NAVIGATING THE SURVEILLANCE QUAGMIRE: STEERING THROUGH UNPRECEDENTED WATERS IN A POTENTIAL TRUMP ENCORE

At a time in which the contours of personal privacy are continually eroded by the innovations of technology, the monitoring power of the Commander in Chief represents an unmatched expression of state power that can easily cross over into intrusive surveillance. For those of us worried about what a potential second term of President Donald Trump of all people might look like, we don’t need to look far to recall the litany of controversies of all colours he has found himself embroiled in.

THE UNBRIDLED GAZE: THE EXPANSION OF SURVEILLANCE POWERS

Whether through technological or interagency expansion, it’s a surveillance apparatus we have swollen immeasurably over decades, and resistant to chains of reform with an indolent persistence. Such a presidency can see, with nearly unfettered ability, into the lives of citizens – their communications, movements, social networks – in ways that a decade ago might have been the stuff of dystopian novels. And as the historical record shows, the presidency, whatever the tribal drumbeat of the two-party system, has often been nudging the quantum limit of surveillance, prying into areas of privacy that before seemed safely untouchable.

TRUMP'S SURVEILLANCE AMBITIONS: ECHOES OF THE PAST, PORTENTS OF THE FUTURE

Any second Trump term threatens us with that very possibility, a surveillance state unleashed against its own people in ways we have never imagined before. Trump has already made public his thoughts about abusing the machinery of US surveillance to its limits – and possibly beyond: from the criminal prosecution of political enemies to the policing of women’s reproduction, from massive deportations to crushing dissent through military might and police power.

THE GHOSTS OF COINTELPRO: MODERN SURVEILLANCE'S HARBINGER

COINTELPRO, a surveillance programme run by the FBI beginning in the Nixon era and turned to a weapon against political opponents and social movements, is one of the most notorious cases of domestic political surveillance abuse in US history. A modern, Trump-inspired iteration of COINTELPRO would have at its disposal surveillance tools, enabled by new technologies and vastly more powerful, than those of the 1960s and ’70s. The very fact that such a programme is now possible introduces a new threat to the norms protecting the privacy of US citizens and the rule of law.

THE CONVERGENCE OF SURVEILLANCE AND POLITICS

By fusing surveillance powers with political objectives, there is a risk that abuses could begin to fuse national security with political vendetta. Indeed, critics foresee an administration that ‘could turn the powerful but possibly inefficient and uncontrolled surveillance machinery to political uses, in a dramatic reversal of the ostensibly “narrow” and “neutral” application of the national security power like we saw under Clinton and Bush’.

THE DATA DELUGE: SURVEILLANCE IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION

In our data-rich modern society, the tools of surveillance no longer need anonymous wiretaps and tailing. A flood of digital data is open and available for purchase or use by anyone with the will to manipulate it, eroding much of the difference between public safety and privacy invasion. The implications for the future of surveillance are ominous: the mere spectre of surveillance could chill dissent and free speech under an administration bent on using every tool at its disposal.

THE QUESTION OF ABORTION: STATES' RIGHTS VS FEDERAL SURVEILLANCE

It’s possible that, in the debate over abortion rights, this issue could be a flashpoint, too. As the legal battles over abortion law continue and intensify, questions about legal jurisdiction and surveillance power are getting entangled in each other. How far might federal surveillance go in enforcing or violating state laws? How much should it be able to interfere in personal matters?

PROJECT 2025: ORGANIZING FOR UNPRECEDENTED OVERSIGHT

The leaking of ‘Project 2025’, in which the Trump administration mapped out plans to reshape the federal bureaucracy along constitutional lines, has heightened awareness of the depth of the planned changes. A federal bureaucracy moulded by a loyalty to the administration, rather than to constitution or law, could turn surveillance into an instrument of governance that the Constitution’s authors would not have recognised.

THE STATUS OF SURVEILLANCE: A REFLECTION

At its core, the debate about surveillance under a Trumpian regime is less about technological possibilities for watching and listening than it is about the power and status of our rights, the power and status of our privacy, the power and status of the delicate balance between security and liberty that must be maintained. When the status quo of surveillance remains unchecked and nestled within a doctrine of unchecked power, the relationship between state and society is radically altered.

In the long view, debates on surveillance require a nuance that avoids the Scylla of security and the Charybdis of liberty, and an unflinching commitment to the ideals that define a society worth surveilling. The fate of our civil liberties under expanding surveillance powers, whose contours are still unfolding, shows that Oval Office occupants aside, oversight, transparency and responsiveness matter.