National security agencies have coveted private-sector surveillance capacities as seamless extensions of state power

Evidence

McConnell made clear that Google’s surveillance-based operations in data capture, extraction, and analysis were both taken for granted and coveted. Here the boundaries of private and public melt in the intense heat of new threats and their high-velocity demands that must be met in “milliseconds.” In McConnell’s future there is one “seamless” surveillance empire in which the requirements of self-preservation leave no opportunity for the amenities of democracy, with its time-wasting practices of due process, evidence, warrants, and law. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 381

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Zuboff’s core thesis about surveillance exceptionalism and the blurring of public/private boundaries; echoes the democracy-vs-expediency tension in the reader’s other curated material on freedom of information and press freedom. — connects to: Intelligence officials have explicitly endorsed blurring the public-private boundary for surveillance — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 382; The state increasingly depends on private instrumentarian power for its security aims — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1226; Religious explanations of terrorist violence serve to expand state surveillance powers. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 265 (+3 more)
• CANDY: The phrase ‘time-wasting practices of due process, evidence, warrants, and law’ is a striking, quotable encapsulation of the authoritarian mindset.

Broader Connections

• The state increasingly depends on private instrumentarian power for its security aims #corroborates (0.92) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1226
• Intelligence officials have explicitly endorsed blurring the public-private boundary for surveillance #corroborates (0.90) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 382
• State surveillance depends on corporate data collection #corroborates (0.90) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 40
• National security demand for surveillance let Google’s practices grow unregulated #corroborates (0.88) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 384
• Privacy is not eroded but redistributed to surveillance capital #expands (0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 284
• Religious explanations of terrorist violence serve to expand state surveillance powers. #expands (0.75) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 265