Informants by the Hundreds: FBI Penetration of the CPUSA

Klehr, Harvey; Haynes, John Earl

doi:10.1080/14743892.2022.2049668

Cited by 1 publication

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“…Governments have long sought to solicit informants who can provide pivotal information about fellow community members in the course of investigations (Bergemann, 2021; Bloom, 2002; Donnelly, 1951; Hall, 2009; Klehr & Haynes, 2022; Rutledge, 2002). In the Middle Ages, the English frankpledge system required civilians to report one another for crime or owe collective financial penalty (Reeves, 2017).…”

Section: A Brief History Of Surveillance Deputizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surveillance deputies: When ordinary people surveil for the state

Brayne,

Lageson,

Levy

2023

Law Soc Rev

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The state has long relied on ordinary civilians to do surveillance work, but recent advances in networked technologies are expanding mechanisms for surveillance and social control. In this article, we analyze the phenomenon in which private individuals conduct surveillance on behalf of the state, often using private sector technologies to do so. We develop the concept of surveillance deputies to describe when ordinary people, rather than state actors, use their labor and economic resources to engage in such activity. Although surveillance deputies themselves are not new, their participation in everyday surveillance deputy work has rapidly increased under unique economic and technological conditions of our digital age. Drawing upon contemporary empirical examples, we hypothesize four conditions that contribute to surveillance deputization and strengthen its effects: (1) when interests between the state and civilians converge; (2) when law institutionalizes surveillance deputization or fails to clarify its boundaries; (3) when technological offerings expand personal surveillance capabilities; and (4) when unequal groups use surveillance to gain power or leverage resistance. In developing these hypotheses, we bridge research in law and society, sociology, surveillance studies, and science and technology studies and suggest avenues for future empirical investigation.

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