Interception: State Surveillance from Postal Systems to Global Networks (History and Foundations of Information Science) - Softcover

Keenan, Bernard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262552574 ISBN 13: 9780262552578

Publisher: MIT Press, 2025

Synopsis

"A media history of how the UK and US governments have surveilled citizens by intercepting their private communications. It may not be Big Brother (yet), but the state is watching you—watching all of us, in fact, systematically intercepting our private communications and putting them to work in its own interests. In Interception, a media genealogy of the surveillance state at its most intimate, Bernard Keenan investigates the emergence of this practice as a governmental power, and the secret role it has played in the development of communication systems and law. His book exposes the complex, largely obscure history of a covert and fundamental connection between the secret powers of the state and the means by which we communicate our everyday lives. Keenan analyzes key moments in this history, from the formation of the postal system to cable networks, satellites, and the internet, with particular attention to the role that media play in determining the political and legal conditions of the power of interception in governmental affairs. While chiefly focused on Britain, the Empire, and the post-1945 UK-USA signal intelligence alliance, the book’s analysis has international reach across networks and jurisdictions, connecting Edward Snowden’s disclosures, and post-2013 developments, to a longer media history, foregrounding the technical dimensions of an inherently secret practice and well-guarded political power. Ultimately, Keenan’s work reveals how law and information systems have been interpolated over time, linking communication, governmental power, law, and information science—often to dark, anti-democratic ends."

About this title

About the Author

Bernard Keenan is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Laws, University College London. He works at the intersection of law, social theory, and new technologies.

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262552574
• ISBN 13: 9780262552578
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272