Information Technology Paper 3

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Research Question

What are the ethical implications of governments' cyber-surveillance technologies on their citizens?

Annotated Bibliography

Primary Sources

Alfonsi, A., & Berliri, M. (2021). Science, Ethics, and Responsible Research – The Case of Surveillance. Ethical Issues in Covert, Security and Surveillance Research, 8, 17–28. https://doi.org/10.1108/s2398-601820210000008003

The article examines ethical issues from a perspective of changing society from modern to postmodern-surveillance. Alfonsi and Berliri (2021) indicate that the role of scientific progress and surveillance methods resulted in public debates and issues related to privacy rights. The authors debate phenomena such as "surveillance creep," social sorting, and data misuse, underlining the societal cost and ethical dilemma in balancing security and privacy. This source will support a nuanced discussion of the ethical boundaries governments encounter in using surveillance technologies, especially regarding the sustainment of public trust and respect for individual privacy rights.

Harper, D. J., Ellis, D., & Tucker, I. (2021). Covert Aspects of Surveillance and the Ethical Issues They Raise. Ethical Issues in Covert, Security and Surveillance Research, 8, 177–197. https://doi.org/10.1108/s2398-601820210000008013

Harper et al. (2021) discuss the ethical challenges related to undercover surveillance by focusing on three diversified case studies that analyze forms of hidden surveillance and their ethical implications. The first case considers undercover police operations within U.K. activist groups, the second case discusses Trojan Shield, an operation where law enforcement distributed encrypted devices to track criminal activities surreptitiously, the third case deals with emotional A.I. in schools as a growing practice in monitoring students' emotive reactions, which again opens ethical questions on transparency and misuse of personal data by private enterprises. Real-life examples of disguised state surveillance are discussed here to set off a debate on ethics and transparency in state monitoring.

Penney, J. W. (2017). Internet surveillance, regulation, and chilling effects online: a comparative case study. Internet Policy Review, 6(2), 1–39. https://doi.org/10.14763/2017.2.692

Using survey data, Penney (2017) tests multiple hypothetical regulatory scenarios- things like anti-cyberbullying laws and government surveillance- to see how such approaches shape people's behavior online. This is very important: the study reveals that surveillance by governments leads to self-censorship, with interesting demographic trends, such as the more significant chilling effect among younger people and women. The source provides empirical evidence of how much surveillance curtails public discourse and, subsequently, individual freedoms; besides being very interesting, it will be an essential contribution to the development of this research when considering the more significant ethical and social implications of state surveillance.

Schmit, C. D., Willis, B., McCall, H., Altabbaa, A., & Washburn, D. (2023). Views on increased federal access to state and local National Syndromic Surveillance Program data: a nominal group technique study with state and local epidemiologists. BMC Public Health, 23(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-15161-5

From a public health perspective, the article summarized the benefits and ethical issues in federal access to syndromic surveillance data, as identified by epidemiologists. Using the nominal group technique, Schmit et al. (2023) gathered information regarding concerns about privacy, data misinterpretation, and communication protocols between local and federal agencies. The study highlights the tension between the protection of public health needs and rights to privacy while also considering relevant ethical positions of regard in contexts where increased government surveillance is called for.

Secondary Sources

Couch, D. L., Robinson, P., & Komesaroff, P. A. (2020). COVID-19—Extending Surveillance and the Panopticon. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 17(4), 809–814.

The paper draws on the application of Foucault's Panopticon to COVID-19 surveillance and how public health measures may normalize and extend surveillance beyond temporary health monitoring. Couch et al. (2020) discuss the ethical risks of allowing widespread surveillance in public health contexts. They authors analogize health surveillance to more 'traditional' surveillance structures and question whether such practices will result in overreaching state authority in a post-pandemic world, so the source will support an analysis of the ethical implications for civil liberties due to surveillance, specifically how emergency measures permanently affect privacy expectations.

Electronic Frontier Foundation. (2019). Surveillance Technologies. Electronic Frontier Foundation. https://www.eff.org/issues/mass-surveillance-technologies

This article, published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), gives a broad overview of mass surveillance technologies used by the government and critically analyses the implications for privacy rights and civil liberties. EFF describes some of the tools of surveillance: Among the technologies allowing that pervasive tracking are face recognition, biometric databases, and social media monitoring. The article raises ethical questions about government overreach, transparency, and erosion of personal privacy and would help place government surveillance into a global context, and it did provide critical analyses necessary for considering the ethical and human rights implications for this practice, especially concerning democratic societies.

Richards, N. M. (2013). The Dangers of Surveillance. Harvard Law Review, 126(7), 1934–1965. https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-126/the-dangers-of-surveillance/

Richards (2013) relates the general risks of surveillance, underlining the effects on civil liberties, mainly regarding privacy and freedom of thought. He shows how pervasive surveillance would make society a "surveillance society," where individuals would feel they are in constant supervision, which might lead to self-censorship. His article is essential for analyzing state surveillance abuses and reinforcing such ethics in the placing of government monitoring, as it provides a basis for understanding the inherent risks in the practice of surveillance.

United Nations. (2022, September 16). Spyware and surveillance: Threats to privacy and human rights growing, U.N. report warns. OHCHR. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/09/spyware-and-surveillance-threats-privacy-and-human-rights-growing-un-report

This United Nations report underlines the growing threats to privacy and human rights from spyware technologies used in government surveillance. Such spyware technologies, like Pegasus spyware, have been used against journalists, human rights defenders, and political dissidents. The report gives a global human rights perspective concerning ethical issues arising from surveillance and emphasizes the possibility of abuse whenever governments have unchecked access to private information, especially to the most vulnerable in society.

Tertiary Sources

U.S. Department of Justice. (2015, February 20). 9-7.000 - Electronic Surveillance. Justice.gov. https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-7000-electronic-surveillance

This Justice Manual entry outlines Department of Justice guidelines on electronic surveillance, including the underlying legal standards, means of protecting privacy, and other procedures to be followed by federal surveillance operations. The source gives a general overview of the legal framework for surveillance in the United States to use as a backdrop against which ethical concerns can be examined in U.S. surveillance law.

WHO. (2017, June 19). WHO guidelines on ethical issues in public health surveillance. Www.who.int. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241512657

WHO guidelines on ethical principles for public health surveillance balance societal health benefits with the right to individual privacy. The guidelines recommend that surveillance activities must be proportionate and conducted transparently to provide a basic ethical framework for health-related monitoring. Thus, this document will be especially relevant for the ethical review of government surveillance, underlining the international standards when balancing the protection of privacy with the pursuit of public health objectives.