US secrecy and detention practices rest on the colonial logic of unruly natures

Evidence

Race is crucial to pre-emptive punishment. Mirzoeff notes that preemptive punishment has depended heavily on the racial notion that ‘they’ are not like ‘us’ and owing to their natures/cultures are likely to erupt into violence against us. The logic is once again a colonial one, whereby states of exception are justified because the colonized cannot be governed through the rule of law as can Europeans. Prevention based on the irrationality and unpredictability of their natures and cultures justifies the camp as well as the practices associated with it. For example, as Nancy Baker and others show, the United States government has defended its practices of limiting press and public access to information, refusing to disclose the names and locations of, and charges against, those detained, conducting immigration hearings in secret, and denying bail even to minor violators on the grounds that anything and anyone can potentially be of use to terrorists. Following what the CIA has described as the mosaic theory, the government has argued that small pieces of information might later fit into the larger terrorist picture. The mosaic theory hinges, however, a great deal on ideas about the natures of those who threaten us. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 84

Categorization

• XREF: The mosaic theory parallels Milgrom’s point about information problems in reputation systems — here the state weaponizes incomplete information asymmetrically against a racialized category.
• SEED: The mosaic theory as a surveillance narrative device — ‘small pieces fit a larger picture’ is a powerful frame for why indefinite detention can justify itself, an essay angle on how epistemic claims cloak racial logic.
• DEFINE: Defines the CIA’s mosaic theory of intelligence gathering as it applies to justifying expansive detention powers.