From territorial space to networks: A foucaldian approach to the implementation of biometry

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Volumn 29, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 465-482

  Bonditti, Philippe ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 11144268944     PISSN: 03043754     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030437540402900405     Document Type: Review

References (57)

1. Lucien Sfez, Technique et ideologie (Paris: Seuil, 2002).
2. Ibid., p. 15.
3. Issued February 2003.
4. DARPA, a Pentagon agency initially directed by John Pointdexter, is in charge of the development of the most technologically advanced programs. Total Information Awareness has recently been renamed Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA), without any substantive modification. This project aims at gathering as much information as possible on people and registering all of them in a huge "people data base." The TIA description was available until recently at www.darpa.mil/iao/TIASystems, but the page is no longer available: the U.S. Congress decided to stop funding the program. However, an interesting example of the imaginary at play in such programs can be seen in the interview with Pointdexter in Wired (May 2004): 193.
5. See Gary T. Marx, "The Declining Significance of Traditional Borders (and the Appearance of New Borders) in an Age of High Technology," in Peter Droege, ed., Intelligent Environments (Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 1997), pp. 484-494.
6. I have in mind especially John Urry's project of a mobile sociology; see Urry, "Mobile Sociology," British Journal of Sociology 51, no. 1 (2000): 185-203.
7. David Lyon, The Electronic Eye: The Rise of Surveillance Society (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994).
8. See Thomas Mathiessen, "On Globalization of Control: Towards an Integrated Surveillance System in Europe," Statewatch, London, 1999.
9. See Michael Dillon's paper "Virtual Security," presented at the forty-fifth ISA annual convention, Montreal, March 2004; and his "Hyper-security: A Note," presented at the "Does the State Still Manage Security?" colloquium, Paris, September 11-12, 2001.
10. See Michael Dillon's paper "Virtual Security," presented at the forty-fifth ISA annual convention, Montreal, March 2004; and his "Hyper-security: A Note," presented at the "Does the State Still Manage Security?" colloquium, Paris, September 11-12, 2001.
11. John Agnew, "The Territorial Trap: The Geographical Assumptions of International Relations Theory," Review of International Political Economy 1, no. 1 (1994): 53-80.
12. Bertrand Badie, La fin des territoires: Essai sur le désordre international et l'utilité sociale du respect (Paris: Fayard, 1995).
13. On the constitutive role of the inside/outside distinction in modern political analysis, see R. B. J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
14. On the processes differentiating the roles of police and the military, see Pierre Bourdieu, Raisons pratiques: Sur la théorie de l'action (Paris: Seuil, 1994), chapter 4, pp. 101-133. On contemporary redifferentiation of these roles, see Didier Bigo, "When Two Become One," in Morten Kelstrup and Michael C. Williams, eds., International Relations Theory and the Politics of European Integration: Power, Security, and Community (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 171-204.
15. On the processes differentiating the roles of police and the military, see Pierre Bourdieu, Raisons pratiques: Sur la théorie de l'action (Paris: Seuil, 1994), chapter 4, pp. 101-133. On contemporary redifferentiation of these roles, see Didier Bigo, "When Two Become One," in Morten Kelstrup and Michael C. Williams, eds., International Relations Theory and the Politics of European Integration: Power, Security, and Community (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 171-204.
16. Michel Foucault, "Michel Foucault: La sécurité et l'Etat," Dits et écrits (Paris: Gallimard, 2001), vol. 2, pp. 383-388.
17. Philippe Bonditti, "L'anti-terrorisme aux Etats-Unis: De la menace soviétique aux Rogue states, la construction de la figure de l'ennemi terroriste depuis 1980," Mémoire de DEA, IEP Paris, September 2001; Bonditti, "L'organisation de la lutte anti-terroriste aux Etats-Unis, " Cultures & Conflits 44 (2001): 65-76.
18. Philippe Bonditti, "L'anti-terrorisme aux Etats-Unis: De la menace soviétique aux Rogue states, la construction de la figure de l'ennemi terroriste depuis 1980," Mémoire de DEA, IEP Paris, September 2001; Bonditti, "L'organisation de la lutte anti-terroriste aux Etats-Unis, " Cultures & Conflits 44 (2001): 65-76.
19. Interviews with high-ranking European officials engaged in the fight against terrorism suggest this is a U.S. trend that does not exist in Europe: "European services engaged in the fight against terrorism were much more used to work and investigate on groups of individuals" (interviews with M. Poinas, UCLAT French chief officer, May 2001).
20. In exploring terrorism analysis, it clearly appears that the phenomenon of political violence was territorialized in military and State Department analysis. All of this has to be inscribed in the scope of bureaucratic fights in the U.S. administration: fights to know who is the more legitimate to say what is terrorism - what it is we are supposed to be afraid of. On this point, see Michael T. Klare, Low Intensity Warfare (New York: Pantheon, 1988); and Bonditti, "L'Organisation," note 15.
21. In exploring terrorism analysis, it clearly appears that the phenomenon of political violence was territorialized in military and State Department analysis. All of this has to be inscribed in the scope of bureaucratic fights in the U.S. administration: fights to know who is the more legitimate to say what is terrorism - what it is we are supposed to be afraid of. On this point, see Michael T. Klare, Low Intensity Warfare (New York: Pantheon, 1988); and Bonditti, "L'Organisation," note 15.
22. This list is issued annually in the State Department report Patterns of Global Terrorism. On the inappropriateness of the notion of "state-sponsored terrorism" in the analysis of transnational political violence, see Didier Bigo and Daniel Hermant, "La relation terroriste," Etudes polé-mologiques 30-31 (1984), pp. 30-31.
23. Janet Reno, memo on critical infrastructures security, Attorney General's Office, Washington, D.C. 20530, March 14, 1996.
24. William Gibson, Neuromancer (New York: Ace Books, 1984). I refer to the French translation, Neuromancien (Paris: La Découverte, 1988), p. 64 (my translation from the French).
25. William Gibson, Neuromancer (New York: Ace Books, 1984). I refer to the French translation, Neuromancien (Paris: La Découverte, 1988), p. 64 (my translation from the French).
26. Pierre Musso, "Le cyberespace, figure de l'utopie technologique réticulaire," Sociologie et sociétés [Paris] 32, no. 2 (2000) (my translation).
27. For an analysis of a relation of religiosity with Cyberspace, see Alain Badiou, Thomas Benatouil, Elie During, Patrice Maniglier, David Rabouin, Jean-Pierre Zarader, Matrix: Machine Philosophique (Paris: Ellipses, 2003); see also William Irwin, The Matrix and Philosophy (Chicago: Open Court, 2002).
28. For an analysis of a relation of religiosity with Cyberspace, see Alain Badiou, Thomas Benatouil, Elie During, Patrice Maniglier, David Rabouin, Jean-Pierre Zarader, Matrix: Machine Philosophique (Paris: Ellipses, 2003); see also William Irwin, The Matrix and Philosophy (Chicago: Open Court, 2002).
29. Draft (September 2002) of National Security Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, p. 1.
30. I refer here to surveillance activity by the National Security Agency and to the objectives of the Echelon system. On the latter, see Duncan Campbell, IC 2000. I refer to the French translation: Duncan Campbell, Surveillance électronique planétaire (Paris: Editions Allia, 2001).
31. I refer here to surveillance activity by the National Security Agency and to the objectives of the Echelon system. On the latter, see Duncan Campbell, IC 2000. I refer to the French translation: Duncan Campbell, Surveillance électronique planétaire (Paris: Editions Allia, 2001).
32. From www.darpa.mil/iao/TIASystems (no longer available). See also Total Information Awareness System Description Document (SDD), version 1.1, Information Awareness Office, July 19, 2002, available at www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/tiasystemdescription.
33. From www.darpa.mil/iao/TIASystems (no longer available). See also Total Information Awareness System Description Document (SDD), version 1.1, Information Awareness Office, July 19, 2002, available at www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/tiasystemdescription.
34. See Council decision, June 2002, Belgium (February 2001, France LSQ, United Kingdom).
35. Article 29 of the law.
36. I use the term dispositive in the Foucaldian sense (in French, the term is dispositif). Where I refer to a multileveled dispositive of control, I would in fact rather talk about a fractal dimension of the control of people - fractal in the sense that control is not countable (symbolic control, horizontal control, vertical control, physical control), just as a fractal object has no characteristic length. At this stage of my research, however, I prefer to formulate this idea as a mere assumption. In this article, I consider only two levels of control.
37. EU Council, "Presidency Conclusions on the Thessalonica European Council, 19-20 June, 2003," 11638, POLGEN 55, October 1, 2003, p. 3.
38. Didier Bigo and Elspeth Guild, "La mise à l'écart des étrangers: La logique du Visa Schengen," Cultures & Conflits 49 (Spring 2003).
39. Loi relative au contrôle de l'immigration: passed November 26, 2003.
40. For a consolidated version of the law, see Groupe d'information et de soutien des immigrés, "Analyse de la loi immigration - GISTI" on www. gisti.org.
41. The white paper reads: "A National Identity Register of basic personal information will be created as part of the scheme. It will be built from scratch as people are issued with identity cards and not rely solely on other sources of data which may have historical or other errors. However, before an entry is confirmed, it will be checked against other databases such as passports, driving licenses and immigration records. The Register will also link each individual's record to a biometric that is unique to that person. The National Identity Register will therefore be a single highly reliable record of a person's identity and will be built using best practice in countering identity fraud. People will have confidence that their personal information will be held securely and cannot be stolen or abused by others." Identity Cards: The Next Steps, Home Office, London, November 2003.
42. Ibid., p. 4.
43. Ibid., p. 7.
44. I b i d.
45. The white paper states: "Working closely with business-particularly small business-trade unions and others to design the scheme to maximize the benefits and minimize the compliance costs to law-abiding businesses and to develop an effective enforcement system that will deal with illegal workers and the minority of businesses that deliberately flout the law. . . . Encouraging private sector organisations to make use of the identity cards scheme to make appropriate checks on identity for example when opening bank accounts. In addition, it will be important to investigate the potential benefits to the private sector of more secure systems for establishing identity and the extent to which the private sector might be willing to contribute financially," p. 9.
46. Alan Travis, "10,000 to Test Eye Scan and Fingerprint Scheme," Guardian, November 12, 2003.
47. Interview with a high-ranking official of the French interior ministry, November 2003: "I would agree with you that regarding civil liberties, it's a real scandal, but you can't imagine how it will make our job easier!"
48. The ID card of the future could replace the traditional passport and driving license and serve as a cash card for tax payments. It will contain chips containing personal and biometric information such as scans of fingerprints or iris. In Italy, the new documents look like credit cards. Personal information is stored in an "optical memory strip" and in a microchip. Individuals have the option to include health and financial information on the card's digital record. The plan is that ultimately the cards will have multiple functions. The new Spanish model is billed as the world's first internet ID card (the first cards will be issued early in 2005). A card holder will be able to put his or her card into a reader connected to the holder's computer and be able to apply for a passport from home or do other official business with state or local administration, In Germany, from 2006, new ID cards are likely to include a digital photo of the holder as well as fingerprints, similar to the UK proposals, to which I will return. In Belgium, a new card, in use in eleven cities, includes a smart chip with the holder's digital signature and an authentication certificate. The card allows Belgians access to many government services.
49. Foucault wrote: "It seems to me that regarding the control of individuals, fundamentally, the West has only had two great models: one is the exclusion of lepers; the other is the model of the inclusion of plague victims. And I think that the substitution of the inclusion of plague victims for the exclusion of lepers is one of the great phenomena of the eighteenth century": Michel Foucault, Les anormaux (Paris: Gallimard/Seuil, 1999), p. 44 (my translation).
50. In Surveiller et punir, Foucault wrote: "Different schemes, but not incompatible. Slowly one can see them converging; and it is the specificity of the nineteenth century to apply to the space of exclusion, of which the leper was the symbolic figure, the specific technique of power characterizing the disciplinary grid pattern": Foucault, Surveiller et punir (Paris: Gallimard, 2000), p. 232 (my translation).
51. 1 here refer to Foucault's account of the transformation of political rights in the nineteenth century, when the prerogative of the sovereign "to kill and let alive" was progressively replaced by a new power (biopower) - the power to promote life and allow death. On this point, see Foucault, note 42, p. 214.
52. Paul Virilio, L'état d'urgence ou l'autogestion de l'espace, available online at increvablesanarchistes.org:articles/1968_81/urbanisme_autogestion.
53. Ibid, (my translation).
54. I b i d.
55. Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision (New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999); I also refer to the French translation of the first chapter in Cultures & Conflits, 36-37, (2000).
56. Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision (New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999); I also refer to the French translation of the first chapter in Cultures & Conflits, 36-37, (2000).
57. Mary Douglass, Comment pensent les institutions (Paris: La Découverte, 2004).