EDITOR’S LETTER
BETHANY RIELLY for the New Internationalist Co-operative newint.org
COVER ARTWORK: PETE REYNOLDS
WHO’S WATCHING YOU?
As I hopped onto the metro at Barcelona’s Diagonal station last week, I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling of being followed. While I ’m sure my fears were unfounded, listening to the stories of campaigners targeted with surveillance had obviously gotten to me. But that, in some ways, is the point. Surveillance is as much a tool of intimidation as it is about intelligence gathering, and its effects ripple out beyond those directly targeted.
The impact is especially acute in the digital age. States can monitor internet search histories, and tap into Big Tech’s surveillance economy, capturing our personal data from apps and smart devices. Using mercenary spyware, governments can turn dissenters’ phones against them, switching on the camera and mic to secretly listen into their lives.
This Big Story starts in my new home of Catalonia, as I explore the impact of two intrusive surveillance operations – police spies and spyware abuse – on Catalan civil society. Has a chilling effect taken hold, or are campaigners fighting back? In these pages we look beyond privacy rights, instead thinking of surveillance as a tool of social control – one used to stifle dissent by autocracies and democracies alike.
But there are also practical tips and stories of resistance: from activists living under the junta’s oppressive gaze in Myanmar, to campaigners in LA fighting to abolish racist police surveillance.
Elsewhere, Natasha Ion reports from Tunisia on how people are taking on the polluting phosphate industry, and Pranay Somayajula explores how the Indian government is weaponizing tourism in Kashmir.
THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE:
Preeti Jha is a freelance journalist living in London who writes about politics , human rights and gender. She was previously a Southeast Asia-based correspondent for AFP. Juan Ortiz Freuler is an Argentinean lawyer and tech researcher affiliated with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Universit y. Clara Hill is a journalist who grew up in Edinburgh and Bermuda, reporting on pop culture, tech and politics with bylines in The Independent, the Radio Times and many more. Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist, best-selling author, filmmaker and co-founder of Declassified Australia. He was based in East Jerusalem from 2016 to 2020.
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NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2023
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