through professional associations or through informal friendship networks – this kind of covert “insider” surveillance became an insidious instrument of security for Eastern bloc regimes. Although this tool was not without risks, human forms of surveillance served these regimes well until their demise. Though seemingly antiquated in today’s digital age, these historical forms of analogue surveillance remain highly relevant to our understanding of the importance of individuals in transmitting and evaluating surveillance data, in the construction of surveillance identity, and analysing the relationship between privacy and power.

Notes 1 Miklós Haraszt, The Velvet Prison: Artists Under State Socialism, New York, Basic Books, 1987, p. 7. 2 Das Leben der anderen, dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2005, https://www. jstor.org/stable/27668596.

160  Carol Anne Costabile-Heming, Valentina Glajar and Alison Lewis 3 Christoph Hein, ‘Mein Leben, leicht überarbeitet,’ Gegenlauschangriff. Anekdoten aus dem letzten deutsch-deutschen Kriege, Berlin, Suhrkamp, 2019, pp. 102–106. 4 The playwright’s girlfriend plays the role of a classic informer, blackmailed into betraying him. Wiesler’s disloyalty ultimately prevents any harm from happening to the playwright. 5 Lavinia Stan, Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Romania: The Politics of Memory, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 62. 6 Scholars and journalists seeking access to the documents must file an application request. If the request is granted, only those files pertinent to the request are made available in a redacted form. 7 Dietrich Löffler, Buch und Lesen in der DDR. Ein literatursoziologischer Rückblick, Berlin, Ch. Links, 2011, p. 13. 8 Matthias Braun, ‘Staatssicherheit und Literatur,’ in Ulrich von Bülow and Sabine Wolf (eds.), DDR-Literatur. Eine Archivexpedition, Berlin, Ch. Links, 2014, p. 56. 9 In addition, the distribution of books was regulated by a central warehouse in Leipzig; even the allocation of paper could affect the publication process. 10 The HV-Verlage operated under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, which in turn was under the auspices of the Central Committee and the SED. 11 Erich Loest referred to this highest level of censorship as the ‘fourth censor’ in Der vierte Zensor, Cologne, Edition Deutschland Archiv, 1984. 12 The content of these reviews was part of the official authorisation process and can be traced in the publishing house files. 13 Gary Bruce, The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 10. 14 Helmut Müller-Enbergs, Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter des Ministeriums für Staatssichertheit. Richtlinien und Durchführungsbestimmungen, Berlin, Ch. Links, 1996, p. 11. 15 Müller-Enbergs, Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter des Ministeriums für Staatssichertheit, p. 12. 16 Müller-Enbergs, Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter des Ministeriums für Staatssichertheit, p. 12. 17 Müller-Enbergs, Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter des Ministeriums für Staatssichertheit, p. 75. 18 Joachim Walther, Sicherungsbereich Literatur. Schriftsteller und Staatssicherheit in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, Berlin, Ch. Links, 1996, p. 469. 19 Walther, Sicherungsbereich Literatur, p. 486. 20 Walther, Sicherungsbereich Literatur, p. 581. 21 Müller-Enbergs, Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter des Ministeriums für Staatssichertheit, p. 12. 22 Mike Dennis, The Stasi: Myth and Reality, London, Pearson Education Limited, 2003, p. 91. 23 Despite the intense surveillance and repeated rejections of his manuscripts, Braun remained in the GDR until the end. 24 A number of scholars have written on the complicated publication history of HinzeKunze-Roman. See for instance, York-Gothart Mix, Ein ‘Oberkunze darf nicht vorkommen’: Materialien zur Publikationsgeschichte und Zensur des Hinze-KunzeRomans von Volker Braun, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1993 and Hannah Schepers, Volker Braun: Leben und Schreiben in der DDR, Halle, Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 2015, pp. 315–376. 25 Braun had worked with this theme for some 30 years, dating back to the play Hans Faust in 1968. He eventually revised the play under the title Hinze und Kunze (1977) and also wrote a short prose collection entitled Berichte von Hinze und Kunze (1983). 26 Simone Barck, Martina Langermann and Siegfried Lokatis, ‘Jedes Buch ein Abenteuer’: Zensur-System und literarische Öffentlichkeiten in der DDR bis Ende der sechziger Jahre, 2nd ed., Berlin, Akademie Verlag, 1998, p. 219. 27 When Braun’s Unvollendete Geschichte encountered publication difficulties in the 1970s, it was Dr. Günther who continually tried to negotiate with Braun in order to keep him on the GDR’s side. There was a definite fear that if the GDR gave up the

The limits of collaboration 161 ‘fight’ for Braun, the other dissidents like Wolf Biermann, Stefan Heym, and Reiner Kunze would turn Braun into a type of Solzhenitsyn-type intellectual martyr. See Walther, Sicherungsbereich Literatur, pp. 777–778. 28 Braun refers to the confiscation of copies in his work diary. See Volker Braun, ‘14.9.85’ in Volker Braun, Werktage 1977–1989, Frankfurt/M, Suhrkamp, 2009, p. 707. Braun further writes of a meeting with Günther on September 20, 1985, in which Günther informs him that he cannot submit a volume of Braun’s poetry for authorisation because of the uproar caused by Hinze-Kunze-Roman. See Braun, ‘20.9.85’ in Werktage 1977– 1989, p. 709. Most copies did make it into libraries and bookstores. Approximately 3718 copies were not delivered as planned. Research shows that they were delivered to the National Peoples’ Army. 29 Braun, ‘4.11.84,’ in Braun, Werktage 1977–1989, p. 653. 30 The original German: ‘man muß viel geduld mit seinen freunden haben. [. . .] günther [. . .] gibt den roman ins amt, aber nicht offiziell; nun ist das buch genehmigt, aber nicht eingereicht. [. . .] vielleicht ist höpcke bei dem streich dabei, denn er ist auch mein freund.’ Braun, ‘11.12.84,’ in Braun Werktage 1977–1989, p. 658. Our translation and emphasis. 31 Walther, Sicherungsbereich Literatur, p. 777. 32 Walther, Sicherungsbereich Literatur, pp. 776–777. 33 The topic of Günther’s very first conspiratorial meeting was Braun’s ‘Unvollendete Geschichte’ (Unfinished Story) manuscript. Because the Aufbau Verlag originally had rejected the manuscript, Braun submitted it to the Mitteldeutscher Verlag in spring 1975. Discussions about that text continued throughout 1975, until the text’s prerelease in Sinn und Form. Coincidentally, Braun’s constant covert surveillance by the Stasi dates to 1975. 34 Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1998. 35 Adriana Duţulescu, ‘Eduard Hellvig va preda la CNSAS câteva sute de mii de dosare ale fostei Securităţi până in noiembrie’ (Eduard Hellvig will deliver to CNSAS several hundred thousand Securitate files by November). www.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/ politica/surse-hellvig-va-preda-la-cnsas-cateva-sute-de-mii-de-dosare-ale-fostei-secu ritati-pana-in-noiembrie-1187856 (accessed 10 June 2020). 36 ACNSAS, FD, File 013381, 46 Vols. 37 See Corneliu Pintilescu, Procesul Biserica Neagră 1958 (The Black Church Trial 1958), Braşov, Aldus, 2008. 38 Peter Motzan and Stefan Sienerth eds., Worte als Gefahr und Gefährdung. Schriftsteller vor Gericht, Munich, Südostdeutsches Kulturwerk, 1993. 39 Laura G. Laza, ‘Die Übersetzung als Mittel der Manipulation. Eine Analyse der Briefe aus dem Nachlass Wolf von Aichelburgs,’ in F. Kührer-Wielach and M. Nowotnick (eds.), Aus den Giftschränken des Kommunismus. Methodische Fragen zum Umgang mit Überwachungsakten in Zentral- und Südosteuropa, Regensburg, IKGS/Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2018, pp. 205–217. 40 Laza, p. 210. 41 Laza, p. 211. 42 Benjamin Paloff, ‘Forensic Translation,’ The Nation, 7 April 2015, www.thenation. com/article/forensic-translation/ (accessed 5 November 2019). 43 Paloff, www.thenation.com/article/forensic-translation/ (accessed 5 November 2019). 44 ACNSAS, FI, File 184945 (‘Ziaristul’), folio 163, 164. 45 ACNSAS, FR Timiş, File 32674, 2 Vols. 46 Herta Müller, Niederungen, Bucharest, Kriterion, 1982. 47 ACNSAS, FI, File 233477 (‘Cristina’), 5. All translations from Romanian are ours. 48 Herta Müller, Niederungen, Berlin: Rotbuch, 1984 and Der Mensch ist ein großer Fasan auf der Welt, Berlin, Rotbuch, 1986. 49 ACNSAS, FR, File 388115, Vol. 1, folio 10–16.

162  Carol Anne Costabile-Heming, Valentina Glajar and Alison Lewis 50 Herta Müller, ‘Unsere Stadt,’ Pflastersteine: Jahrbuch des Literaturkreises ‘Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn,’ Temeswar [Timişoara], 1982, pp. 123–125. 51 In the German original: ‘und die Zukunft ist eine Drohung in einem Satz, [falls sie vorhanden ist].’ Müller, pp. 123–124. 52 ‘Es wird sehr viel gelächelt, sehr viel geweint und sehr viel geklatscht in unserer Stadt.’ Müller, ‘Unsere Stadt,’ p. 125. 53 Paloff, ‘Forensic Translation.’ 54 Walter Benjamin, ‘The Task of a Translator,’ In Markus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings (eds.), Selected Writings Volume 1 1913–1926, Cambridge, MA, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002, p. 263. 55 John C. Schmeidel, Stasi: Shield and Sword, London, Routledge, 2008, p. 30. 56 Helmut Müller-Enbergs (ed.), Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit Teil 3: Statistiken, Berlin, Ch. Links, 2008, p. 217. 57 Müller-Enbergs, Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit Teil 3: Statistiken, p. 217. 58 Walther, Sicherungsbereich Literatur, p. 471. 59 Schmeidel, Stasi, p. 28. 60 Roger Engelmann et al, ed., Das MfS-Lexikon: Begriffe, Personen und Strukturen der Staatssicherheit der DDR, Berlin, Ch. Links, 2016, p. 173. 61 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan, London, Penguin Books, 1991, p. 201. 62 David Lyon, ed., Theorizing Surveillance: The Panopticon and Beyond, Abingdon and New York, Routledge, 2006, p. 33. 63 Sara Ahmed, Cultural Politics of Emotion, New York, Routledge, 2004, p. 90. 64 Ahmed, Cultural Politics of Emotion, p. 90. 65 J. Gieseke, The History of the Stasi: East Germany’s Secret Police 1945–1990, New York, Berghahn, 2014, p. 85. 66 Walther, Sicherungsbereich Literatur, p. 516. 67 D. Trottier, ‘Digital Vigilantism as Weaponisation of Visibility,’ Philosophy and Technology, vol. 30, 2017, p. 58. 68 Barry Buzan, Ole Waever, Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Boulder and London, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998, p. 5. 69 Johan Galtung, ‘Cultural Violence,’ Journal of Peace Research, vol. 27, no. 3, 1990, pp. 291–305. 70 BStU BVfs Berlin AOP 1224/91, Vol. 1, folio 117. 71 BStU BVfs Berlin AOP 1224/91, Vol. 1, folio 112. 72 BStU BVfs Berlin AOP 1224/91, Vol. 3, folio 39–41. 73 BStU BVfs Berlin AOP 1224/91, Vol. 3, folio 85–86. 74 Rudolf Kunze, Email to Alison Lewis, February 13, 2014. 75 BStU BVfs Berlin AOP 1224/91, Vol. 3, folio 85. 76 BStU BVfs Berlin AOP 1224/91, Vol. 3, folio 105, 115. 77 BStU BVfs Berlin AOP 1224/91, Vol. 3, folio 111. 78 Rudolf Kunze, Email to Alison Lewis, February 13, 2014. 79 BStU BVfs Berlin AOP 1224/91, Vol. 1, folio 173; Vol. 3, folio 255. 80 BStU BVfs Berlin AOP 1224/91, Vol. 1, folio 166. 81 BStU BVfs Berlin AOP 1224/91 Vol. 9. 82 See Irena Kukutz and Katja Havemann, Geschützte Quelle: Gespräche mit Monika H. alias Karin Lenz, Berlin, Basisdruck-Verlag, 1990.

9 The historical ubiquity of surveillance1 Toni Weller

As a category of historical enquiry, surveillance holds a rather unique position. It is, at the same time, both a profoundly ancient social phenomenon and also a profoundly modern one. Some scholars have argued that “spying and surveillance are at least as old as civilization itself” or that “in the surveillance of private communication almost everything is history”.2 Indeed, the idea of surveillance is so fundamentally entrenched within human history that some have explored it in terms of the “eye of God” or as God being the “original surveillance camera”.3 And yet, surveillance also forms an intrinsically fundamental part of our modern society, impacting upon our politics, legislation, economics, culture, and personal lives, interwoven throughout our modern society. There are no teleological progressions at work here, but there are links that can be made between past and present; moreover this chapter argues that surveillance is historically ubiquitous. Taking the long view allows us to situate the idea of surveillance in the past and, in so doing, better contextualise our modern relationship with surveillance. Even more so, in relaxing the concept of surveillance from the modern, one can see that surveillance is historically present not just in technology or statecraft, but also in society and culture. In this chapter, “culture” is understood in more aesthetic terms of a reading of cultural products rather than the more anthropological understanding of scholars such as David Lyon.4 By choosing to use this more aesthetic distinction of culture, one can argue for a more anthropological understanding of the social drivers of surveillance which follow in this chapter. Using some of the grand themes of surveillance discourse as anchors – that is the role of the state, the influence of fear and anxiety, surveillance society, and the impact of surveillance upon culture – the chapter argues that traces of these themes can be found, in differing forms, throughout the human history. These themes are recognisably modern, but they have historical antecedents that help to reformulate contemporary assumptions about our long relationship with surveillance, not least, its historical ubiquity. *** Over the second half of the twentieth century, surveillance became recognised as what David Lyon, Kevin Haggerty, and Kirstie Ball have described as “the

164  Toni Weller dominant organising practice of late modernity”.5 This view is shared by many, not least Michel Foucault, with scholars such as Anthony Giddens suggesting that it is one of the defining characteristics of modernity itself, irrevocably linked with nineteenth-century industrialisation and the rise of the nation-state.6 Surveillance is almost the defining feature of modern times. The modern use of the word itself first came to England from France during the very early nineteenth century. Derived from the Latin vigilare (watchful), came the French sur (meaning over) and veiller (meaning to watch). Its first combined use as surveillance came directly from the French Revolutionary Terror where Surveillance Committees were established throughout France under the 1793 Law of Suspects to monitor the behaviour and movements of individuals believed to be a threat to the revolution.7 The etymological origins of the secondary “veillance” (vigilare) part of the word can be traced back to the common roots of most European languages – meaning awake, watchful, or vigilant.8 The longevity of these associations has power. But longevity does not mean a continuity of meaning, and if the meaning and significance of a word or concept can change across time and place, how can one offer a continuity of understanding? As Kastovsky argues, “semantic identity is impossible to establish across time and space”, but that it is possible to assume that changes in attitudes and cultural values “have an important role to play in the interpretation of the meaning” of a word or, more importantly in the case of surveillance, an idea”.9 “Surveillance” has been subject to semantic shifts, with historical contemporaries not always using the actual word “surveillance” to describe surveillance-like behaviours or processes. The specific word “surveil­ lance” is certainly less common pre-1793 with words like “information” or “intelligence” often used with similar meaning. The processes and concepts of being “watched over”, to use the literal French translation, are woven throughout many different historical geographies, contexts, and periods. Attitudes and cultural values of surveillance then are the focus here; the ideas, impacts, fears, and justifications that have influenced such processes of information collection and observation throughout history. One of the most prevailing of associations with the idea of surveillance is its relationship with the state.

The state The process of observing and recording population and household numbers has an incredibly ancient precedent.10 An early example of state surveillance includes the lists of all adult males fit for military service maintained during the Roman Republic, similar to a modern census or military register. The world’s oldest surviving census data dates from 2 ad in China, where there is manifest evidence for population registers throughout China from this time,11 and over a thousand years later, the English Domesday Book of 1086 can be seen as an early example of organised collection of state information on its citizens. However, none of these early collections of information of individuals was as routine or regular as the later censuses established throughout Europe from the eighteenth century, and one might argue,

The historical ubiquity of surveillance 165 as does Edward Higgs, that surveillance is not the same as simply information gathering on an individual – census data could contend to be the latter. Surveillance, argues Higgs, is the process of “watching identifiable individuals to ensure that they do something, or more frequently, that they do not do something”.12 This is why intent can be considered so important by historians when we are exploring ideas of surveillance historically. These ancient census collections, like the Domesday Book, were irregular and often localised. Such traditions continued into the Middle Ages and early modern period throughout Europe where as Jacob Soll has shown, “centralising monarchs. . . [established] . . . inventories . . . which sought . . . to register feudal and ecclesiastical rights and property, while establishing royal authority and regulating abuses.”13 It “was not until industrialisation that states began to collect information on their citizens with any regularity, where methods became more organised, structured, rational and centralised and evolved into what we recognise as the modern bureaucratic surveillance system.”14 But, of course, like surveillance, bureaucracy itself was not new to the industrial period. The pre-industrial empires of Rome, China, and Byzantium all had sophisticated forms of central administration, but the ways in which information was collected and ordered became much more efficient following industrialisation.15 During the nineteenth century, the emergence of the industrialised nationstate necessitated a change in the way the central state considered its citizens, since, as Anthony Giddens has argued that “no pre-modern states were able even to approach the level of administrative co-ordination developed in the nationstate”.16 Moreover, “such administrative concentration depends in turn upon the development of surveillance capacities well beyond those characteristic of traditional civilisations”.17 There are, however, examples of pre-industrial organised, centralised information collection in terms of what we would now understand to be surveillance, led by individuals on behalf of the state. Public health surveillance, that is, “the concept of using mortality and morbidity data as a basis for public health action”, originated in Europe during the scientific revolution of the Renaissance, but nascent forms of health surveillance are documented earlier than this, especially during the fourteenth century where cases of the Black Death were recorded in order to facilitate basic forms of quarantine from infected areas.18 Such surveillance has evolved into more sophisticated modern forms, including the monitoring of data from some public health helplines in order to predict, among other things, the potential outbreak of a biological terror attack.19 In an embryonic form, however, health information was collected locally by individuals rather than being a national, state-led, process. As Edward Higgs has shown, this form of localised information collection was a trend which continued from the 1500s right into the early twentieth century.20 However, individuals with power or connections to the state could use their unique position to amass localised collections for more political ends. Following the English Civil War in the middle of the seventeenth century, Oliver Cromwell’s spymaster, John Thurloe, was appointed postmaster general and used his position to covertly intercept and open letters that he believed were plotting against the

166  Toni Weller Lord Protector. Work done by John Ellis has shown how a network of spies meant that intelligence information played a decisive role in determining the outcome of the Civil War itself.21 Along similar lines, Jacob Soll has explored the role and impact of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, minister to Louis XIV in seventeenth century France, demonstrating how the information being gathered by Colbert’s network of “eyes and ears” was deliberate and centralised, designed to maintain and further his own political position and that of the King. As Soll describes, Colbert used his information collection on all aspects on French life, laws, economy, history, and society “not only as a source of public propaganda, but also as a tool of secret government”.22 Michel Foucault emphasised that the principle of surveillance and social control could extend in all areas of social life, and we see here that Colbert used “networks of scholars and agents” to collect this myriad of data, but, significantly, they reported only to him.23 As Soll himself concludes, both the public sphere and Colbert’s secret sphere of institutional information gathering grew and flourished in seventeenth-century France, where, as Soll puts it, “they interacted and competed, creating a tense symbiosis present to this very day”.24 This “symbiosis” between past and present is also evident in modern discourse on surveillance, with some scholars discussing how the ubiquity of the digital era has irrevocably changed the ways in which information is stored and gathered about individual’s behaviours, preferences, and choices, often for the purposes of official or state logistics.25 Gavin Smith has discussed the ubiquity of surveillance workers, even going to far as to make the claim that “we are all surveillance workers, complicit in the art of monitoring, interpreting and making sense of social reality”26 – a point to which we shall return in a different historical context. The growing interconnectedness of the twenty-first century world, largely through digital media, “fuels anxieties about threats that are essentially beyond national control” but which can create expectations for potential state responses.27 This is of course an increasing issue in the 24/7 world in which we now live but the echoes of moral or popular panics and anxieties also have precedent. Fears and anxieties, both not only about being watched by the state or official bodies but also as a justification for watching, are not new and are closely linked not only to concerns over personal privacy but also to the role of communication, whether digital or otherwise. Our twenty-first-century “interconnectedness” also has parallels with the nineteenth-century communication and transportation revolutions in the railways, telegraph, postal system among others, which precipitated a new speed of interaction and connectivity between people and places and issued in a new dynamic between state and society in what has been called a post-industrial “control revolution”.28 Prior to industrialisation, one travelled no faster than the speed of a horse, but the introduction of the steam power had a radical effect on the speed with which people and goods could move around the country, or indeed the world, and affected the ways in which the state could react to events. The introduction of the telegraph had the same dramatic impact with overseas communication, with consequences stretching into the modern world of instantaneous communication. Western nineteenth-century technologies “changed everything”.29 Not only did

The historical ubiquity of surveillance 167 people begin to travel more freely, but so also did ideas and information. Both these facilitated not only the spread of dissention – a historically long-standing issue for any state or ruler – but also the possibilities for surveillance. The 1840s in Britain were an era where tremors of the French Revolution were still being felt, and, as Walter Houghton describes, “Victorian society, was shot through, from top to bottom, with the dread of some wild outbreak of the masses that would overthrow the established order and confiscate private property”.30 This perceived threat of uprising was tenuously balanced against British traditions of laissez-fair. As David Vincent has shown, although the state had a long tradition of opening postal correspondence under the justification of preventing revolution in England, in the 1840s its surveillance still remained latent.31 The introduction of the Penny Post in 1840 aimed, by introducing standard pre-payment on letters, not only to democratise communication and stabilise society in a period that was rife with tensions, but it also centralised communications so that every letter had to pass through the Post Office.32 In 1844, the country was rocked with a huge scandal when the Home Secretary was caught opening letters in the interests of national security. In the absence of an official statement, the public imagination assumed the worst, igniting the fears and tensions underlying British society at the time. This 1844 “postal espionage crisis”, as Vincent terms it, “sparked the first panic over the privacy of citizens . . . and it was sustained by a vigorous visual and imaginative culture.”33 The importance of culture and its relationship with surveillance are something to which the chapter will return, but these ideas of a society plagued with anxiety, fears over abuse of personal privacy, of secrecy, speculation, mass panic, and a cultural momentum are all factors which could be applied to most modern-day surveillance scandals. Fear and anxiety, like information and its associated practices, are concepts which are closely related to surveillance. State surveillance throughout modern history has been precipitated by the dual factors of warfare and welfare to protect citizens against threats while also ensuring their health and welfare – the classic “social contract” espoused by moral and political philosophers.34 Surveillance then should not automatically be assumed to be sinister in intent. In order for the state to offer welfare provision, those in power need to know who is eligible for payments and where they are, thus requiring some form of personal surveillance, albeit often overtly requested and given, in the West at least.35 By the mid-twentieth century, the nascent information state had emerged which began routinely to develop and enforce bureaucratic, centralised surveillance for the purposes of welfare provision. As Edward Higgs has eloquently argued, “it might be better to see state information-gathering not in terms of crude social control but of providing limited rights to health, welfare, and political participation through the identification of citizens, which in turn underpinned the hegemony of elites”.36 Perhaps, one might argue that modern day “elites”, whose power and position may be undermined, are no longer the aristocracy or landed gentry, but big business, commerce, or the central state. However, historically welfare surveillance could have mixed results and intent. Historians have long accepted that the first modern state socialism found

168  Toni Weller in Germany under Bismarck in the 1880s was influenced more by a desire to undermine the political appeal of social democracy to the working classes than it was any genuine desire to introduce reform – an example of what Thomas Paster has called “social pacification”.37 In 1931, the first fully government-funded unemployment benefit system was introduced in Britain to cope with the impact of the Great Depression, but in order to benefit from payouts, recipients had to prove their poverty through enforced forms, questions, and visits from state investigators, which proved highly unpopular. In such examples therefore, “state surveillance and information collection for the purposes of welfare were often precipitated by economic or political crisis or a desire by the state to keep a check on potential deviants”.38 To some extent, welfare and warfare are common bedfellows, where one often justifies or necessitates the other. Monitoring of internet and mobile phone traffic and tighter security and surveillance at airports are now all commonplace; we are monitored but (so it is argued) for our own safety. In October 2001, the United States passed the Patriot Act in response to the 9/11 attacks, granting powers to the federal government which arguably may not have been passed in a different political climate. In 2002, following the terrorist attacks of the previous year, the American artist Hasan Elahi was detained in an airport by FBI agents after he was mistakenly added to a government watch list. He was questioned over some months for details regarding his travel locations, before it was realised he had been incorrectly added to the watch list. He was however, still requested to notify the FBI whenever he travelled. Elahi agreed to do so and began to photograph and document the minutiae of every journey he took, every place he ate, every flight he took, even the toilets he used at airports, and sending it all to the FBI in an act of self-surveillance. This archive was the beginning of what is now an ongoing art project called Tracking Transience.39 The project makes an interesting point that for all the micro-documentation of where Elahi had been and when, it revealed very little of an intimate personal nature about the man himself. Nor do any of his photographs include anyone else, they are all empty places; the self-surveillance is deliberately absent of other people. For all its observation of minutiae, Elahi consciously protects personal privacy, both his and others.

Fear This observation on personal privacy is not a trivial one. Luke Tredinnick has suggested that “one of the most persistent anxieties . . . in the digital age has been the fear of a loss of privacy within the surveillance society.”40 This fear of a loss of privacy is balanced with a fear for personal safety and national security – an updating of the social contract. Joanna Burke has argued, as part of her cultural history of fear, that “moral panics . . . masked other fears . . . and anxiety about change more generally.”41 Such anxieties could justify, indeed call for, increased protective surveillance. CCTV cameras in London have increased exponentially in number in recent years, with the UK as a whole becoming the “most watched citizenry in Europe”.42 In 2018, it was reported that Chinese mobile phone apps

The historical ubiquity of surveillance 169 had been introduced to encourage civilians to be able, potentially, to notify the authorities of violations or social disturbances, in essence, to do social monitoring at a local level using a new form of technology.43 The global spread of the new virus COVID-19 during the early months of 2020 presented a new twist to surveillance and privacy discourse. Face masks worn to prevent the spread of infection had the side effect of obscuring facial recognition technology, while the mobile phone apps designed to track and trace an individual’s contact with the virus also had the potential to collect personal data unrelated to health. While there is a growing body of literature on COVID-19 and its impact on privacy, in its most fundamental form, this type of social surveillance has precedent.44 Throughout history, but especially by the twentieth century, Joanna Burke has argued that “fear of crime was used to legitimise increased surveillance over subordinate groups”, and such responses were often class based.45 Moral panics over personal safety were an upper and middle “class-based response to fears facing modern individuals”.46 There are, of course, plenty of examples in which such fears were based upon race or gender as well as class, but in its most general terms, surveillance has often been precipitated by a desire to control or observe perceived deviants or threats to the social norm; that is the “Other”. As Sue Veres Royal has argued, “in times of heightened fear and anxiety, stereotypes are exacerbated, identity with one’s own group . . . increases, [and] suspicion of other groups is heightened.”47 Fear then can lead to potential prejudice, as scholars have discussed in terms of the Muslim community and police surveillance in a post9/11 world.48 But perceived deviants or threats need not be such historically obvious ones. Fear and threats are contextual. History offers us examples of more subtlety perceived threats and its associated surveillance. Within Britain, there was a powerful nineteenth-century ideology which viewed women of all social classes to have an innate place within the domestic sphere, with their natural role to produce and nurture the next generation of British citizens and soldiers. This perceived natural order was fundamentally transgressed by female prostitutes, who were blamed for spreading venereal disease through the army. In so doing, it was argued by contemporaries that they weakened the defences of the nation and the national health as a whole.49 This apparent threat to national security acted as a justification for state-endorsed, although locally led, surveillance of working-class women, through the Contagious Diseases Acts of the 1860s, which applied to port and garrison towns and gave police powers to apprehend women they believed guilty of prostitution or having venereal disease. Arrests were consequently highly subjective, as were medical opinions over whether or not a woman actually had venereal disease since conclusive blood tests were not available until decades later in 1906.50 Those who were responsible for the surveillance of women under suspicion were sometimes labelled as “spies” by contemporaries.51 Richard Price argues that the “interventionalism” of the Contagious Diseases Acts “transgressed the most intimate boundaries of the public and private spheres”.52 Visits from police to the private homes of women suspected of prostitution meant that a woman could be judged as a prostitute by her neighbours,

170  Toni Weller irrespective of actual evidence.53 This had such an impact that “public shaming was one of the principal functions of police registration and surveillance,” which had significant consequences for a woman’s respectability – the social currency of the Victorian period.54 Although it tended to be poorer-class women who were targeted by the police under these specific Acts, the significance of police or public “suspicion” was felt by women of all social classes, since it emphasised the importance of what was deemed to be socially appropriate or acceptable behaviour and fear of repercussion if such behaviours were not maintained.

Social Such an idea introduces another aspect of surveillance ubiquity: the conception that we are being “watched over” by each other in a social sense from bottom up as well as potentially top-down state-led surveillance. It also allows us to move away from the oft-discussed notions of social control from above and instead consider social control through the regulation of one’s own behaviour. Anthony Giddens has termed surveillance as a form of “social supervision”, and arguably the potency of Victorian respectability created an informal and cultural social surveillance among women themselves – a kind of social panopticon, which was enacted by society, etiquette, and social conventions.55 Such social respectability was essential to the Victorian frame of mind in particular and placed a great emphasis on reputation, as it was perceived by others. But such emphasis was certainly not unique to nineteenth-century Britain – it is a universal concept. In a fascinating article that applies the political thought of Hobbes, Rousseau, and Plato with the sensitivities of surveillance in modern-day New York, Anita L. Allen argues that “once reputation is relevant, privacy, and the capacity to conceal facts and behaviours concerning which one does not wish to be judged, become a commodity”.56 Such social monitoring of one’s behaviour and the behaviour of others is evident throughout contemporary social media. No longer are you judged by respectability, but instead by image, success, wealth, friends, and lifestyle which all factor in to the persona portrayed by social media profiles. The point made by Gavin J. D. Smith earlier that “we are all surveillance workers, complicit in the art of monitoring” becomes very powerful here, not least because of its Foucauldian associations with control and power, social or otherwise.57 In social terms, there is a “human element” in this relationship.58 In Foucauldian terms, “disciplined society” separated right from wrong, good from bad, sick from healthy through surveillance and regulation.59 Architecturally, this manifested in Jeremy Bentham’s late-eighteenth century Panopticon, a design in which a supervisor sat in a central position, potentially able to observe every individual in their individual cells, but where the inmates were not able to see one another nor be certain if anyone was watching them from the central platform. In modern times, one could argue this panopticonic idea has entered into the public sphere as a means of self-regulation, most profoundly evident throughout social media, where the internet itself has been described as “life in an electronic panopticon”.60

The historical ubiquity of surveillance 171 Such an idea creates a form of potential observation which is invisible but omnipresent and invasive. This may take the form of latent scrutiny through social etiquette and correct behaviour in polite society or through more malignant forms of politically motivated surveillance in which your every move may be watched by someone in a form of social panopticon.61 Between the end of the Second World War and the reunification of Germany in 1990, the East Germany state ran a system of intense personal surveillance with “a sixth of its population employed as informers in some capacity”.62 And it is not just modern society where this sort of social surveillance is evident. As Edward Higgs has argued, “early modern concern over one’s own sins, or those of one’s neighbours” was a fundamental part of behaviour. “The Salem Witch Trials”, argues Higgs, “show a level of social hysteria far in excess of anything in Victorian England”.63 This “social surveillance” is evident in modern digital forums as well as more tangibly physical historic examples, where people do not passively experience surveillance; they engage with it as well.64

Culture Of course, as David Garland has argued with reference to the post-1970s period, any such social surveillance takes place within a much broader cultural context.65 Surveillance scholars such as Garland and Lyon have focused on the social theory of crime control and the culture of surveillance that entails, or on the everyday, routine, social experiences of surveillance. However, it is also possible to consider surveillance culture in terms of the arts and experience economy. Gary Marx has shown how popular culture and surveillance are interrelated and interwoven, specifically that surveillance ideas and techniques are not just applied but also “experienced.”66 Such surveillance experiences occur irrespective of the period of time we are exploring, and popular culture in its broadest form can perhaps help explore some of the ubiquitous nuances of “being observed” or “watched over”. As historians, we should certainly not ignore depictions of surveillance in popular culture since they “can bring us the big picture and push conventional boundaries of thought and image”.67 Even more so, one could argue that culture can offer a way of challenging popular anxieties by making them more commonplace. One only has to look at the political and cultural responses to the Edward Snowden disclosures of 2013.68 An employee of the National Security Agency in the United States, Snowden, revealed thousands of classified security documents to journalists, justifying it in the name of protecting personal privacies against mass surveillance. In the last 5 years Snowden has become the subject of films, books, video games, music, and advertising. Such impact is an example of what David Lyon has described as a “surveillance capitalism,” where the power of the modern consumer is inexorably linked with the forces of modern surveillance.69 Some of these contemporary fears of threat of lack of personal privacy of national security can be balanced by the changing historical cultural representations of surveillance. Even the press plays a role in this balance; something long

172  Toni Weller recognised by the press itself. In 1852, The Times newspaper of London was writing that “the first duty of the press is to obtain the earliest and most correct intelligence of the events of the time and [disclose] them to make them the common property of the people”.70 We can see how the semantics of surveillance, information, intelligence could be interwoven by contemporaries.71 The nineteenth century also offers some wonderful examples of culture reflecting the interests and anxieties of its time. Let us explore two examples relating to events already mentioned: the Surveillance Committees of the French Revolution and the British postal scandal of 1844. This latter event was propelled in large part by the periodical press and literature of the time. G. W. M. Reynold’s popular serialisation, Mysteries of London, featured a plot in which an anonymous man called “The Examiner” sat opening and resealing private letters as part of a secret “Black Chamber” operation of the post office, before he then made reports to “the various offices of the government” regarding the contents of the letters.72 Charles Dickens included the surveillance committees of the French Revolutionary Wars in his 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities, where “a law of the Suspected, which struck away all security for liberty or life, and delivered over any good and innocent person to any bad and guilty one” was feared.73 Dickens’ influence was so profound that 80 years after the publication of A Tale of Two Cities, George Orwell believed that Dickens had passed on “a special sinister vision . . . to generations of readers”.74 Orwell attributed much of this “sinister vision” to Dickens’ tendency for dramatic licence and exaggeration which succeeded in capturing the fear and thoughts of his readers.75 This then, says as much about Garland’s thesis on the impact of broader social influences, as it does on the legacy of Dickens.76 George Orwell’s own vision of surveillance in his 1948 novel Nineteen EightyFour has become so entrenched in the popular mindset that in 1999, a massively popular and successful television franchise, Big Brother, was spun from it in which contestants enter a purpose-built studio in which their every move is filmed and televised and compete to be the last member of the house to be voted out by the viewing public. The programme was so popular it went on to be broadcast in over 50 countries – Gavin Smith’s earlier point that we are now all “surveillance workers” has some unsettling application here, where surveillance has become a source of entertainment. More recently, there has been a television adaptation of the novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, which depicts a dystopian society in which state and social surveillance of behaviour are paramount. ­Twentieth-century fiction particularly, reflecting the fear and turmoil of the century, has numerous examples of surveillance literature. The Russian novel, We, originally banned in Russia but published in English in 1924 and then across Europe is set in “One State” where everything is made of glass, playing into the idea that anyone could be watching at any time.77 Franz Kafka’s The Trial, written in 1914, features a man arrested and put on trial for a crime he has no memory of committing in which an anonymous authority figure refuses to give any him information on his crime. Like Orwell, Kafka has entered into modern cultural vernacular – “Orwellian” and “Kafka-esque” are now culturally synonymous with the idea of surveillance. In many of these literary examples, “social control comes not from

The historical ubiquity of surveillance 173 intrusion by the state but by the social pressure to conform,” as Luke Tredinnick has argued.78 Surveillance can be in the hands of the state and the establishment, but it can also be held by the people in a dynamic and complex interdependent relationship; a “culture of surveillance” is informed by social influences rather than being detached from them, to use David Lyon’s phrasing.79 Surveillance is not just evident in popular culture; art itself can have relevance in how we understand and historicise the idea of being watched, observed, or surveilled. Torin Monahan has argued that there are certain art projects which “strive to evade surveillance or render it visible . . . surveillance art can capitalize on the anxiety of viewers to motivate questions that might lead to greater awareness and open a space for ideological critique.”80 He proposes “cultural studies of surveillance” that move beyond celebrating artworks as scholarly resources or mere representations but instead approach them as political performances that contribute, for better or worse, to the cultural production of surveillance”.81 Hasan Elahi’s aforementioned Tracking Transience project is perhaps such an example. Just as much as art, films, or books, modern social networking websites can be considered themselves as contemporary cultural artefacts. Such websites allow individuals to decide exactly what information about themselves they make publically available online. While the individual is in control of the release of personal information, once it is on a social media website, it is possible for other users to observe it without any direct interaction with each other. In such cases, people are not just part of top-down state-led surveillance, benign or otherwise, but also, and voluntarily, of lateral and upwards surveillance. Moreover, “in the West at least, people are not only the subject of information gathering by the state but also the consumers of such material, reading and digesting official reports, surveys and statistics with incredible zeal.”82 John McGrath has likened our modern society to one where “surveillance is becoming a primarily a citizen (or consumer) activity . . . less one of technology, government, law or rights, than one of cultural practice”.83 With such a perspective, one can make a powerful case for contemporary social surveillance taking on what David Wood has described as a darker, more voyeuristic mode, and although voyeurism is nothing new . . . the wide availability of new technologies of surveillance and the acceptance of voyeurism as mainstream entertainment (through TV shows like Big Brother) make voyeurism into almost a cultural norm”84 We perhaps do not make links with surveillance and voyeurism as often as we might, but there is commonality. Robert Schechtman has explored the ways in which the East German Stasi have been represented in films to draw the audience themselves in as inherent participants in voyeuristic surveillance, juxtaposed with the state surveillance of the Stasi. In his words, “we too are watching the lives of others when we watch” such films.85 Voyeurism has obvious similarities with surveillance; the idea of watching someone, potentially without their knowledge and in secrecy, and it too has cultural historic precedent. “Voyeurism was

174  Toni Weller often represented in eighteenth-century texts and images”86 and not in high art alone. Vic Gatrell has shown in his fantastic study of eighteenth-century satirical prints, how the subject of voyeurism was commonplace in prints by artists such as Thomas Rowlandson and James Gillray. The immense popularity of these graphic satires gave them power, with political and social figures of the day caricatured without compromise, although often with political agenda. Such imagery turned its eighteenth-century audience from viewers into participating voyeurs.

Closing thoughts And so, we, as individuals, are not just subjects of surveillance but participants in lateral social and cultural observation and judgement.87 Even our day-to-day habits of work or shopping now have a symbiotic relationship with surveillance. From the late nineteenth century, the growth of capitalist and consumer society also necessitated forms of surveillance and information collection in businesses, and, as Alistair Black has shown, even Victorian institutions such as the public library could be seen in terms of what he describes as panoptic tracking of a user’s reading habits and behaviours.88 In its most basic form, the nineteenth-century industrial factory clock-in and clock-out system introduced a new form of surveillance on workers. “Employers began to monitor both their ‘consumers’ . . . as well as . . . their employees”.89 In nineteenth-century America, “monitoring consumer behaviour as well as new advertising and marketing techniques were fundamental to the emergence of modern information processing and collection” and the surveillance of consumers.90 Indeed, Sami Coll has shown how in Switzerland the substantial business of consumer surveillance via supermarket loyalty cards has long historic precedent through “their origins as “discount stamps” in the 1930s or as “purchase diaries” in the 1950s.”91 In the twenty-first century, these early forms of consumer intelligence have transcended into what has been described as a “personal information economy”, the legitimacy and ethics of which are still being debated.92 There is a growing tension over the personal information held by companies on individuals and the way in which this information is used and held against the amount of personal information that is voluntarily shared online. Companies worldwide increasingly use “files or lists that describe the habits and characteristics of individual consumers, segmenting [ . . . people. . .] on the basis of their characteristics or behaviours”, with resulting anxieties over how much online behaviour is being monitored and surveilled.93 This can be understood as part of a longer trend developing from the development of printing technologies during the nineteenth century. The phenomenon of mass print media precipitated questions over privacy by publishing personal information of well-known individuals or families and consequently placing information that was previously considered to be private into the public sphere.94 Nineteenth-century Britain in particular saw the emergence of a new dichotomy over public and private information, where a distinction between the two became explicitly articulated by contemporaries for the first time.95 In the United States, the historic notion of a legal “right to privacy” was advanced in the 1890s, which, as Jisuk Woo has argued for the period more

The historical ubiquity of surveillance 175 generally, “was based on the desire to be free from the surveillance of external forces and the consequent pressure to conform. . . [creating] . . . the first modern legal concept of privacy”.96 Privacy has become inexorably linked with surveillance, which, in turn, in the words of David Lyon, now forms “a distinctive product of the modern world” and one which “grows constantly”.97 Yet, surveillance is also a phenomenon which has extensive historic traditions. Its ubiquity should not suggest that our modern surveillance society has had any sort of deterministic inevitability but, rather, that surveillance seems to have been a constant part of the human story.

Notes 1 An earlier version of this chapter was presented as a keynote lecture at the international conference, The Eyes and Ears of Power: Surveillance, History and Privacy, organised as a joint-venture between ENIGMA – Museum of Communication, The Centre for Public Regulation and Administration (CORA), The Department of Information Studies, and The Danish Research Foundation Centre for Privacy Studies at the University of Copenhagen. It was held at the University of Copenhagen, 13–14 September 2018. 2 K. Laidler, Surveillance Unlimited: How we’ve Become the Most Watched People on Earth, London, Icon Books, 2008, p. 17; D. Vincent, ‘Surveillance, Privacy and History,’ History  & Policy, 1 October, 2013, www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/ papers/surveillance-privacy-and-history (accessed 27 July 2018). 3 See the fascinating discussion regarding the secularisation of surveillance and of ‘God’s Eye’ in D. Lyon, ‘Surveillance and the Eye of God,’ Studies in Christian Ethics, vol. 27, no. 1, 2014, p. 21–32. See also Hasan Elahi’s comments, documented in several interviews. See for example, J. Scharper, ‘Artist Hasan Elahi Meticulously Documents Life After FBI Investigation,’ Baltimore Sun, 22 January, 2013; H. Berry, ‘Hasan Elahi: On Digital Privacy, Hiding in Plain Sight and Smartphones as Master Spies,’ Boise Weekly, 20 September, 2017, www.boiseweekly.com/boise/hasan-elahi/ Content?oid=6738990. 4 See for example, D. Lyon, The Culture of Surveillance. Watching as a Way of Life, Cambridge, Polity, 2018. 5 D. Lyon et al., ‘Introducing Surveillance Studies,’ in K. Ball et al (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, London, Routledge, 2012, p. 1. 6 A. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1990. 7 See C. Walton, Policing Public Opinion in the French Revolution: The Culture of Calumny and the Problem of Free Speech, Oxford University Press, 2009. 8 J. Donald (ed.), Chambers Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, Chambers, 1872, p. 435, 505, 550. 9 M. Gorlach, ‘Conceptual and Semantic Change in the History of English’ in Christiane Dalton-Puffer and Nikolaus Ritt (Eds.), Words: Structure, Meaning, Function: A Festschrift for Dieter Kastovsky, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 2000, p. 96, 104. 10 E. Higgs, The Information State in England, 1500–2000, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. 11 J. D. Durand, ‘The Population Statistics of China, A.D. 2–1953,’ Population Studies, vol. 13, no. 3, 1960, pp. 209–256. 12 Higgs, The Information State, p. 11. 13 J. Soll, The Information Master: Jean Baptiste-Colbert’s Secret State Intelligence System, University of Michigan Press, 2009, p. 67. 14 T. Weller, ‘The Information State: An Historical Perspective on Surveillance,’ in K. Ball et al (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, London, Routledge, 2012, pp. 57–58.

176  Toni Weller 15 Weller, ‘The Information State,’ p. 58. 16 Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, p. 57. 17 Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, p. 57. 18 Quote from S. Declich and A. O. Carter, ‘Public Health Surveillance: Historical Origins, Methods and Evaluation,’ Bulletin of the World Health Organization, vol. 72, no. 2, 1994, p. 285. See also S. B. Thacker, ‘Historical Development,’ in L. M. Lee et al (eds.), Principles and Practice of Public Health Surveillance, Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 1–17. 19 D. L. Cooper et al., ‘Can Syndromic Surveillance Data Detect Local Outbreaks of Communicable Disease? A Model Using a Historical Cryptosporidiosis Outbreak,’ Epidemiology and Infection, vol. 134, no. 1, 2005, pp. 13–20. 20 Higgs, The Information State. 21 J. Ellis, To Walk in the Dark: Military Intelligence During the English Civil War, 1642– 1646, Cheltenham, History Press Limited, 2011. 22 Soll, The Information Master, p. 7. 23 Soll, The Information Master, p. 8. See also M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison, London, Penguin, 1991. 24 Soll, The Information Master, p. 166. 25 M. Anderejevic, ‘Ubiquitous Surveillance,’ in K. Ball et al (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, London, Routledge, 2012, pp. 91–98. 26 G. J. D. Smith, ‘Surveillance Work(ers), in K. Ball et al (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, London, Routledge, 2012, pp. 107–115. 27 L. Tredinnick, Digital Information Culture: The Individual and Society in the Digital Age, Oxford, Chandos, 2008, p. 133. 28 For a US-centred discussion on the changing relationship between state and society, see J. R. Beniger, The Control Revolution. Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society, Harvard University Press, 1986. For a more focused case study on Victorian England, see T. Weller and D. Bawden, ‘The Social and Technological Origins of the Information Society. An Analysis of the Crisis of Control in England, 1830–1900,’ Journal of Documentation, vol. 61, no. 6, 2005, pp. 777–802. 29 A.N. Wilson, The Victorians, London, Arrow Books, 2002, p. 493. 30 W. E. Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind, Yale University Press, 1957, p. 55. 31 D. Vincent, Privacy: A Short History, John Wiley & Sons, 2016. See also D. Vincent, ‘Surveillance, Privacy and History,’ History  & Policy, 1 October 2013, www.histo ryandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/surveillance-privacy-and-history (accessed 27 July 2018). 32 Vincent, Privacy. 33 Vincent, ‘Surveillance, Privacy and History’. 34 See P. Kelly, The Social Contract from Hobbes to Rawls, London, Routledge, 2004; P. Riley, ‘The Social Contract and Its Critics,’ in M. Goldie and R. Wokler (eds.), The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought. Vol. 4 of The Cambridge History of Political Thought, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 347–375. 35 Weller, ‘The Information State,’ p. 59. 36 E. Higgs, ‘Victorian Spies,’ History Workshop Journal, vol. 53, Spring 2002, p. 233. 37 See for example, V. L. Lidtke, ‘German Social Democracy and German State Socialism, 1876–1884,’ International Review of Social History, vol. 9, no. 2, 1964, pp. 2020–225. Quote from title of chapter four in T. Paster, The Role of Business in the Development of the Welfare State and Labour Markets in Germany, London, Routledge, 2012. 38 Weller, ‘The Information State,’ p. 59. 39 Tracking Transience website, http://elahi.umd.edu/track/ (accessed 12 August 2018). 40 Tredinnick, Digital Information Culture, p. 144. 41 J. Bourke, Fear: A Cultural History, London, Virago, 2005, p. 335.

The historical ubiquity of surveillance 177 42 B. J. Gold, CCTV and Policing: Public Area Surveillance and Police Practices in Britain, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 1. 43 L. Xin. ‘Reporting Apps Allow Chinese to Take Part in National Governance: Experts,’ in Global Times, 2 January 2018, www.globaltimes.cn/content/1083051.shtml (accessed 4 August 2018). 44 See for example C. Dwork et al., ‘On Privacy in the Age of Covid-19,’ Journal of Privacy and Confidentiality, vol. 10, no. 2, 2020, p. 1–6; U. Gasser et al., ‘Digital Tools Against COVID-19: Taxonomy, Ethical Challenges, and Navigation Aid,’ The Lancet Digital Health, 2020, https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S2589750020301370?t oken=9E95F94D8AC4C952513CAAEB0D1F3546A320A0D5147446AF2D82BC0F 50D15451A3F17A128212555A9D228147CA6C90B4; M. Ienca and E. Vayena, ‘On the Responsible use of Digital Data to Tackle the COVID-19 Pandemic,’ Nature Medicine 26, 2020, 463–464. 45 Bourke, Fear, pp. 335–337. 46 Bourke, Fear, pp. 335–337. 47 S. Veres Royal, ‘Fear, Rhetoric and the ‘Other’,’ Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, vol. 4, no. 3, 2011, p. 408. 48 See for example a discussion of this based upon circumstances in the UK – B. Spalek and B. Lambert, ‘Muslim Communities Under Surveillance,’ Criminal Justice Matters, vol. 68, no. 1, 2007, pp. 12–13; G. Mythen, S. Walklate, and F. Khan, ‘ “I’m a Muslim, but I’m not a Terrorist”: Victimization, Risky Identities and the Performance of Safety,’ The British Journal of Criminology, vol. 49, no. 6, 2009, pp. 736–754. 49 See T. Weller, ‘The Racialisation of British Women During the Long Nineteenth Century: How White Women’s Bodies Became Tools of Control and Surveillance,’ in Michael Kwet and Jeffrey Vagle (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Surveillance and Race, Cambridge University Press, 2021, in press. 50 E. M. Sigsworth and T. J. Wyke, ‘A Study of Victorian Prostitution and Venereal Disease,’ in Martha Vicinus (ed.), Suffer and Be Still. Women in the Victorian Age, London, Methuen, 1980, pp. 77–99. 51 See Judith Walkowitz, ‘The Making of an Outcast Group: Prostitutes and Working Women in Nineteenth Century Plymouth and Southampton,’ in M. Vicinus (ed.), A Widening Sphere: Changing Roles of Victorian Women, London, Methuen, 1980, pp. 72–93; Weller, ‘The Racialisation of British Women.’ 52 R. Price, British Society 1680–1880: Dynamism and Change, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 223. 53 J. Walkowitz, ‘The Making of an Outcast Group: Prostitutes and Working Women in Nineteenth Century Plymouth and Southampton,’ in M. Vicinus (ed.), A Widening Sphere: Changing Roles of Victorian Women, London, Methuen, 1980, p. 82. 54 Walkowitz, ‘The Making of an Outcast Group.’ p. 83. See also Weller, ‘The Racialization of British Women.’ 55 Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, p. 59. On the idea of a social panopticon see, for example, Toni Weller, The Victorians and Information: A Social and Cultural History, Saarbrücken, VDM Verlag, 2009, pp. 57–86; Weller, ‘The Information State,’ pp. 57–63. 56 A. L. Allen, ‘Driven into Society: Philosophies of Surveillance Take to the Streets of New York,’ Amsterdam Law Forum, vol. 1, no. 4, 2009, p. 36. 57 Smith, ‘Surveillance Work(ers),’ pp. 107–115. 58 T. Weller, ‘The Potency of the Human Element: Information and Power in History,’ in I. Nijenhuis et al. (eds.), Information and Power in History: Towards a Global Approach, London, Routledge, 2020, p. 14. 59 M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, London: Penguin, 1991, p. 198.

178  Toni Weller 60 Quote from M. Castells, The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business and Society, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 180. See also on this theme Weller, ‘The Information State’; Weller, ‘The Potency of the Human Element,’ pp. 1–17. 61 Weller, ‘The Potency of the Human Element,’ pp. 1–17; Los, ‘The Technologies of Total Domination,’ Surveillance and Society, vol. 2, no. 1, 2004, pp. 15–38. 62 D. Wood, ‘Editorial. People Watching People,’ Surveillance and Society, vol. 2, no. 4, 2004, p. 474. See also A. Funder, Stasiland, London, Granta, 2004. 63 Higgs, ‘Victorian Spies,’ pp. 233–234. 64 Quote from A. Marwick, ‘The Public Domain: Surveillance in Everyday Life,’ Surveillance & Society, vol. 9, no. 4, 2012, pp. 378–393. See also Weller, ‘The Information State’; D. Garland, The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001; D. Lyon, The Culture of Surveillance: Watching as a Way of Life, Cambridge, Polity, 2018. 65 Garland, The Culture of Control. 66 G. T. Marx, ‘Electric Eye in the Sky: Some Reflections on the New Surveillance and Popular Culture,’ in D. Lyon and E. Zureik (eds.), Surveillance, Computers and Privacy, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1996, pp. 193–227. 67 G. T. Marx, ‘Soul Train: The New Surveillance in Popular Music,’ in I. Kerr, V. Steeves and C. Lucock (eds.), Lessons From the Identity Trail: Anonymity, Privacy and Identity in a Networked Society, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 390. 68 Zygmunt Bauman et al., ‘After Snowden: Rethinking the Impact of Surveillance,’ International Political Sociology, vol. 8, no. 2, 2014, pp. 121–144. 69 Lyon, The Culture of Surveillance. 70 The Times, Friday, 6 February 1852, p. 4. 71 Weller, The Victorians and Information. 72 G. W. M. Reynolds, ‘The Black Chamber,’ in Mysteries of London, London, 1844, Chapter 29. 73 C. Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, London, 1859, chapter 4. 74 G. Orwell, ‘Charles Dickens,’ in Inside the Whale and Other Stories, London, Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1940, part 1. 75 Orwell, ‘Charles Dickens,’ part 1. 76 Garland, The Culture of Control. 77 Y. Zamyatin, We, G. Zilboorg, trans., Boston, E. P. Dutton, 1924. 78 Tredinnick, Digital Information Culture, p. 145. 79 Lyon, The Culture of Surveillance. 80 T. Monahan, ‘Ways of Being Seen: Surveillance Art and the Interpellation of Viewing Subjects,’ Cultural Studies, vol. 32, no. 4, 2018, p. 560. 81 Monahan, ‘Ways of Being Seen,’ p. 560. 82 Weller, ‘The Information State,’ p. 62. 83 J. McGrath, ‘Performing Surveillance,’ in Kirstie Ball, Kevin D. Haggerty and David Lyon (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, London, Routledge, 2012, p. 83. 84 Wood, ‘Editorial, People Watching People,’ p. 475. 85 R. Schechtman, ‘The Lives of Neighbors: Modes of Surveillance and Voyeurism in “Die Mörder sind unter uns”,’ German Studies Review, vol. 32, no. 1, 2009, p. 107. 86 M. D. Sheriff, ‘Casanova, Art, and Eroticism,’ Journal 18, A  Journal of Eighteenth Century Style and Culture, January 2018, www.journal18.org/2367 (accessed 10 August 2018). 87 See Lyon, The Culture of Surveillance. 88 A. Black, ‘The Victorian Information Society: Surveillance, Bureaucracy, and Public Librarianship in 19th-Century Britain,’ The Information Society: An International Journal, vol. 17, no. 1, 2006, pp. 63–80. 89 Weller, ‘The Information State,’ p. 62.

The historical ubiquity of surveillance 179 90 Beniger, The Control Revolution. 91 S. Coll, ‘Discipline and Reward: The Surveillance of Consumers Through Loyalty Cards,’ Geschichte und Gesellschaft (Surveillance Studies), vol. 42, no. 1, January– March 2016, p. 114. 92 S. Lace, The Glass Consumer: Life in a Surveillance Society, Cambridge, Policy Press, 2005. 93 J. Phelps, G. Nowak and E. Ferrell, ‘Privacy Concerns and Consumer Willingness to Provide Personal Information,’ Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, vol. 19, no. 1, 2000, p. 28. 94 J. Woo, ‘The Right Not to Be Identified: Privacy and Anonymity in the Interactive Media Environment,’ New Media & Society, vol. 8, no. 6, 2006, pp. 949–967. 95 Weller, The Victorians and Information. 96 S. D. Warren and L. D. Brandeis, ‘The Right to Privacy,’ Harvard Law Review, vol. 4, no. 5, 1890, pp. 193–220; Woo, ‘The Right Not to Be Identified,’ p. 952. 97 Quotes from D. Lyon, ‘Surveillance Technology and Surveillance Society’, in T. J. Misa, P. Brey and A. Feenberg (eds.), Modernity and Technology, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2004, p. 161; D. Lyon, ‘Surveillance, Power and Everyday Life,’ in C. Avgerou et al. (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Information and Communication Technologies, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 449.

10 The archipelago of global surveillance – without States – in the Western world1 Sébastien-Yves Laurent

Since the disclosures of whistleblower Edward Snowden in June 2013, everyone has known that the United States possesses global ICT tools for the purposes of far-reaching surveillance. Their existence was officially made public in a report by the EU Parliament dating just back to the September 11 attacks 2001, but for obvious reasons it was overlooked at the time.2 Today, we can also assume that other powerful countries, especially those with permanent seats on the UN Security Council (the so-called “P5”), have now set up the same ICT and digital infrastructures. Indeed, this is more than just a hypothesis. Who could possibly imagine that powerful countries with excellent levels in ICT would not have established global monitoring infrastructures like those of the United States? It seems important, therefore, to de-center the analysis of surveillance from that exerted by the United States, even if it evidently does still dominate. It seems equally important to go further and question the notion of State-driven global surveillance, an issue that is central to this chapter. With today’s ideas on surveillance – emphasised by the globalised products of the cultural industries – some people believe that they are being monitored and are under surveillance even at home or in their office.3 This feeling can be found even in countries ruled by the principles of liberal democracy. Even if people do know they are not under the scrutiny of a Big Brother, a mixed feeling still remains: a famous (and rare) poll conducted in the United States in 2015 showed that the public was fully aware and convinced of the existence of surveillance.4 Quite aside from this survey, it can be observed that people’s grasp on surveillance is often biased by perceptions that stem from conspiracy theories.5 I believe that social scientists should aim to explain this; in fact, it is their duty to do so. Beyond the feeling and the conventional knowledge, there is one main “epistemological obstacle” that prevents us from thinking beyond this State-centric model.6 My purpose, therefore, is to underline the fact that the model in question has been built by theoreticians and activists whose perspective is far from an empirical approach (1) and then expose the unsatisfactory features of the State-centric surveillance model (2) before stressing the existence of social selfsurveillance prior to the birth of the State and its enduring nature (3). I will then make a plea in favour of paying attention to the scale of surveillance, which will bring me to the notion of underveillance (4), before emphasising the fact that the

The archipelago of global surveillance 181 digitalization of societies and individuals leads to the privatisation of surveillance (5), and concluding with the probable differences in the non-Western World (6).

A prevailing State-centric model invented by militants and theoreticians George Orwell’s famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1948) embodies the conventional perception of surveillance quite well. However, it is very important to leave Orwell’s imagination aside when analysing surveillance. As we know, his dystopic novel has ties – in its substance – with the ideas of Jeremy Bentham and mainly with the Panopticon, written 150 years earlier.7 The British author determined an ideal-type to write like Max Weber based on the idea of the existence of centralised, efficient surveillance. Bentham, meanwhile, devised a project in 1780 for an efficient prison in the middle of which a guard tower would be built so as to monitor the inmates at all times. French theoretician Michel Foucault contributed to the rediscovery of Bentham’s work on prisons8 in 1975 and played a major role in the processing of the ideal-type with his concept of “governmentality”9 (gouvernementalité in French) which re-focuses on the State, even if the word “State” is very rarely mentioned (“power” being favoured).10 Foucault’s ambition was to find the link between the State and the population, and he thought he had found it in the wide range of security facilities. Orwell and Bentham (along with Foucault to a lesser extent) both shaped a very strong ideal-type which now dominates all perspectives on surveillance. Current digital and global surveillance also reinforces the Benthamian–Orwellian idealtype, as this model seems suited to our digital times. Actually today, the updated model serves as a reference for drastically criticizing democracy as a political regime. To sum it up, global, networked surveillance in the hands of the United States and its allies (the so-called “Five Eyes” alliance)11 is said to be one of the most important features of the late democracies in our current times. Scholars like James B. Rule12 (as early as 1973) and later Gary Marx13 (1988), Gilles Deleuze14 (1990), or David Lyon15 (2001) – all influenced by the “French Theory” – have stressed this idea, and this model is central to the field of study often referred to as “surveillance studies”.16 According to this field of studies,17 we are living in “surveillance democracies”, a combination of apparent democracy, massive ­surveillance, and intense neo-liberalism. As a matter of fact, this school of thought is not entirely new and predates the spread of digital ICT. From the nineteenth century onwards, strong criticism of the democratic systems has accompanied the emergence of democracy. Count Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) returned partly skeptical from his survey in the United States highlighting the pitfalls of the democratic regime. As such in Democracy in America, he notably pointed the potentiality of surveillance within democracies and the blossoming of soft despotism.18 More recently, Shoshana Zuboff (2019) introduced the economic dimension that was lacking until now, with the notion of “surveillance capitalism”.19 During the 2000s, according to Zuboff, Google invented a new kind of surveillance through predictive algorithms and customer profiling. On that basis, this company

182  Sébastien-Yves Laurent would be the matrix of a new capitalism relying on the surveillance tools provided by the digital means. Together, these scholars have contributed to the shaping of the surveillance model. Although it is quite clear that these scholars inspired the growing cohort of critics of democracy, what is perhaps more important is to note that they have established a strong link between surveillance and its political or ideological meaning. According to them, the States in liberal democracies favoured the practices of surveillance leading these scholars to deplore the democracies by their very nature.

A flawed State-centric surveillance model which must lead to a multidisciplinary approach The continuity of this line of reasoning from the eighteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century has built a very real actual “epistemological obstacle”, after which it is nearly impossible to think of surveillance without linking it exclusively to the State. The model relies on a framing effect: the “State & surveillance” couple composed of two magic words is immediately attractive because it seems to match with conventional wisdom. Basically, surveillance is regarded as being produced only by something powerful and exerted on individuals from outside. The latter is crucial to grasp the biases through which the understanding of surveillance is commonly perceived. Most of these scholars have a very specific social (world view) as they undermine the agency ability of social actors and conversely they overestimate the implementation and the efficacy of State decisions on individuals. The challenge now is to go beyond this State-centric ideal-type. None of the aforementioned scholars were or are historians, and it is quite easy to stress the discrepancy between with the past and current reality. From Bentham – whose Panopticon was a project written by a humanist activist – to Foucault – also a militant, whose rediscovery of Bentham was a way to criticize the conditions of French prisons in the 1970 – value judgments and second thoughts were omnipresent. Moreover, from a broad point of view, surveillance has not been analysed for what it is per se, a social phenomenon between social actors, namely individuals. There is little room in this chapter to wrestle any longer with the surveillance model, but it is important to note two of its theoretical deficiencies.20 One stems from its too broad scale – a top-down approach – namely the activity of a State pointing toward the society and its individual components. Consequently it neglects the social dynamics that can lead to resistance to top-down surveillance and to opportunities of surveillance within the society that are at the core of Erving Goffman’s interactionist sociology.21 In Foucault’s works, for instance, only a few pages are dedicated to the ability of a society to resist State security facilities.22 I think that the lack of a diachronic perspective does prevent us from understanding in-depth the genuine nature of surveillance. By the same token, much interesting research on surveillance by historians lacks the concepts required to move from description to analysis. What we need in our digital era, in which

The archipelago of global surveillance 183 engineers and ICT actors reign, is analysis, namely qualitative analysis using the broad toolkit of the social sciences. In my opinion, in matters of surveillance, we, as social scientists, must not leave the field to ICT actors and lawyers. To put it bluntly, achieving a proper and balanced understanding of the surveillance phenomenon requires a multidisciplinary approach (i.e. not only historically based) via the social sciences.23

Before and beyond State surveillance: the holistic social self-surveillance Most research on surveillance has favoured the study of the social phenomenon per se and left aside the question of its actors, except to underline the role of a centralised State. From the Middle Ages onwards, it is obvious that the Western States set about building specialised social bodies to exercise social control, with police bodies being tasked above all with maintaining public order. That was the purpose of the first Night Watch police forces in the kingdoms of England and of France. Royal propaganda was built around the idea that the sovereign (or the State behind the sovereign) must have full knowledge of all things in their kingdom, especially with regard to their subjects. It is for this reason that in the kingdom of England, Elizabeth I was portrayed in a famous painting wearing a dress with sewn ears and eyes as an allegory, or that a man with wings on his feet – like the god Hermes – can be seen concealing himself in a gown or coat looking like Elizabeth I’s dress. It is worth noting the intellectual ties between the symbols of the eyes and Bentham’s watch tower. Later, during the early modern period, the first specialised police organisations appeared devoted to collecting information about loyalty to the sovereign and dissenters.24 France played a pioneering role in this development in the eighteenth century, followed by political police forces in southern and eastern-European kingdoms. During the French Revolution, the republican motto “Liberty, equality, fraternity” was replaced on some official documents (for a very short period) by another motto: “Liberty, equality, surveillance”. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, intelligence bodies (partly belonging to the police, partly to the army) were set up in several European countries for both domestic surveillance and intelligence gathering abroad. It might be considered that if the monopoly of violence began with the creation of States, then a movement of division of social labour (to use the terms of sociologist Émile Durkheim) occurred within that part of the State in charge of coercion. Nowadays, this movement of division continues and we can observe the multiplication of intelligence services in the Western world, for instance. While there were only two services in each country at the time of the inception of the modern intelligence services between 1850 and 1914, there are currently no fewer than four or five intelligence agencies in the liberal democracies in a context of an important decrease in social violence. This move shows the extent to which the surveillance State activity is there to meet the State’s needs. One of them is red tape inertia: there is an upward trend to the spin-off of public security structures and in

184  Sébastien-Yves Laurent particular Intelligence services. And it is highly important to stress the fact that it continues even after the liberal reforms of the 1980s in the United States and in Europe, the aim of which was to downgrade the State. After these well-known facts showing the prevailing role of the State and apparently validating the surveillance model, I should now underline other facts that are less taken into account. One of the most important weaknesses of the surveillance model – due once again to its ahistorical perspective – is its inability to bear in mind two historical realities: the fact that surveillance of a kind existed before the State did and the fact that State surveillance remained only partially efficient for a long time. First of all, it is important to raise the question of how violence was managed before the States developed. It was chaos according to Thomas Hobbes (1651), and this was indeed true in England at the time when he wrote his Leviathan, as civil war is a kind of chaos. However, I am not sure that Hobbes can be considered a historian of the Western seventeenth century. He was a philosopher. To us as historians and social scientists, instead, it is necessary to review the idea that there was nothing but violence before the modern States. Max Weber was right in saying that the monopolisation of violence by the emerging State was a major step, but that does not mean that there were no ways of regulating violence before. Many historical works prove that from Antiquity through to the birth of the modern States, these modes of regulation were present within societies. On a micro-scale, the historian Robert Muchembled has studied violence in rural areas in the Northern part of France for three centuries: he clearly demonstrated how micro-societies in villages had regulatory mechanisms far from any public scrutiny.25 One tool used to manage violence was surveillance. To be more specific, in this context it was what we could call a holistic social self-surveillance, an archaic form of the current neighbourhood policing. Everyone was being watched by members of their village, community, or street: this was of course a cause of feuds but conversely also was a way for social units to protect themselves from external threats and moderate their internal levels of violence. In short, there was extensive social engineering with respect to violence within society and social control which pre-dated the State. A good indicator of the efficiency of the security delivered by the State is to be found in crime statistics, although the figures for ancient times provide only a rough order of magnitude. A decline can be observed, although a very slow one, from the inception of the modern States in Western Europe around the twelfth to thirteenth centuries. The process of monopolisation of violence that began at that time was as slow as the decrease in homicide.26 Although public order and State surveillance were inefficient for years, the sole way in which they were uniquely useful was by being symbolic, and symbols matter a lot. From a practical point of view, however, the very poor efficiency of early modern State surveillance did not really matter because collective (or social) self-surveillance already played its palliative role. It seems important to bear in mind that despite the slow growth of State power, society preserved its own rules and sociocultural resources.

The archipelago of global surveillance 185 In the end, it should be noted that even if our current Western States look like Leviathans when compared to their counterparts a few centuries ago, they have not achieved a total monopoly of coercion and surveillance: “neighbourhood policing” exists in the UK and there is “community policing” in the USA, as there has been even in France for about 10 years now,27 which leads me to raise a question: is State surveillance an answer to a social need expressed by individuals? I am not sure that the answer is as simple as it might at first appear. This brings me to conclude on an important point: surveillance existed before the State did and survived its growth. This kind of surveillance was and is exerted by society itself and on micro scales: in the streets, between neighbours, etc. The watchers are watched and conversely in reciprocal forms of surveillance as Gary T. Marx admitted in his later works.28 The latter added clearly: “It may be difficult to say where the subject stops and the agent begins”.29 David Lyon referred to a “watched world”.30 Despite this, the social phenomenon of violence has lasted, as the primary aim of the social phenomenon of surveillance was to produce social control by facing the fears and only secondarily to diminish violence.31 State surveillance has been invented as a way to demonstrate the strength of the State prior to consolidating its coercive interaction with the society.

The necessity to focus on scales and technology: the late underveillance Usually, we consider international and domestic surveillance as being carried out by large entities on large social groups, sometimes even indiscriminately, but this is a collateral effect of the US National Security Agency’s bulk access practices. To begin it is important to recall some historical features. If we try to look beyond the State’s intention of monitoring people, it must be acknowledged that it is strictly dependent upon the level of technology most notably within the field of ICT.32 Today, there are dedicated surveillance technologies (often hidden under the ISR acronym – for “Intelligence; Surveillance, Reconnaissance”), but for decades the technologies used for monitoring were not specific. To some extent, long before the twentieth century, the people in charge of collecting information were inventing dual-use technologies: scientific developments were used by the military or by the police for their practices of coercion and surveillance. To take some examples of military intelligence, the first rather well-documented battle took place in what today is known as Syria, between the armies of Ramses II and the Hittites. At that time, the only way of gathering information and intelligence was through human eyes, and this lasted for centuries. Technology began to play a role in intelligence from the end of the eighteenth century onwards, when military balloons were used on the battlefield. If we skip some important breakthroughs, such as the use of aircraft for intelligence purposes from WWI onwards, the launch of the first military satellites at the beginning of the 1960s changed everything with respect to intelligence and surveillance. The major change was that the observer was hidden, and the focal length could be adjusted with high resolution. The best imaging satellites of

186  Sébastien-Yves Laurent today have a very high-resolution capacity of less than one meter, while several sensors (i.e. for images, radar, infrared, and electromagnetic) installed on satellites, aircraft, or drones can be operated in networks. Very discrete micro-drones also exist and are used daily on battlefields in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Mali to monitor enemies, as well as domestically for policing the streets of our cities to manage rallies and protests, for instance. In the end, there are also microsensors of different kinds: RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips and smartphones. While smartphones and cards can be left aside to avoid surveillance, RFID chips can even be implanted under the skin. If we try to track technological developments, a shift from a very large scale to a nano scale can be observed. This means that we have gone from macrosurveillance exerted roughly on social groups and individuals to nano-surveillance conducted invasively on individuals. With chips, permanent mobile selfsurveillance (separate from the social self-surveillance mentioned previously) has been invented. In 2010, French scholar Dominique Quessada created the word underveillance33 (“sousveillance” in French), and I think this is very useful term: Western societies have come a long way from surveillance to underveillance. It is worth noting that if surveillance was linked to the development of the State, as we have seen before, things seem different with underveillance. It could be analysed as being a decentralised kind of State surveillance, but there are two main differences: actually it is not a top-down process, and it implies the role of the private sector in so far as it provides the technology, collects and stores the data. It is the result of individual decisions and ways of behaving: individuals decide to buy connected devices to record their blood pressure during their sleep and their heart frequency during running, to use their mobile phones to record their daily number of steps and their itineraries from home to work, or during sport sessions. The private companies who own the apps collect the data. Most of the time this data is used to improve customer service and/or sold to the data brokerage industry. As a matter of fact, the main query is as follows: under which circumstances is the suffix “veillance” in the word underveillance relevant? This leads to another question: is the use of personal data for commercial purposes a kind of “veillance” if this use reduces individuals’ agency in so far as behaviour is under the influence of recommendation algorithms? Political activists answer positively, but unfortunately academics have not attempted to answer this question and in my opinion the question is still open. Nevertheless, this is different when personal data collected with the consent of individuals by private companies is transferred to or tapped by a State. In this instance, privatised underveillance (see next part) leads to State surveillance. The Sars-Cov-2 pandemic illustrates another case. In the beginning of May 2020, 49 applications for social tracing were recorded all over the world.34 All of them were developed by private companies but supported by States as well. Here the purpose of personal data collection is apparently far removed from State coercion because it is justified by the aim of saving lives. In most countries, the legal framework of a potential deployment could hinge on a voluntary basis. From a technological point of view, the “COVID applications” come under

The archipelago of global surveillance 187 underveillance: this is a mobile self-surveillance device relying on personal data and transferred to the national health system. But the use of these applications is prescribed and non-compulsory, it is limited in time, with a unique purpose (collecting health data), and cannot be sold or used for commercial ends. To some extent, it is analogous to technical devices worn by patients with chronic diseases for decades. Moreover, in certain western countries, the developers have made a commitment to anonymise or pseudonymise the personal data. In the context of another “moral panic”, in the Anglosphere after the September 11 attacks in 2001, Simon Chesterman who wrote a plea for underveillance in exchange for more security analysed the evolution as a way of producing “self-policing subjects”.35 That could perhaps be an appropriate way to address the effects of COVID-19 social tracing apps. In this instance, the willful underveillance chosen by individuals would be a self-policing technique enabling the “government of self”36 as Michel Foucault stated in 1982 in one of the last course he gave. It seems to us as being very far from David Lyon’s definition of surveillance: “Surveillance . . . refers to routine ways in which focused attention is paid to personal details by organisations that want to influence, manage, or control certain persons or population groups”.37 However this may be, the scale of surveillance cannot be limited to a purely technical question, leading us to conclude that the change of scale should lead us to a better analysis of the nature of current surveillance. As we have seen, certain kinds of apparent “surveillance” are very far from the intent of a coercive State.

The digitization and the new business for surveillance State-based surveillance has been justified historically by the necessity to contain violence and insecurity. For decades, the aim of State surveillance was to collect intelligence on people and their opinions. Nowadays, the collection process focuses on geolocalised references and data-related features so as to profile the behaviour of individuals: what are they buying online? Who are they meeting during their leisure time? Taken as a whole, this is referred to as data, and the most valuable part of that data is personal data. Thanks to relevant algorithms, the study of behaviour identifies people and facilitates so-called predictive analysis.38 Data mining through bulk access provides the ICT actors with huge amounts of data and then algorithms for tracing, tracking, and profiling process. Although it does seem easier to use data to design e-marketing campaigns than to anticipate a terror attack, intelligence solutions are put in the market. In the digital world, the ways of managing security and doing business have changed profoundly and are now both highly dependent on data. Theoretically, there is an obvious gap between coercion and business, but data has modified that to some extent. As early as 2001 in the Echelon report, the European Parliament (headed by MEP Gerhard Schmidt) stated very clearly that security arguments dating from the Cold War concealed economic motives and that the “Five Eyes” interception system was being used not only to monitor the Russian threat, but also to help US companies all over the world to gain further market shares.39

188  Sébastien-Yves Laurent Almost 20 years on, the observation remains true, if not more so. It would be very interesting to find clues as to the actual aims of the “Five Eyes” with their interception system. Do the United States and their four e-allies, who used the pretext of the Global War on Terror to pass the Patriot Act and strengthen interception capabilities, use the data for security or as an economic boost for their companies? But insecurity is not only a pretext for helping businesses that are not connected in any way with security. A “market for force” exists with dozens of private military firms in which there is a sub-market for surveillance.40 The privatisation of violence is an issue I will not address here, although it is worth noting that there are surveillance activities behind the many companies which officially produce intelligence. The 2000s were the decade when such activities reached a peak, triggered by the growth in contracting decided on by the White House to wage war in Afghanistan and then in Iraq.41 According to a survey conducted by the ODNI on contracting in the US Intelligence Community and published in April 2007, 25% of all intelligence activities relied on private contractors. It clearly means that a part of surveillance activity has been privatised, and it should be remembered that Edward Snowden was a contractor for the NSA, for example.42 Some years ago, a special Committee of the US Congress estimated that there were some 40,000 contractors, mainly ICT actors, working for the NSA.43 There are dozens of private companies belonging to the ICT and ISR sector (i.e. Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) which work for the NSA, CIA, and DIA. This sector is structured around two main organisations, the “Business Executive for National Security” (BENS) and the “Intelligence and National Security Alliance” (INSA) leading us to mention the existence of a “surveillance-industrial complex”.44 In a service economy, intelligence and surveillance are actual components of the market for force. As such this recent move shows that in the United States the State, according to the classical model of monopolisation of violence, is exceeded.

Assumptions on surveillance throughout the Western world Here only the Western world, that is a small part of the world, has been dealt with. So what does surveillance mean elsewhere – in Russia and Central Africa, and in Saudi Arabia and China? Is the crux of our argument – the minimising of the past and current role of the State in surveillance – relevant for these countries? The answer – if it exists – is important for our understanding of surveillance in the Western world: potential common features between the two would imply that a global model of surveillance exists; conversely major differences would lead us to assume that surveillance is a culture-driven phenomenon. To be more specific, to what extent do our three main concepts – State surveillance, social selfsurveillance, and privatised underveillance – apply to the non-Western World? In regard to this issue, there are two main caveats: the paucity of research available in English and the fact that “State”, “surveillance”, and “underveillance” are western ideal types towards which one can oppose the criticism stemming from of a cultural, hegemonic approach. Here Western scholars face another epistemological obstacle. At its origin lies a cultural bias, a mix of ethnocentrism and

The archipelago of global surveillance 189 mirror-imaging: a tendency to apply to the non-Western world a narrative based on the one hand on the idea of the persistence of holistic social-surveillance, and of weak, State-based coercive capacities on the other. One could add the minor role of technology in security to reinforce the presumption of the existence of weak states. There is no confirmation of the significance of these implicit beliefs. Moreover, the inadequacies inherent in this approach are obvious: many non-western states have very real, strong coercion capacities (e.g. Russia, China, Iran, many so-called MENA States in the Middle East, and North Africa) or high technology levels (China, India). In this context, it seems vital/ pertinent to promote a non-hegemonic social science perspective of surveillance.45 As can be seen, there are many unknowns, but the issue remains of the highest importance.

Conclusion It seems essential to me that we should try to build a surveillance model suited to our times, although I cannot take that point further here because a new model can only be achieved by collaborative research in several fields (of which this book is an example). Of course, I will not claim that State-based surveillance is disappearing, but I really do believe that it is necessary to go beyond the “epistemological obstacle” and to de-center analysis from the State ideal-type. What seems more important to me is what is happening beside, below, and beyond the State as mentioned in the schema given before. Having adopted a longue durée approach and relying on three concepts (State surveillance, social self-surveillance, and privatised underveillance), we have seen that archaic holistic decentralised selfsurveillance predated centralised State surveillance. More importantly, I have tried to show that decentralised or bottom-up social self-surveillance is very much alive today, alongside State surveillance. It blurs the false (albeit practical) distinction between the agent and the subject of surveillance. Then comes a novelty with the underveillance in which the individual is both the agent and the object at the same time, clearly recalling the writing of a very young French humanist, Etienne de la Boétie who was 16 years old in 1574 when he wrote the Discours de la servitude volontaire (i.e. Discourse on Voluntary Servitude). In the end, the digital revolution is the driving force behind the blossoming surveillance market: we are witnessing the privatisation of surveillance. Above all, the combination of privatisation and underveillance without the State leads to a new social aim, the government of self. As early as in 2000, Haggerty and Ericson spoke of the “surveillant assemblage”, and this is suited to the current situation.46 If I might use a metaphor to help understand my point on today’s surveillance, I think I would liken it to an archipelago, a peculiar social form with large and small islands but devoid of structure and hierarchy, center, and periphery. In the end, it is important to bear in mind that in the long run, this archipelago is not really a new social form: indeed it had been built already before the blossoming of the State, a newcomer in the surveillance field in Western and non-Western worlds.

190  Sébastien-Yves Laurent

Notes 1 I would like to express my gratitude to the University of Copenhagen and the Enigma Museum for offering me the opportunity to deliver a keynote on this issue on September 14, 2018 and offer my special thanks to Andreas Marklund. I would also like to thank the reviewers and Linda Lawrance. 2 G. Schmid, Report on the existence of a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications (ECHELON interception system) (2001/2098 (INI), Report A5-0264/2001, European Parliament, 11 July 2001. 3 Echoed on the social networks or in pro-privacy demonstrations. 4 www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/29/what-americans-think-about-nsa-surveil lance-national-security-and-privacy/ (accessed 6 May 2020). 5 On the biased perception of what is secret, see the German philosopher G. Simmel, Secret et sociétés secrètes, Strasbourg, Circé-Poche, 2000 (first German ed., 1908), p. 119. 6 G. Bachelard, La Formation de l’esprit scientifique: Contribution à une psychanalyse de la connaissance objective, Paris, Vrin, 1967 (1re éd., 1934), p. 17. 7 See Chapter 5 in this volume. 8 M. Foucault, Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison, Paris, Gallimard, 1975 “Bibliothèque des histoires”. 9 Which is central to M. Foucault, Sécurité, territoire, population: cours au Collège de France (1977–1978), Paris, Gallimard, 2004. A digest: M. Foucault, ‘La gouvernementalité’, Aut-Aut, pp. 167–168, septembre–décembre 1978, in Michel Foucault, Dits et écrits 1954–1988. III 1976–1978, Paris, Gallimard, “Bibliothèque des sciences humaines”, 1994, pp. 635–657. 10 On power and state in Foucault, see: M. Foucault, ‘The Subject and Power,’ in H. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow (eds.), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1982, pp. 208–226. 11 See the first book which remains overlooked: J. T. Richelson and D. Ball, The Ties That Bind: Intelligence Cooperation Between the UK/USA Countries, Boston, Unwin Hyman, 1990. 12 J. B. Rule, Private Lives and Public Surveillance, New York, Schocken Books, 1974 (1st ed., 1973). 13 G. T. Marx, ‘La société de sécurité maximale,’ Déviance et société, vol. 12, no. 2, 1988, pp. 147–166. 14 G. Deleuze, ‘Post-scriptum sur les sociétés de contrôle,’ in Pourparlers, Paris, éditions de Minuit, 1990, pp. 240–247. 15 D. Lyon, Surveillance Society. Monitoring Everyday Life, Buckingham, Open University Press, 2001. 16 See D. Lyon, Surveillance Studies. An Overview, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2007. 17 In 2002, the Surveillance and Society journal was created, and 5 years later the Surveillance Studies Network (SSN, www.surveillance-studies.net/) was set up. In 2012, the Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies was published. 18 A. de Tocqueville, De la démocratie en Amérique, tome II, IVe partie, chapitre VI, Paris, Robert Laffont, Bouquins, 1986 (1st ed., 1840), pp. 647–648. 19 S. Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, London, Profile Books Ltd., 2019. 20 See an interesting sociological critical approach to this field: F. Castagnino, ‘Critique des surveillances studies. Éléments pour une sociologie de la surveillance,’ Déviance et Société, vol. 42, January 2018, pp. 9–40. 21 See E. Goffman, La Mise en scène de la vie quotidienne, Paris, éditions de minuit, ‘Le sens commun’, 1973 (1st éd., The Presentation of self in Everyday Life, 1956), vol. 2, pp. 251, 374. 22 Moreover it deals with the ‘Reason of State,’ that is it is situated at a very broad scale (M. Foucault, Sécurité, . . . , pp. 362–364).

The archipelago of global surveillance 191 23 See Chapter 1 in this book. 24 See E. A. Reynolds, Before the Bobbies: The Night Watch and Police Reform in Metropolitan London, 1720–1830, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 1998, p. 235., C. Emsley, The English Police: A Political and Social History, London, Longman, 1996 (1st ed., 1991), p. 287; V. Denis, Une histoire de l’identité. France, 1715–1815, Paris, Champ Vallon, ‘Époques,’ p. 462; I. About et V. Denis, Histoire de l’identification des personnes, Paris, La Découverte, “Repères”, 2010, p. 125. 25 See R. Muchembled, La Violence au village. Sociabilité et comportements populaires en Artois du XVe au XVIIe siècle, Turnhout, Brepols, 1989, p. 419. 26 Conversely, collective violence might have increased in the long run (see S. Malesevic, The Rise of Organised Brutality: A Historical Sociology of Violence, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017, p. 343. 27 Known as the “voisins vigilants” (watchful neighbours), the experimentation has been set up by the Home Office as soon as 2011, mostly in rural communities and suburban areas, on a voluntary basis. 28 See for instance: G. T. Marx, ‘Some Concepts That May Be Useful in Understanding the Myriad Forms and Contexts of Surveillance,’ in L. Scott and P. Jackson (eds.), Understanding Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century. Journeys in Shadows, London and New York, Routledge, 2004, pp. 78–98. 29 Marx, ‘Some Concepts. . . ,’ p. 80. 30 D. Lyon, Surveillance Studies: An Overview, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2007, pp. 11–24. 31 See J. Delumeau, La Peur en Occident XIVe-XVIIIe siècles. Une cité assiégée, Paris, Fayard, 1978.; J. Delumeau, Rassurer et protéger: le sentiment de sécurité dans l’Occident d’autrefois, Paris, Fayard, 1989. 32 See P. Griset, Les Révolutions de la communication XIXe-XXe siècles, Paris, Hachette, Carré-histoire, 1991. 33 Cf. D. Quessada, ‘De la sousveillance: La surveillance globale, un nouveau mode de gouvernementalité,’ Multitudes, vol. 40, hiver 2010, pp. 54–59. Quessada created a very different meaning from the one set up by S. Mann, J. Nolan, and B. Wellman, “Sousveillance: Inventing and Using Wearable Computing Devices for Data Collection in Surveillance Environments,’ Surveillance & Society, vol. 1, no. 3, 2003, pp. 331– 355, who refer to a way to counter (state or private) ‘organizational surveillance’. 34 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_Covid-19#Pays_ayant_des_applications_ officielles_de_recherche_de_contacts (accessed 8 May 2020). 35 S. Chesterman, ‘Privacy and Surveillance in the Age of Terror,’ Survival, vol. 52, no. 5, 2010, p. 34. 36 M. Foucault, Le Gouvernement de soi et des autres. Cours au Collège de France (1982–1983), Paris, EHESS-Gallimard-Seuil, 2008, p. 382. 37 D. Lyon, Surveillance after September 11, Oxford, Polity Press, 2003, p. 5. 38 B. Benbouzid, ‘Values and Consequences in Predictive Machine Evaluation: A Sociology of Predictive Policing,’ Science & Technology Studies, vol. 31, 2018, pp. 1–18. 39 Schmid, Report. 40 See D. D. Avant, ‘Private Security,’ in P. D. Williams (ed.), Security Studies: An Introduction, London and New York, Routledge, 2008, pp. 438–452; S. Chesterman, We Can’t Spy . . . If We Can’t Buy!: The Privatization of Intelligence and the Limits of Outsourcing Inherently Governmental Functions, New York, New York School of Law, Working Paper no. 8–27, July 2008, p. 28. 41 D. Van Puyvelde, Outsourcing US Intelligence: Private Contractors and Government Accountability, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2019, p. 272. 42 E. Snowden, Permanent Record, London, Metropolitan Books, 2019. 43 Van Puyvelde, Outsourcing US Intelligence. 44 B. Hayes, ‘The Surveillance-Industrial Complex,’ in Kirstie Ball, Kevin D. Haggerty and David Lyon (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, London, Routledge, 2012, pp. 167–175.

192  Sébastien-Yves Laurent 45 See R. Connell, F. Collyer, J. Maia and R. Morrell, ‘Toward a Global Sociology of Knowledge: Post-Colonial Realities and Intellectual Practices,’ International Sociology, vol. 32, no. 1, 2017, pp. 21–37; S. Dufoix and E. Macé, ‘Les enjeux d’une sociologie mondiale non-hégémonique,’ Zilsel: science, technique, société, février 2019, pp. 88–121. 46 See K. Haggerty and R. Ericson, ‘The Surveillant Assemblage,’ British Journal of Sociology, vol. 51, no. 4, December 2000, pp. 605–622.

Index

Note: Page numbers followed by “n” indicate a note on the corresponding page. 9/11 terrorist attacks 3 abandoned infants 54, 58 – 60, 64 abortifacients 54 – 56 abortion provider, investigation of 54 – 56 Abrahamsen, Lars 110 Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, An (Collins) 71, 78, 82n13 accumulation 5, 10, 21 Act of Supremacy 43, 46 Acts of Parliament 37 Adamescu, Ioan 154 Afghanistan 186, 188 Aftenposten 110 Agar, Jon 105 agents provocateurs 58, 159 Ahmed, Sara 156 Ahrends, Fräulein 99 aliens 108 – 110, 112 – 113, 115 – 116, 118 Aliens Act (1901) 109 Aliens Act (1915) 109 – 110 Allen, Anita L. 170 Alliance of Human Rights 132 Ampuja, Mikko 122, 128, 132, 138 Ancien Régime France 53, 58, 64 Andresen, Nigol 131, 133 Apud Lambith 45 Archives de la Bastille (Ravaisson) 56 Archives départementales des Yvelines 58 arrest of priest accused of sodomy 56 – 58; see also sodomy Arrêt de la cour de parlement 59 assumptions on surveillance 188 – 189; see also surveillance Atwood, Margaret 172 Bacon, Francis 37, 48, 49n3 Baillage Royal de Versailles 58

Ball, Kirstie 163 Baltic countries 128 – 131 baojia 32 baptism of infant 58 – 60 Barbieri-Low, Anthony 28, 30 Barck, Simone 149 Bauman, Zygmunt 106 Beale, Robert 43, 52n59 Beattie, J. M. 74 Benjamin, Walter 154 Bentham, Jeremy 6, 8, 71 – 72, 74 – 78, 82n6, 84n36, 170, 181 – 182 Bergen 113 Bergh, Trond 107 Berlin Wall 147 bias, cultural 188 Big Brother (Orwellian) 3, 7, 17n7, 180 Big Brother (television franchise) 172, 173 big data in early China 20 – 33; household units 27 – 30; linked liability 27 – 30; panoptic mechanism 21 – 22; population surveillance 31 – 33; system in practice 30 – 31; theories of surveillance 22 – 24 Biggs, Lindy 87 Bishop of Valence 57 – 58 Black Death 165 Bligh, William 71 Bolshevik revolution 115 Bolsheviks 115 – 116 Book of Common Prayer 40 Book of Lord Shang (Shang Yang) 25 Boyne, Roy 6 Brandal, Nik 107 Braun, Volker 147 – 150, 160n25, 160n27, 161n28, 161n33 Brazier, Eirik 107 Brook, Timothy 32 Browne, Simone 6

194

Index

Bruce, Gary 148 Bruhn, Kristian 107 Bruneau, Antoine 61 – 62 Brunon-Ernst, Anne 8, 82n4 Bureau of Prison Administration 133 Burghley (Lord) 38, 44 – 45 Burke, Joanna 168 Business Executive for National Security (BENS) 188 business for surveillance 187 – 188; see also surveillance Byzantium 165 Calendar of Delinquency 77 Canning, Kathleen 96 canon law 39, 43, 47 – 48, 55 Catholics 42, 44, 49n7, 52n55, 53 Catholic Church 47, 53 CCTV cameras 20 Ceasefire Agreement 139 Cecil, William 44 censorship 1, 2, 80, 147 – 150, 159 Censorship Office 1 Central Africa 188 centralisation: bureaucratic 10; formalisation and 11; professionalism and 74; surveillance 10 chartre privée 57 Chesterman, Simon 187 Chief Telegraph Manager 1 China 3, 20, 31 – 33, 164 – 165, 188 Chinese politico-philosophical texts 34n10 Christianity 63 – 64 Christians: church 55; emperors 2; faith 63; goal of procreation 60; ideal of marriage 13; societies 53; tradition 11; values 56 chronologies of surveillance 9 – 12; see also surveillance civil liberties: controversy 122; detrimental effects 53; Espionage Act 127; in Finland 123; national security and 140; political dissidents 131; to promote political participation 125; reconciling with national security 15 Civil War 125, 136, 166 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste 166 Cold War 107, 139, 146, 155 – 159 collaboration 146 – 159; censorship 147 – 150; Cold War 155 – 159; German Democratic Republic 155 – 159; party interference 147 – 150; publishing houses 147 – 150; Stasi informants 147 – 150; Stasi informers 155 – 159; ‘Sticky surveillance’ 155 – 159;

translation and surveillance 150 – 154; unofficial operatives 147 – 150 Collins, David 71, 78, 81 Collins, W. E. 42 Colquhoun, Patrick 76 – 78 Comintern 130, 132, 134, 136 common law 38 – 40, 43, 45 Common Criminal Code 112 consciences 37 – 48; in modern England 38; political stability 39; threat of 37 Consiliul Naţional pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securităţii (CNSAS) 151 Contagious Diseases Acts 169 contemporary surveillance 4, 8; see also surveillance contesting rationalization 91 – 93 Continuation War 122 control revolution 166 convict surveillance 70 – 81; Bentham, Jeremy 71 – 72, 74 – 78; governmentality 81; New South Wales 71 – 72, 78 – 80; panopticism 81; practicality 81; reformative surveillance 74 – 78; theorising and historicising 72 – 74; see also surveillance Cooper, John 40 Cooper, Patricia 93, 95 Copenhagen 113 corporeal penalty 61 Cosin, Richard 43, 45 – 46, 52n60 Council of State 133 counter-intelligence 107, 116 Court of Appeal 135 Court of High Commission 37 – 48, 49n6 Court of Star Chamber 46 COVID-19 169 criminalisation: from legal rhetoric to court prosecution 46; politicisation and 37; targeting of the mind and 39; of treasonous thoughts 38 Cromwell, Oliver 165 cultural bias 188 culture 171 – 174; political 125; transforming factory 88, 92; workplace 89 Czechoslovakia 128 Dandeker, Christopher 5, 10, 73 Danish counterintelligence 112 – 113 Danish Foreign Ministry 1, 3 Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF) 64n1 Danish Telegraph Directory 1 d’Argenson, Marc-René de Voyer de Paulmy 56 – 57

Index  195 datafication 7 – 8 data mining 187 Decretum Gratiani 55 de Fauxbonne, Chabert 56 – 57, 64 “Defence Secrets Act, The” (the “Spy Act”) 111 de Fesne, Messieur 59 Dekonspiration 157 de la Boétie, Etienne 190 de la Reynie, Nicolas 54 – 56 Deleuze, Gilles 7, 181 de Longueval, Comte 54 – 56 Democracy in America (de Tocqueville) 181 Denise, Marthe 58 Denmark 105, 108, 112 – 114, 116, 135 de Sales, François 62 – 63 des Ecures, Catherine 58 de Seignelay, Marquis 54 – 55 de Tocqueville, Alexis 181 Dickens, Charles 172 digitization 187 – 188 disciplinary society 6 – 7, 21 Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Foucault) 6 – 7, 18n50, 21, 73 Discours de la servitude volontaire (i.e. Discourse on Voluntary Servitude) (de la Boétie) 190 dissemination of information 1; see also information Duggan, C. R. 38 – 39 Dumont, Etienne 84n36 Durkheim, Émile 183 Eastern Bloc 147, 150 East Germany 147, 149, 171 École Militaire 95 Edwardian homilies 40 Elahi, Hasan 168, 173 Elizabethan Crown 42 Elizabethan homiletic discourse 37 – 48 Elizabeth I 183 Ellis, John 166 Elmer, Greg 6 England 38, 71, 75, 78, 81, 164, 167, 183 English Catholics 42 English Civil War 165 English Domesday Book (1086) 164 – 165 English Reformation 40 epistemological obstacle 182, 189 – 190 Ericson, Richard V. 8 – 9, 190 Eriksen, Knut Einar 107 Espionage Act 127 Estonia 130, 133 etablissements de Saint Louis, Les 62 ethnocentrism 188

eugenics 107 EU Parliament 180, 187 Europe 2, 110, 164 – 165 European belligerents 2 Ewing, K. D. 125 “Exhortation to Obedience, An” (sermon) 41 ex officio oath 43 – 48, 51n47, 52n67 experience: employee/workers 89 – 90, 94, 97; factory surveillance 89; for the general public 3; intrusions 4; wartime 132 facial recognition software 20 Fagerholm, K. A. 136 false identity (Legende) 155 fama publica 52n67 fear 168 – 170; anxiety and 163, 166; beliefs and 106; collective punishment 31, 62; legitimising surveillance 15; from political or economic crises 10; politics of 15; public 111, 113; of revolution 115; state-instilled 3; of subversive pro-German espionage 115 Felton, John 50n23 Finish Russia 114 Finland 123 – 125, 127 – 129, 137 – 140, 145n129 Finland–Soviet Union Peace and Friendship Society 128 – 129, 140 Finnish Civil War 125 Finnish Security Police 134 Fire bearers (Tulenkantajat) 125 First World War 1 – 2, 87, 107 – 108, 117 – 118, 127, 181; see also securing the state five-household groups 28 – 31 five-man groups, in battle 27, 35n39 Flyghed, Janne 129, 140 Ford, Henry 87 foreign espionage 105, 110, 112 – 113, 147 Foreign Ministry 1 formalisation 11 Foucault, Michel 6 – 7, 9, 11, 18n50, 20 – 21, 24, 73, 88, 93, 95, 97, 100, 155, 164, 181, 182, 187 Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 55 France 54, 164, 183 Free Word (Vapaa Sana) 131 French Law 62 French Revolution 62, 167, 172, 183 French Revolutionary Terror 164 Fresson, Rolland Charles 58 ‘From the Lives of Workers’ 89 Fulwood, William 38

196  Index Gardening State, The (Bauman) 106 Garland, David 171 Gatrell, Vic 174 Gearty, C. A. 125 Generalstabens Efterretningssektion (GE) 112 – 113 Generalstabens Etterretningskontor 111 General Standing Orders 80 Gentry, John A. 123 – 124 Gerhenson, Olga 95 German Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, KPD) 88 – 90, 97, 99 German Democratic Republic (GDR) 3, 146 – 148, 150, 155 – 159 German Parliament 147 German Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD) 88 Germany 90, 124, 128, 171; economic forecast 87; economic mobilisation 106 Giddens, Anthony 5, 10, 73, 164 – 165, 170 Gillray, James 174 global surveillance 180 – 190; assumptions on surveillance throughout Western world 188 – 189; business for surveillance 187 – 188; digitization 187 – 188; holistic social selfsurveillance 183 – 185; militants 181 – 182; multidisciplinary approach 182 – 183; State-centric model 181 – 182; State-centric surveillance 182 – 183; State surveillance 183 – 185; theoreticians 181 – 182; underveillance 185 – 187; see also surveillance Global War on Terror 188 Goffman, Erving 182 Google 181 Gothenburg 113 governmentality 181; British 81; convict surveillance 81; panopticism and 73; policing and 13; technology and 72 Grande Écurie du Roy 59 Great Britain 73, 105, 127, 167 – 169 Great Depression 168 Great War 107 Griffin, Roger 106 Grindal, Edmund 42 group chief (wu zhang) 28 group elder (wu lao) 28 groups of five see five-man groups, in battle Guanzi 24 Günther, Eberhard 149 – 150, 161n33

Haggerty, Kevin D. 6 – 9, 163, 190 Hallgren, Eric 116, 118 Hallgren, Erik 111 – 112 Han (206 BCE–220 CE) 20, 22, 26 – 28, 31 – 32 Handmaid’s Tale, The (Atwood) 172 Haraszti, Miklós 146 Harding, James 11 – 12 Hauptverwaltung Verlage und Buchhandel (HV Verlage) 148 Hein, Christoph 146 Hellvig, Eduard 151 Helo, Johan 122, 132, 138 hemmelige krigen, Den: Overvåking i Norge 1914 – 1997 (Bergh and Eriksen) 107 hemmelige stat, Den (the secret state) (Bruhn) 107 Henri II 59 – 60 Henry VIII 38 – 40, 44, 51n47 heterodoxy 48, 52n55 Heward, Robert 84n36 Heynen, Robert 4, 17n13 Higgs, Edward 8, 10 – 11, 73, 165, 167, 171 High Modernism (Scott) 106 Hill, Rose 80 Hinze-Kunze-Roman (Hinze-Kunze-Novel) 149 – 150, 160n24 historical ubiquity of surveillance 163 – 175; culture 171 – 174; fear 168 – 170; social supervision 170 – 171; state 164 – 168; see also surveillance History of the Puritans, The 51n53 Hobbes, Thomas 170, 184 Hohenschönhausen 158 holistic social self-surveillance 183 – 185 holistic social-surveillance 189 Homilee agaynst disobedience and wyllfull rebellion, An 37, 40 – 41 homilies 40 homosexual sex 61 – 62 Honecker, Erich 148 Höpcke, Klaus 149 – 150 ‘hostile-negative’ (feindlich-negativ) 156 Houghton, Walter 167 household units 27 – 30 hukou system 32 Hultman, Sven 130, 135 – 136 Hunan Province 25 Hunter, John 79 – 80 HV-Verlage 149 – 150 IMs (inoffizielle Mitarbeiter) 147 – 148 incriminating international contacts 133 – 136

Index  197 industrialisation 164 – 166 infanticide 60 – 62; see also abandoned infants information: accumulation of data and 5; collection 5, 11; contemporary 8; datafication of 8; dissemination of 1; hierarchy of 24; leaks 2; societies 73; state 73; transfer of sensitive 2; transnational flow of 2 information and communication technologies (ICT) 4, 9, 180, 183, 185, 187 inspection principle 13, 70, 73 – 75, 77 intelligence, political usage of 129 – 133 Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) 188 interconnectedness 166 interventionalism 169 Introduction à la vie devote (de Sales) 54, 62 investigation of abortion provider 54 – 56 Iraq 186, 188 Jews 109, 115, 117 – 118 Jones, John 38 Jousse, Daniel 62 Joyce, Patrick 11 Jyränki, Antero 124 Kafka, Franz 172 Kallinen, Yrjö 137 Karskens, Grace 80 Kastari, Paavo 124 Kastner, Manfred 157 Kastovsky, Dieter 164 Kekkonen, Urho 137 – 138 Kelly, Alfred 90 Kelly, Ansgar 52n67 Kenen joukoissa seisot (Rentola) 124 Klami, Hannu Tapani 124 Kline, Ronald 8 Kristiania 109, 113 – 114 Kuin Pietari hiilivalkealla – Sotasyyllisyysasian vaiheet 1944 – 1949 (Soini) 138 Kung-Chuan Hsiao 31 – 32 Kunze, Rudolf 157 – 158 Lambeth Palace Library (LPL) 51n44 Lang, Fritz 88 Langkjaer, Jenny 107 Lapland 129 Larsen, Lauritz 1 – 3

Latvia 130 Lauer, Josh 4, 8 – 9 Laval, Christian 73 Law Protecting the Republic 126, 130, 139 Laza, Laura G. 151 – 152 League of Human Rights 125 Leben der anderen, Das (The Lives of Others) (von Donnersmarck) 146, 159 legislating sexual surveillance 60 – 62; see also sexual surveillance Lehtonen, Oskari 137 Leviathan (Hobbes) 184 Leviathans 184 – 185 lijia 32 Lindstedt, Jukka 124 linked liability 27 – 30 liquid modernity 14, 107 Liquid Modernity (Bauman) 106 Listening for the state: censoring communications in Scandinavia during World War I (Marklund) 107 Lithuania 130 Liye 25 Lokatis, Siegfried 149 London 41, 72, 74, 76, 78 Louis XIV 53 – 54, 58 – 60, 166; see also sexual surveillance Lyon, David 5 – 6, 8, 11, 57, 107, 127, 155, 163, 171, 173, 175, 181, 185, 187 Main Telegraph Station (Copenhagen) 1 – 2 Maison de Charité 58 – 59 Majander, Mikko 132 Making of the English Working Class, The (Thompson) 92 Making Surveillance States (Heynen and van der Meulen) 4, 17n13 malheureux secrets (unfortunate secrets) 55 Mali 186 Mallmann, Klaus-Michael 89 Marklund, Andreas 107 Marx, Gary T. 171, 181, 185 masculorum concubitores 62 McDowell, Linda 89, 96 McGrath, John 173 Meerits, Johannes 133 – 136 Meltti, Väinö 122, 130, 132 Merlu, Madame 59 metasylum 76, 80 Metropolis (Lang) 88 Middle Ages 165, 183 Mielke, Erich 147

198

Index

militants 181 – 182 military: reforms 22; technology 22 Ming (1368–1644 CE) 31 – 32 Ministry of Interior Affairs 136 minorities 117 – 118 mitigated seclusion 75 mobile self-surveillance 186 – 187 modern China 31 – 33 modernism 14, 105, 117, 119 modernity 6 – 7, 14, 81, 106 – 107, 164 Mo Di 23 Momoranci, François 58 Monahan, Torin 4, 9, 18n50, 88, 173 Montesquieu’s principles 126 Morice, James 43, 45 Morison, Richard 39, 41 Mottier, Véronique 107 mouches (paid informants) 56, 58 Mozi 22 – 24 Muchembled, Robert 184 Müller, Herta 152 – 154 Müller-Enberg, Helmut 148 mutual responsibility (lian zuo) 20, 27 – 28, 31 – 32 Myndes and Hartes 40 Mysteries of London (Reynold) 172

non-conformity 37, 44 Nordic Model 117 Northern Rebellion 37 – 38, 42, 51n35 Norway 105 – 106, 108 – 114, 116 – 117, 136 Norwegian Aliens Act of 1901 108 Norwegian counterintelligence 110 – 111 Norwegian Jews 117 Norwegian Labour Party 118 Norwegian Police Law of 1920 106 Norwegian Police Surveillance Service 107 Norwegian Romani 118 Norwegian Spy law of 1914 112

Nachrichten-Abteilung-N 114 nano-surveillance 186; see also surveillance National Coalition Party (Uusi Aura) 133 National Council 151 National Security Agency 171 National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei, NSDAP) 88 national uncertainty, aftermath of 136 – 139 Nazi-Germany 106, 117, 122, 136, 151 Nazi Party 99 Nazism 99 neo-liberalism 181 Neubert, Werner 149 – 150 Neue Literatur (New Literature) 152 Neues Deutschland (New Germany) 147 neutrality 1, 112 New Europe 136 New Holland 75 New South Wales (NSW) 71 – 72, 78 – 80 New York 72 Niederungen (Müller) 153 Nineteen Eighty-Four (Orwell) 3, 172, 181 Nolan, Mary 88

Pădurariu, Nicolae 152 – 153 Paloff, Benjamin 152 panopticism 6, 8, 13, 21, 24, 73 – 74, 77 – 78, 81 panoptic mechanism 21 – 22 Panopticon (Bentham) 6 – 8, 74, 76, 170, 181 – 182 Panopticon Versus New South Wales (Bentham) 82n6 Paris see sexual surveillance parish churches 40 – 41, 48 party interference 147 – 150 Paster, Thomas 168 Patriot Act 168, 188 Patriotic People’s Movement (Isänmaallinen kansanliike) 126, 133 Pekkala, Eino 135 Pelham (Lord) 71 Penner, Barbara 95, 96 Pennsylvania Railroad 95 People’s Republic of China (PRC) 31 Perkins, William 38 pervasiveness 9 Peters, John Durham 8 Pflastersteine (Müller) 154 Philadelphia 72

Observations et maximes sur les matières criminelles (Bruneau) 61 – 62 Old England 75 Oldenziel, Ruth 93, 95 Olin, Lyyli 128 Operativer Vorgang 149, 157 opposition for peace 137 Orwell, George 3, 172, 181 Orwellian Big Brother concept 7 Övervakning för rikets säkerhet (Surveillance for the security of the state) (Langkjaer) 107

Index Phillip, Arthur 79 – 80 Pillar, Paul R. 139 Pius V (Pope) 37, 39, 42 Plato 170 Police Bill 73, 77, 80 Police Gazette 77, 80 policymaker–intelligence relationship 124 Polisbyrån (Police Bureau) 112, 115 political reforms 22, 25 political stability 39 political usage of intelligence 129 – 133 politicisation 37, 139 politics 3, 14 – 15, 20, 89 – 90, 96, 123, 126, 158, 163 Politiets overvåkningstjeneste 115 Pontchartrain 57 population surveillance 31 – 33 post-war 115 – 117 power relationship 5 practicality 81 predictive analysis 187 Price, Richard 169 Private Lives and Public Surveillance: Social Control in the Computer Age (Rule) 5 Privy Council 44 Promemoria 136 prostitution 60 – 62, 68n44, 69 Protestant Reformation 53, 63 publishing houses 147 – 150 Puritans: nonconformists 38; Protestants 44, 49n7 Qin (221–207 BCE) 20, 22, 24 – 27, 28 – 32 Qing Dynasty (1644–1911 CE) 31 – 32 Quai Neuf 56 quasi-occult crimes 52n67 Quessada, Dominique 186 radio-frequency identification (RFID) 186 Räisänen, Yrjö 122, 128 – 131, 138 Rationale of Punishment (Bentham) 84n36 rationalization 100n5; contesting 91 – 93; defined 87 Ravaisson, François 56 reductionism 9 Reformation England 49n7 reformative surveillance 74 – 78; see also surveillance Regnans in Excelsis 37, 42, 50n23 Remedy for Sedition 39 Rentola, Kimmo 124, 134, 139

199

Republican Spain 136 Republic of China (ROC) 31 resistance to surveillance 97 – 99 Reynold, G. W. M. 172 Roma 109 Roman Catholic Church 53 Romania 151 Romani people 106 Roman Republic 164 Rome 39, 165 Rose, Gillian 93 Rosenberg, Alfred 136 Roth, Mathias 98 Rousseau, J. J. 170 Rowlandson, Thomas 174 Royal, Sue Veres 169 Rule, James B. 5, 10, 181 Russia 110, 112, 114 – 116, 188 Ruutu, Yrjö 131 Rydberg, Kaisu-Mirjam 122, 132, 136 Ryti, Risto 137 Saint-Roch 54 – 55 Salmiala, Bruno 126 Sami people 106 Sandys, Edwin 42 Sanft, Charles 25 Säpo 134 – 135 Säre, Karl 133 – 136 Sars-Cov-2 pandemic 186 Saudi Arabia 188 Scandinavia 1 – 2, 116, 118; see also securing the state Schechtman, Robert 173 Schlenstedt, Dieter 150 Schmeidel, John C. 155 Schmidt, Gerhard 187 Schofield, Phillip 71 ‘Schriftstellerprozess, Der’ (The Writers’ Trial) 151 ‘Schwarze Kirche Prozess’ (Black Church Trial) 151 Scott, James C. 105 Second Tome of Homilees, The 41, 50n32 Second World War 7, 118 – 119, 122, 124, 127 – 129, 171 securing the state 105 – 119; aliens 108 – 110; Danish counterintelligence 112 – 113; minorities 117 – 118; Norwegian counterintelligence 110 – 111; post-war 115 – 117; spy mania 113 – 115; strangers 108 – 110;

200

Index

surveillance 117 – 118; surveillance state 105 – 108; Swedish counterintelligence 111 – 112; welfare 117 – 118 Securitate 146 – 147, 151 – 154 Security, Territory, Population (Foucault) 20 – 21 security-and-intelligence 5 Sedition Act 127 Selbig, Klaus 149 self-incrimination 43 self-justification 58 self-surveillance 7, 16, 38, 168 Senden, Jakob 98 sermons 40 sexual behaviour 53 – 54, 56, 60 – 64 sexual privacy 64 sexual surveillance 53 – 64; legislating 60 – 62; teaching religious sexual propriety 62 – 64; written traces of 54 – 60; see also surveillance sexual transgressions 54, 58 Shang Yang 24 – 28 Shklar, Judith N. 124 Shuihudi 29 Sikkerhedspolitiet 116 Sima Qian 28 Simonnet 56 – 57 situatedness 3 “Six, the” 122 – 140; aftermath of national uncertainty 136 – 139; incriminating international contacts 133 – 136; methodological aspects 123 – 125; political usage of intelligence 129 – 133; State Police 125 – 129; theoretical aspects 123 – 125 Skinner, Patricia 68n44 Smith, Gavin J. D. 170, 172 Smith, Richard 84n36 Snowden, Edward 171, 180 social control 6, 32, 105, 166 – 167, 170, 185 Social Democratic Party (SDP) 122, 133, 137 social etiquette 171 socialism 130 – 131, 136, 139, 150, 167 Socialist Republic of Romania 146 Socialist Unity Party (SED) 148 social pacification 168 social policy 107, 119 social self-surveillance 190 social supervision 170 – 171 social surveillance 169 – 173, 189 social tracing 186

Soderund, Richard 95 sodomy 61 – 62; arrest of priest accused of 56 – 58; public solicitation of 60 Søhr, Johan 109, 111, 118 Soini, Yrjö 138 Soll, Jacob 165 – 166 Song (960–1279 CE) 31 Son of Heaven 23 Soviet Russia 115 – 117 Soviet Union 106, 127, 129, 138 Spanish Civil War 136 spy mania 113 – 115 Stasi: informants 147 – 150; informers 155 – 159 Stasi Documents Legislation 147 State 164 – 168; -centric model 181 – 182; -centric surveillance 182 – 183; surveillance 183 – 185 Statens Polisbyrå för övervakande av utlänningar i riket 116 State Police 122, 125 – 129, 127 State Police Bureau 116 Statutes of the Realm, The 50n23 “Statutes on Impoundment” (shou lü) 29 Sticky surveillance 155 – 159 Stockholm 112 – 114, 134, 136 Stollwerck, Franz 87, 101n15, 102n24 Stollwerck Chocolate Factory 87 – 100 Stollwerck Gold: All that Glitters isn’t Gold. The Organ of the Stollwerck Communist Factory Cell 87, 90 – 91, 94, 97 – 99 Stone, Geoffrey R. 127 strangers 108 – 110 Strohm, Paul 38 Sundström, Cay 122, 129 – 130, 132, 133 – 136 Supreme Court 132, 135 surveillance 117 – 118; assumptions on 188 – 189; capitalism 171, 181; chronologies of 9 – 12; contemporary 4, 8; defined 2; democracies 181; efficiency of 3; female body targeted for 62; genealogy of 8; history 4 – 5; population 31 – 33; resistance to 97 – 99; social control and 105; state 105 – 108; studies 4 – 9; theories of 22 – 24; theorising and historicising 72 – 74; unregulated 53; of working women 93 – 96; see also specific types surveillance-industrial complex 188 Surveillance of Foreigners in the Realm 116

Index

201

surveillance on assembly line 87 – 100; contesting rationalization 91 – 93; resistance to surveillance 97 – 99; Stollwerck gold 89 – 91; surveillance of working women 93 – 96 surveillant assemblage 8, 190 Sweden 105 – 108, 111 – 114, 123, 127 – 129, 137 – 138, 140 Swedish counterintelligence 111 – 112 Swedish General Security Service 127 Swisher, Carl 127 Sydney 79 – 80 Syria 185 system in practice 30 – 31

underveillance 185 – 187 uniformity 23, 37, 40, 90 United Nations 137 unofficial operatives 147 – 150 unregulated surveillance 53 UN Security Council 180 untrustworthiness 129 Unvollendete Geschichte (Unfinished Story) 149 Uola, Mikko 126 US Congress 188 US Intelligence Community 188 US National Security Agency 185 Uusi Suomi 136

Tale of Two Cities, A (Dickens) 172 Tanner, Väinö 137 Tavanne, Marie Anne 59 Taylor, A. J. P. 105, 118 Taylorism 92 teaching religious sexual propriety 62 – 64 Tear Down the Walls: On Demolishing the Panopticon (Haggerty) 6 technological change 9 Teige, Ola 107 temporality 3, 9, 11, 92 terrorist attacks, 9/11 3 Thames River 77 theoreticians 181 – 182 theories of surveillance 22 – 24 Third Reich 3 Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion 40 Thompson, E. P. 92 Thurloe, John 165 Times, The 172 Tracking Transience (Elahi) 168, 173 Traité de la justice criminelle de France (Jousse) 62 translation and surveillance 150 – 154 Transnational Histories 4 treason law 38 – 40 Treasurer (Lord) 44 Tredinnick, Luke 168, 173 Trial, The (Kafka) 172 Trottier, David 156 Tudor 37 – 38, 40 Tudor Reformation 41

Vala, Erkki 134 van der Meulen, Emily 4, 17n13 Velvet Prison: Artists under State Socialism, The (Haraszti) 146 Versailles, abandoned infants in 58 – 60; see also sexual surveillance Victorian England 11, 96 Vincent, David 167 von Donnersmarck, Henckel 146 von Rautenfels, Walter 113 voyeurism 173 – 174

‘Übersetzung als Mittel der Manipulation’ (Translation as a Means of Manipulation) (Laza) 151 UN Declaration of Human Rights 119 Underättelsesbyrån 111

Wagner, Richard 153 Walkowitz, Judith 96 Walsingham, Francis 38 Wang Anshi 32, 36n61 Warham (Archbishop) 40 Warring States 22, 25, 33n9 wartime: communication surveillance 2; neutrality 1 We (novel) 172 Weber, Max 184 Wegner, Bettina 158 Weiliaozi 27 Weimar Republic 90, 94, 100n5 welfare 117 – 118 Weller, Toni 8, 10 – 11, 105 Western Europe 22, 184 West Germany 152 – 153 White House 188 Whitgift, John 38, 43 – 44, 46, 52n55 Wiens, Maza 156 – 158 Wiik, Anna 133 Wiik, Karl Harald 122, 130 – 132 Winter War 122, 125, 127, 129 With, Erik 112 Wittgenstein, L. 41 Woo, Jisuk 174

202  Index Wood, David Murakami 4, 9, 18n50, 173 Worker Correspondent Movement 89, 97, 101n19 working women, surveillance of 93 – 96 World War 2 written traces of sexual surveillance 54 – 60; see also sexual surveillance

Xian (Duke) 27 Yates, Robin 27 – 28, 30 Yde, Marinus 1 Yorkshire 95 Zhangjiashan 25, 29, 36n59 Zuboff, Shoshana 8, 181