Media coverage of mass surveillance depended on who was surveilled

Evidence

Whistleblower Edward Snowden released his collection of documents from the National Security Agency in 2013, revealing the full extent of mass surveillance. In 2014, journalists Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain showed that the specific targets of National Security Agency surveillance were prominent Muslim Americans who had been put under surveillance despite there being no reasonable grounds for suspicion about criminal activity. Investigative journalists Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux demonstrated that the number of people on the National Counterterrorism Center’s no-fly list had increased tenfold to 47,000 in the Obama era. The leaked documents revealed that the center maintained a database of terrorism suspects worldwide, the “Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment.” In 2013, it had a million names, twice the number from four years prior. The database included more than 20,000 people within the United States who were disproportionately concentrated in Dearborn, Michigan, with its significant Arab American population. These stories about the targeting of Muslims and Arab Americans did not get the same attention as the initial Snowden revelations. This flows from a perception that while it is correct to object to the US government collecting private data on “ordinary” (read white) people, the racialized Muslim is a legitimate target of surveillance. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 570

Categorization

• SEED: The differential press reaction to Snowden (outrage for white ‘ordinary’ people, silence for Muslim-Americans) is a crisp case study of how representation’s hold legitimates selective surveillance — the exact terrain of the ‘enemy-making machine’ argument.
• QUESTION: What concretely explained the Dearborn concentration — was it a genuine intelligence lead or pure demographic profiling? Worth chasing for the mechanism detail.
• XREF: connects to: Unequal media coverage of surveillance stems from public legitimacy granted to Muslim targeting; The surveillance industry depends on racialized Muslim bodies to stay funded — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 671; Media indifference to Muslim surveillance stems from racialized-legitimacy perception (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Unequal media coverage of surveillance stems from public legitimacy granted to Muslim targeting #expands (0.90)
• Media indifference to Muslim surveillance stems from racialized-legitimacy perception #expands (0.90)
• The surveillance industry depends on racialized Muslim bodies to stay funded #corroborates (0.80) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 671
• News media privilege white elite sources and downgrade minority claims to allegations #corroborates (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1101