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From Citizen to Subject: The Perils of Privacy

Margaret Kohn

University of Florida, Gainesville

Abstract

This paper argues that the legal norm of privacy may reinforce hierarchical power relations.  It draws on two illustrations, one from the cinema and one from local politics, in order to show how laws against video and audio surveillance insulate those in power from critical scrutiny of their actions.  The first example is the case of Charles Grapski, a citizen and activist arrested for tape recording his conversation with a local political official. This case raises the broader question of whether journalists and activists should be able to use under-cover investigations to gather evidence of illegal activities by government officials or businesses. I argue that the courts should try to balance privacy interests against the public good that is furthered in these types of investigations. 

            The images that I will present as part of my presentation are drawn from Michael Haneke’s film Caché, a film that explores the perils of privacy. As the title suggests, the film reveals what is hidden behind the façade of normalcy in the everyday life of an upper-middle class, intellectual couple. A series of surveillance videos taken by a hidden camera force the protagonist to confront an act of betrayal that Georges (the protagonist) committed as a child. The film draws attention to similarities between France’s amnesia about its violence towards Algerians and Georges' repression of his small part in this conflict. The film does make it painfully clear that being watched is a deeply invasive violation of the boundaries of the self, but it also seems to suggest that this violation is a necessary challenge to the way that power can simply erase its own transgressions in order to create a stable narrative of the self/nation. 

In the paper, these political and cinematic vignettes are mobilized to challenge the theoretical literature on privacy and surveillance, particularly George Kateb’s essay “On Being Watched and Known.” The academic literature on surveillance and privacy usually emphasizes the threat of Big Brother. This threat is real but framing the issue exclusively in these terms can divert attention from other important questions. Do rules against audio and video surveillance disempower citizens by making government officials less accountable? Can privacy be used to protect government bureaucracies and corporations by shielding their actions from the scrutiny of individual citizens and interest groups? The  theoretical literature on privacy and surveillance has tended to treat privacy acontextually, as a universal, abstract good. Instead, we need to be attentive to the relationship between politics, power and privacy.  Specifically, I argue that the ubiquitous surveillance made possible by new technologies becomes dangerous when it increases the power of the state without a concomitant increase in the power of citizens to ensure the accountability and transparency of government.

Biography

I am an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University Florida, Gainesville.  Currently I am also serving as Graduate Coordinator. I received my Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University in 2000.  My main research interests are contemporary social and political theory, urbanism, law, continental philosophy, and democratic theory. I am currently working on a book on post-colonial political theory.

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