Watching us - Watching them

By Darren Guy

Professor Peter Gill is an expert in State Security and Intelligence; his main interests include control and accountability of police forces and private security. He has published numerous books on the subject, his latest being 'Transnational Organised Crime; Perspectives on Global Security'. Pete is also a member of the Civil Liberties group 'Liberty'. Here he gives Nerve his sober angle on the present 'hysteria' around terrorism and crime in general.

Do you think there has been a justifiable shift in general security since September 11th?
There has clearly been a major shift in security consciousness since 9/11 - some of it justified but much of it not. 9/11 represented a major shock in the US where their previous experience of terrorist attacks was essentially home grown and small scale - with the exception of Oklahoma. The symbolic location and scale of 9/11 attacks ensured a large jolt to American assumptions that their power and location insulated them from the kind of attacks seen in Middle East, Europe, Asia. So we should not be surprised at their reaction. People's concerns have been reinforced by subsequent attacks, e.g. Bali, Madrid and so some popular concerns are understandable. But there is a real problem with the overreaction of states everywhere, for example, new laws have been passed but these often include a whole range of measures that have been part of police and security 'wish-lists' for years rather than focused specifically on any real threat.
Many of these measures are not actually used much, if at all, but the fact they exist raises the danger that they can be used in the future. There are two other particular problems: the first is that there has been a big increase in profiling and targeting of suspects since 9/11 and this has mainly affected the Muslim population.
Second, the government here has used the small but real danger of a terrorist attack to reinforce its broader agenda on anti-social behaviour and 'respect. So what we have is a government that faces a small but genuine problem of protecting people (no government wants to be seen as failing to protect people…) but, working on worst case scenarios, introduces ranges of legal (more police powers for intrusion, acquisition of electronic data, arrest etc) and surveillance (e.g. ID Cards) measures not because they will actually make people more secure but because they give the appearance of 'doing something'.
The problem is that constant government emphasis on everything from 'hoodies' to al-Qaeda increases people's fears yet further - this then feeds back to governments who think they must take even more steps and so we have a vicious spiral of fear, insecurity and paranoia.

Isn't it true that many people feel safer though?
I'm not sure - I have not seen any recent poll data on this but I suspect that, while some people are reassured by governments taking action on security issues, others feel even more insecure.

Has this 'spiral of fear' also led to increased police powers?
Yes, over the past twenty years, a succession of new laws - Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, Public Order Act 1986, Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, Crime and Disorder Act 1998, Anti Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (and many more) have added to police powers…The main impact of these has been to increase the variety of situations in which police can stop and search, arrest and obtain access to records and information. But although the numbers of police have been increasing in recent years, the point is not that police are rushing around using these powers indiscriminately against all and sundry. Rather, they claim to be deploying them more carefully against those they perceive as real criminal or security threats by means of what they call 'intelligence-led policing'. One problem is that, as the government's own agenda on anti-social behaviour broadens ever more, these techniques come to be applied to those whose lifestyles are in some way marginal, young people, `yobs', the homeless…all the 'usual suspects'…..

So there is a local move towards more repressive policing?
…not towards the population in general, but to those who are targeted for some reason, yes. The other very significant local development is the rapid growth of what we can call the 'security network'. 'Policing' is no longer something carried out by the public Merseyside Police but involves increasing numbers of private security firms and community associations. The former range from store security to bouncers, the latter includes neighbourhood watch….

Could you say a little about what is happening now and for the future in relation to security and surveillance?
It is impossible to envisage anything but continuing upward spiral for security and surveillance measures. On the one hand, governments will tend to use worst case scenarios (as I explained above), while on the other hand we see the development of a large security-industrial complex which, on the back of 9/11, finds many government and corporate customers for its products and services. The combination of these supply and demand forces is very powerful - the effects of this can be seen everywhere, from Iraq where there are private military and security contractors than US troops to the development of new public-private data systems for the profiling of air travellers to the private policing scheme envisaged in the new Paradise Street development……which means that the chances of reversing this growth are extremely poor. The question is whether opponents and critics of this growth can apply enough pressure to states and corporations that the more extreme measures are rejected (for example, some of the wilder for total surveillance networks in the US have been stalled as a result of such pressure). The contest in the next few months over government proposals for ID cards is important. Otherwise, pressure must be maintained for mechanisms of regulation and oversight - this is a major political challenge in the midst of a security panic such as we are experiencing now.

Thank you Pete.