‘Going Dark’ Versus a ‘Golden Age for Surveillance’

This post, however, argues that “going dark” is the wrong image. Instead, today should be understood as a “golden age of surveillance.” Compared with earlier periods, surveillance capabilities have greatly expanded. Consider three areas where law enforcement has far greater capabilities than ever before: (1) location information; (2) information about contacts and confederates; and (3) an array of new databases that create “digital dossiers” about individuals’ lives. This information about any individual suspect is made even more useful because of the way data mining can help identify suspects.