Surveillance investment creates hierarchies without reducing terrorism risk

Evidence

Investment in surveillance technologies is rooted in the ideology that these tools will make America safe from another terrorist attack. But these practices, as shown in this book, are not effective in reducing terrorism but instead create racial hierarchies. Statistics show that Americans have a 1 in 45,808 chance of being killed by a foreign terrorist attack, based on data collected from 1975 to 2015 (Nowrasteh 2016). Americans are more likely to die due to health issues, like heart attacks and cancer, or even an animal attack, than from foreign terrorism. Yet the fear of Muslims and terrorism drives support for increased surveillance. — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 678

Categorization

• XREF: Hard statistic (1 in 45,808) directly usable in the reader’s thread on algorithmic security systems whose stated aim dwarfs actual risk. — connects to: The SPOT behavioral screening program cost nearly a billion dollars with little terror prevention. — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 222; The surveillance industry depends on racialized Muslim bodies to stay funded — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 671
• CANDY: The 1-in-45,808 versus animal-attack comparison is a tweetable fact.
• QUESTION: Note the U.S. data source (1975-2015); worth verifying against more recent figures for the MOC thread.

Related

• Americans face vanishingly low odds of dying from foreign terrorism yet fund expanded surveillance. (similarity 0.91)
• Airport surveillance does not reduce terrorism but builds racial hierarchies (similarity 0.88)
• The statistical odds of dying in a foreign terror attack are minuscule (similarity 0.84)
• Terrorism declined while mass shootings rose, yet only Muslims faced surveillance (similarity 0.84)
• The surveillance industry depends on racialized Muslim bodies to stay funded (similarity 0.82)
• Each terrorist attack triggers renewed citizen anger and state surveillance against Muslims. (similarity 0.82)
• Surveillance requires a racialized threatening body to justify its existence (similarity 0.82)
• US terrorist attacks declined sharply from 1970 to 2011 (similarity 0.81)
• The SPOT behavioral screening program cost nearly a billion dollars with little terror prevention. (similarity 0.81)
• The surveillance industry’s need for targets drives the racialization of Muslim bodies (similarity 0.80)
• The surveillance industry needs racialized Muslim bodies to justify its funding (similarity 0.80)
• A self-perpetuating surveillance industry depends on racializing Muslims as terrorist threats. (similarity 0.80)
• Mass surveillance based on racial stereotypes weakens democracy without preventing terrorism. (similarity 0.80)
• Surveillance justified by religious identity constitutes racialization of Muslims (similarity 0.80)
• Surveillance derives from country-of-origin priority lists that racialize Muslim identity (similarity 0.79)