We Know All About You: The Story of Surveillance in Britain and America [1 ed.] 019874966X, 9780198749660

“This is the story of surveillance in Britain and the United States, from the detective agencies of the late nineteenth

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~ RHODRI JEFFREYS-JONES

We Know All About You shows how bulk

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‘spying came ofage in the nineteenth century, and supplies.an overarching narrative'cdnd “interpretation of what has happened since, covering the agencies, programs, personalities,

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technology, leaks, criticisms, and reform. Modern.

surveillance did not begin in the furtive corridors ° of Whitehall and the Pentagon atvall, but in the American Wild West, among the ruthless union-

busting private detective agencies. From there it. evolved in leaps and bounds through the erasof '» telegraph, telephone, and cable, into the age of

Facebook and Twitter. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones’ delves

into the roles of credit agencies, private detectives, and phone-hacking journalists as yell as

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like theNSA-and GCHO government agencies

The author demonstrates that several presidents—_ Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B.. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon—conducted political surveillance, and

how British agencies have been under a'constant — cloud of suspicion for similar reasons. *

This broad history continues with an account of the = 1970s leaks that revealed the. mechanisms by

“which the FBI and CIA kept tabs on anti-Vietnam’ ‘War protestors, and.assesses the reform impulse

~ that then began in America and spread to Britain.

The end of the Cold War further undermined confidence in the need for surveillance; butif =~ returned witha vengeance after 9/11. The book) =~ 3

shows how reformers challenged that new: ~ “expansionism, receiving a fillip from the Wikileaks _and Snowden revelations, and offers an appraisal

- of legislative initiatives onboth sides of theAtlantic.“ . We Know All About You argues that governments _ have a record of abusing surveillance powers

once granted, demoristrating the need for proper:

~ controls, but also examines regulationTe in the’aR private sector.

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WE KNOW

ALL ABOUT YOU

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

https ://archive.org/details/weknowallaboutyoOOOOjeff

WERKNOWV SATE ABOUT YOU The Story ofSurveillance in Britain and America

RHODRI JEFFREYS-JONES

OXFORD UNIVERSITY

PRESS

OXFORD UNIVERSITY

PRESS

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6DpP,

United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones 2017

The moral rights of the author have been asserted First edition published in 2017 Impression: 1

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2016955206 ISBN

978-0-19-874966—o

Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives ple

Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

CONTENTS

List ofIllustrations Acknowledgements

vii

Introduction A Survey of Surveillance

The Private Eye Invades our Privacy

The Blacklist Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Incipient Surveillance State McCarthyism in America McCarthyism in Britain

109

COINTELPRO and 1960s Surveillance

An Age of Transparency

145

The Intensification of Surveillance Post-9/11

170

Private-Sector Surveillance in the

Twenty-First Century . Snowden 12.

185

201

Policy and Reform in the Obama—Cameron Era

220

Conclusion

243

CONTENTS

Appendix: Defining Surveillance

247

Notes

250

Bibliography

266

Illustration Credits

278

Index

279

vi

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

_.

Private CCTV around Orwell’s address

James McParland Ralph H. L. Van Deman and others Big Brother is listening to you Italian surveillance Arthur! UnAmerican leaker Anti-blacklist demonstration NN lhe A aN

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the help of a number of individuals who helped me prepare this book for publication: Paul Addison, David Anderson, Richard B. Bernstein, Alun Burge, Duncan Campbell, Doug Charles, Bob Cherny, Frank Cogliano, Malcolm Craig, Jane Dawson, Harry Dickinson, Owen Dudley Edwards, Sylvia Ellis, Neil Evans, Frances Goldin, Alex Goodall, Annette Gordon-Reed, Fabian Hilfrich, Louise Jackson, Jay Kleinberg, John

A. Logan, Chris Moran, Kathy Olmsted, David Omand, Lucy Parker, Damien Van Puyvelde, Charles Raab, Rob Singh, David Stafford, Pat Storey, and Reg Whitaker.

These men and women showed exceptional collegiality in advising me on research and in supplying critiques of my work in draft. Many corrections and improvements came from my private readers, and frank advice caused me to delete various ill-conceived passages. The idea for the book arose in conversation with Matthew Cotton at OUP, and he has been a most supportive editor. To all the foregoing, I am deeply grateful. If |have retained my sanity throughout these proceedings, it is thanks to the distractions of matrimony, and for that I am grateful,

as ever, to my wife Mary.

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