Rethinking Privacy and Freedom of Expression in the Digital Era: An Interview with Mark Andrejevic

Mark Andrejevic, Professor of Media Studies at the Pomona College in Claremont, California, is a distinguished critical theorist exploring issues around surveillance from pop culture to the logic of automated, predictive surveillance practices. In an interview with WPCC issue co-editor Pinelopi Troullinou, Andrejevic responds to pressing questions emanating from the surveillant society looking to shift the conversation to concepts of data holders’ accountability. He insists on the need to retain awareness of power relations in a data driven society highlighting the emerging challenge, ‘to provide ways of understanding the long and short term consequences of data driven social sorting’. Within the context of Snowden’s revelations and policy responses worldwide he recommends a shift of focus from discourses surrounding ‘pre-emption’ to those of ‘prevention’ also questioning the notion that citizens might only need to be concerned, ‘if we are doing something “wrong”’ as this is dependent on a utopian notion of the state and commercial processes, ‘that have been purged of any forms of discrimination’. He warns of multiple concerns of misuse of data in a context where ‘a total surveillance society looks all but inevitable’. However, the academy may be in a unique position to provide ways of reframing the terms of discussions over privacy and surveillance via the analysis of ‘the long and short term consequences of data driven social sorting (and its automation)’ and in particular of algorithmic accountability

Policing the Police: Establishing the Right to Record and Civilian Oversight Boards to Oversee America’s Police

Police misconduct is a persistent issue in the United States that undermines public trust in law enforcement and the criminal justice system as a whole. The video of George Floyd’s arrest and murder played an irreplaceable role in bringing attention to the case and sparking nationwide discussions about the state of policing in America. The video, showing former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Mr. Floyd’s neck for several minutes, also helped convict Mr. Chauvin of murder at trial. Recording police activity is an important means of holding officers accountable for their actions and protecting citizens from abuse of power. Despite this, many people are hesitant to record the police due to fear of retaliation or legal consequences. While there been an increase in the number of videos of police misconduct being recorded and shared, police officers are rarely held accountable. Democratizing investigation procedures, establishing civilian oversight boards with independent prosecutors, is crucial in ensuring police accountability and building public trust. This note posits that a legislative solution be enacted to provide a uniform framework for affirming the right to record police and establishing civilian oversight boards. Its goal is to flip the current surveillance state, which prioritizes the privacy rights of police officers over those of citizens, on its head and provide civilians a meaningful tool with which they may hold their law enforcement officers accountable. In light of the lack of accountability, transparency, and systemic bias resulting from internal investigations, the civilian oversight boards will be tasked with overseeing misconduct investigations. Such oversight boards should be granted broad investigatory power and equipped with an independent prosecutor. By empowering citizens, this solution will help address the surveillance imbalance and hold our government officials accountable

Inventing the Future: Barlow and Beyond

Syfte: Syftet med studien var att kartlägga preventiva omvårdnadsåtgärder för att förhindra ventilator-associerad pneumoni på en thoraxintensivvårdsavdelning. Bakgrund: De vanligaste vårdrelaterade infektionerna på intensivvårdsavdelningar är pneumonier och bland dessa är 80 % ventilatorassocierade. Vårdrelaterade infektioner innebär stora kostnader för samhället och ökat vårdlidande för den drabbade patienten. För att förhindra uppkomsten av ventilator-associerad pneumoni (VAP) finns ett antal omvårdnadsåtgärder som har visat sig vara effektiva vad gäller att motverka VAP. Design: Studien är en journalgranskning med retrospektiv deskriptiv design. Metod: Ett klusterurval gjordes där patienter som vårdats minst två påbörjade dygn i respirator valdes ut. Totalt togs 126 journaler fram varav 17 journaler exkluderades och slutligen ingick totalt 109 journaler i studien. Journalerna granskades med hjälp av ett protokoll där följande omvårdnadsåtgärder kontrollerades: tandborstning, munvård med klorhexidinlösning, antal utförda kufftrycksmätningar, registrerat kufftryck, höjd huvudända, subglottisaspiration, sederingsgrad enligt Richmond Agitation Sedation Scale (RASS) samt gurgling med klorhexidinlösning. Datan analyserades i statistikprogrammet SPSS. Resultat: Deltagarna delades in i två grupper utifrån ålder (grupp 1 ≤ 69 år, grupp 2 ≥ 70 år). Munvård med klorhexidin var den åtgärd som utfördes flest gånger per dygn med medianvärde fyra i båda åldersgrupperna. Därefter följde kufftrycksmätning med en median på två kontroller per dygn. Medianvärdet för höjd huvudända var ett i båda grupperna. Tandborstning var den åtgärd som utfördes minst antal gånger. Det var inga signifikanta skillnader mellan de olika åldersgrupperna vad gäller utförda omvårdnadsåtgärder. Konklusion och kliniska implikationer: En rimlig bedömning är att kontinuerlig uppdatering beträffande den senaste forskningen hos vårdpersonal samt revidering av PM kommer att ge bättre vårdresultat, kortare vårdtider, mindre kostnader för samhället och mindre vårdlidande. Resultatet pekar på behov av antingen bättre följsamhet till befintliga rekommendationer, eller noggrannare och tydligare dokumentation av utförda åtgärder

"Internet universality": Human rights and principles for the internet

This paper details proposals by UNESCO to manufacture and draft a concept of “Internet Universality” that adopts a human-rights framework as a basis for articulating a set of principles and rights for the Internet. The paper discusses various drafts of this concept before examining the Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet put forward by The Internet Rights & Principles Dynamic Coalition based at the UN Internet Governance Forum, and the working law Marco Civil da Internet introduced by Brazil

When Terrorism Threatens Health: How Far are Limitations on Personal and Ecomonic Liberties Justified

The government is engaged in a homeland-security project to safeguard the population\u27s health from potential terrorist attacks. This project is politically charged because it affords the state enhanced powers to restrict personal and economic liberties. Just as governmental powers relating to intelligence, law enforcement, and criminal justice curtail individual interests, so too do public health powers

From Bentham to Guadet: ‘auditory visibility’ in nineteenth-century theories on government offices

Architectural historiography is seldom concerned with the antithetical notions of ‘noise’ and ‘silence’. In this case study, I tentatively explore the theme in the context of nineteenth-century administrative buildings. More particularly, I investigate the normative views of British and French authors concerning acoustic perception in one subtype of ‘bureaucratic’ architecture: the ministerial office building. Drawing examples from the work of, among others, ‘panopticon’ theorist Jeremy Bentham and the architect Julien Guadet, I point at the centrality of ‘sound control’ or ‘sound management’ in architectural discourses on office buildings. In the specific domain of ministerial offices, moreover, these discourses were rife with ideological views on the nature and the functioning of government itself

Viewpoint | Personal Data and the Internet of Things: It is time to care about digital provenance

The Internet of Things promises a connected environment reacting to and addressing our every need, but based on the assumption that all of our movements and words can be recorded and analysed to achieve this end. Ubiquitous surveillance is also a precondition for most dystopian societies, both real and fictional. How our personal data is processed and consumed in an ever more connected world must imperatively be made transparent, and more effective technical solutions than those currently on offer, to manage personal data must urgently be investigated.Comment: 3 pages, 0 figures, preprint for Communication of the AC

Quantum surveillance and 'shared secrets'. A biometric step too far? CEPS Liberty and Security in Europe, July 2010

It is no longer sensible to regard biometrics as having neutral socio-economic, legal and political impacts. Newer generation biometrics are fluid and include behavioural and emotional data that can be combined with other data. Therefore, a range of issues needs to be reviewed in light of the increasing privatisation of ‘security’ that escapes effective, democratic parliamentary and regulatory control and oversight at national, international and EU levels, argues Juliet Lodge, Professor and co-Director of the Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence at the University of Leeds, U