Personal Perception Through Technology

Power again comes to mind when we think of U.S. surveillance practices. Surveillance in my opinion is both necessary for the overall safety of a country; however, there is a thin line between safety and invasion of privacy. With countries constantly being in danger of war and terrorism, it is imperative that the military knows when the enemy is planning its next attack. This includes people that are spies that disguise themselves as regular civilians who in reality have loyalty to another country. Therefore, the department of homeland security and central intelligence agencies are always alert and suspicious of any unusual activity in order to protect the country and its citizens from invasion. The issue’s come into play when these powerful military or intelligence agencies falsely accuse a normal civilian of terrorist activity and invade their life without any explanation. The upsetting fact is that under the patriot act, the government can detain you without letting you know why if they suspect you are involved in terrorist activity.

            Hasan Elahi’s Tracking Transience is a prime example of a falsely accused individual who under the patriot act, despite being a citizen of the United States, has lost all of his freedom and is forced to check-in with an FBI agent consistently especially when he travels. Interestingly enough, instead of resisting authority and attempting to undermine this demand based on these false accusations, Elahi took the approach of aggressive compliance. Elahi cleverly documented everything that he did on a day to day basis. This documentation included going to the restroom and eating meals which is an obvious form of data flooding. Data flooding serves as a form of resistance for numerous reasons. Firstly, it devalues the information that is presented to the FBI by giving them an abundance of information that has no relation no terrorist activities or any suspicious activity period. Secondly, by Elahi data flooding the FBI in response to being accused of terrorism, he openly exposed what the FBI was doing to him. This served as a form of sousurveillance, where everyone that was privileged to this information (everyone in the world because it is on the internet), could monitor the activities of the FBI. Therefore, Elahi was making his situation extremely public, which in turn served as a safety net of exposure. This also served as a way for Elahi to show that he has a choice in how his information is obtained. He found a way to exercise his power even as a clear subordinate. This goes back to the ideas that Foucault expressed about top-down power, and how even with the government, an institution that has supposed total control over the constituents of a country, couldn’t stop Elahi from his power to undermine them.

Elahi in particular, uses a plethora of technological mediums to comment on how bodies are produced through visual culture. The main source that Elahi used to prove how his body can be shown through visual culture was through a collage of pictures and GPS tracking that prove where he is and what he is doing during every minute in his life. He used the internet to put his body on display with these photos that create a visual showing everyone who visits his site. Other sources that Elahi utilized were talk shows, and interviews which gave him another audience that may not have access to the internet so they could hear his story and be aware of his situation. Elahi used the media and the internet to his advantage to ridicule the surveillance that he was under by the FBI.

It is obvious in Elahi’s case, how race and ethnicity played a part in him being targeted as a terrorist. He traveled frequently and looked like he was of Islamic decent, and because of his visual body, he was assumed to be a terrorist by the FBI. This is an example of how our visual bodies can negatively affect our lives inviting in discrimination.

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