Towards Democratic Intelligence Oversight
With my GUARDINT colleagues, we just published in the Review of International Studies of a collective article on the limits, practices and struggles around democratic control of intelligence services. Abstract “Despite its common usage, the meaning of ‘democratic’ in democratic intelligence oversight has rarely been spelled out. In this article, we situate questions regarding intelligence...
A visit at the gala of AN2V, the French video-surveillance lobby
In French only. Il a fallu débourser 180€ et s’arracher à la torpeur de ce début d’été pour gagner le droit de s’attabler incognito au beau milieu du « milieu » français de la vidéosurveillance policière. L’AN2V, ou association nationale de la vidéoprotection, tenait l’une de ses « nuits de l’AN2V » à Paris le 27 juin dernier. Événement biennal, les « nuits » sont le moment le plus people de cette...
Timeline of Intelligence Surveillance Scandals
Together with my colleagues from the GUARDINT project, we are publishing a report on surveillance scandals involving the US, British, German, and French intelligence services. Summary This timeline lists and documents the main surveillance scandals that have come to light in recent decades, from the first revelations about the NSA in the 1960s to Edward Snowden’s disclosures and more recent...
AI and Government Reform: Towards Humanless Bureaucracies?
Text originally published in French in November 2021 on AOC media. In recent years, with extensive use of vocabulary borrowed from the “start-up” world, we have witnessed the consolidation of a new iteration of neoliberal state reform. Through concepts such as “platform state” or “state start-up”1, new reformers have been counting on “corporate...
Surveillance State of Play in France
I wrote a short chapter on digital surveillance for a collective work entitled Le Nouveau Monde, which has just been published by Amsterdam Editions. Over 1,000 pages and nearly 100 authors paint a “picture of neoliberal France”. For my part, I have attempted in a few pages to describe the expansion of digital surveillance in recent years, its promoters, its methods, and its effects, while trying...
Action-Research on Algorithmic Policing
In June, during the European Workshops in International Studies, I presented of a draft paper regarding ongoing action-research concerning algorithmic urban policing, analyzing methodological and political challenges of fieldwork on AI-powered surveillance systems. Abstract This paper examines methodological and epistemological issues of action-research on algorithmic policing, based on empirical...
Hacktivists as Heirs of the New Left
The issue of Quaderni journal dedicated to hacking has just been published. In it, I published an article on hacker action repertoires and their connection to the New Left of the 1960s and 1970s. Here is the abstract: After recalling the connection between the pioneers of hacker activism and the anti-technocratic tactics employed by the New Left, this article proposes to interpret the wave of...
Health Crisis, Amplified Digital Surveillance
At a time when the extension of the health pass is being debated in France, my article on the health crisis and its effects on digital surveillance has just been published in the journal Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences (PARISS). It is the continuation of work begun in spring 2020 with an article published in French in Le Monde diplomatique and a...
In France, Intelligence Agencies Remain Without Sufficient Checks & Balances
Article first published in French on [The Conversation FR]((https://theconversation.com/en-france-des-services-de-renseignement-sans-vrais-contre-pouvoirs-163040). Eight years after the revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the National Assembly has just adopted, amid a certain degree of indifference, the bill on the prevention of terrorist acts and intelligence. The text is now being...
France’s police bill: surveillance for the long haul
First published on about:intel. The French government seems not to be interested in tackling systemic police violence. Instead, one of the most defining features of Macron’s presidency lies in the fast-paced expansion of state surveillance powers. A case in point is Parliament’s impending adoption of the “Bill on Global Security”, which shows the current administration is a leading representative...