The Patriot Act spatially policed the domestic public sphere

Evidence

Among the innovations introduced after 9/11 was the National Security Exit–Entry Registration System (NSEERS), which streamlined the documentation, detention, and eventual deportation of Muslims from a prepared list of twenty-five largely Muslim countries. “Even more sinister,” remark Neil Smith and Setha Low, “the Patriot Act (2001) thoroughly spatialized its circumspection of the public sphere with the invention of ‘homeland security,’ as a cabinet level preoccupation. Consequently, the domestic public sphere suffered a clampdown, with library accounts, university computers, bank accounts and other modes of daily communication placed under unprecedented surveillance.” — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 264

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Concrete post-9/11 legal context that Hamid and Naqvi novels dramatize — grounds the reader’s case in real NSEERS and Patriot Act provisions.

Related

• The USA PATRIOT Act expanded wiretap and indefinite detention powers without prior cause. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The USA PATRIOT Act produced the surveillance society that made Muslim bodies constantly monitored #expands (0.85) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 149
• Covert framing of Muslim surveillance as anti-terrorism suppressed public protest #expands (0.60) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 483
• The surveillance gaze denies Muslim Americans the psychological privileges of citizenship #expands (0.60) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 272
• The PATRIOT Act extends terrorism liability beyond actual offenders #expands (0.50) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 604
• Private citizens’ discriminatory acts get reinforced by state security policies #expands (0.50) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 242
• PATRIOT Act language revived the legal framework used to intern Japanese Americans #complicates (0.30) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 411
• Patriot Act language echoes statutes that enabled Japanese internment #complicates (0.30) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 572