'Today the smallest details of our daily lives are tracked and traced
more closely than ever before, and those who are monitored often
cooperate willingly with the monitors. From London and New York to New
Delhi, Shanghai and Rio de Janeiro, video cameras are a familiar and
accepted sight in public places. Air travel now commonly involves
devices such as body-scanners and biometric checks that have
proliferated in the wake of 9/11. And every day Google and credit-card
issuers note the details of our habits, concerns and preferences,
quietly prompting customized marketing strategies with our active, all
too often zealous cooperation.
In today's liquid modern world, the paths of daily life are mobile and
flexible. Crossing national borders is a commonplace activity and
immersion in social media increasingly ubiquitous. Today's citizens,
workers, consumers and travellers are always on the move but often
lacking certainty and lasting bonds. But in this world where spaces may
not be fixed and time is boundless, our perpetual motion does not go
unnoticed. Surveillance spreads in hitherto unimaginable ways,
responding to and reproducing the slippery nature of modern life,
seeping into areas where it once had only marginal sway.
In this book the surveillance analysis of David Lyon meets the liquid
modern world so insightfully dissected by Zygmunt Bauman. Is a dismal
future of moment-by-moment monitoring closing in, or are there still
spaces of freedom and hope? How do we realize our responsibility for the
human beings before us, often lost in discussions of data and
categorization? Dealing with questions of power, technology and
morality, this book is a brilliant analysis of what it means to be
watched - and watching - today.
