Thread by @alvarombedoya

0/ Today, @GeorgetownCPT is opening RSVPs for #ColorofSurveillance on November 7.

My co-organizer @gabriellexgem and I will announce speakers on a rolling basis, but I thought I’d offer some reflections on the big picture themes of the conference.

https://twitter.com/GeorgetownCPT/status/1168931736962707456

@GeorgetownCPT @gabriellexgem 1/ I used to think that surveillance of poor & working people was a modern thing, not too central to the history of surveillance.

I’m not alone: As @gabriellexgem wrote @Slate, Congress holds hearings galore on consumer privacy... but not worker privacy. slate.com/technology/201…

@GeorgetownCPT @gabriellexgem @Slate 2/ I was wrong. Take the Poor Laws of 1598 & 1601. As Steve Hindle @TheHungtington explains, they didn't just help the poor. They enforced “canons of social respectability.”

Want to track if the poor go to church? Paint a pew "For the Poore" in big red letters. See who shows.

@GeorgetownCPT @gabriellexgem @Slate 3/ Neighbor on the dole? Was she misbehaving? In North Norfolk in the 1620s, you could get 6 pence for reporting them to parish authorities.

What might you report?

Well, for one thing, if they didn’t accord with standards of sexual propriety. For example, in another parish:

@GeorgetownCPT @gabriellexgem @Slate 4/ And how would you know they were paupers? Well, they had to wear special badges so you could easily tell them apart from everyone else.

E.g., two 18th century *Scottish badges:

@GeorgetownCPT @gabriellexgem @Slate 5/ What's the archetypal idea behind the modern surveillance state? Many cite Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon (1787), now famous for its use in prisons.

But Jeremy Bentham did *not* invent the panopticon.

Here’s the *very first image* of it in volume 4 his collected works…

@GeorgetownCPT @gabriellexgem @Slate 6/ ...read the name in the bottom left corner.

It’s not Jeremy Bentham. It’s his brother, Samuel.

@GeorgetownCPT @gabriellexgem @Slate 7/ Samuel was running a factory in Krichev. Philip Schofield @UCL explains that he had a “relatively unskilled workforce.” So he put them in a circle around him to “keep an eye” on them.
Cf. Philip Steadman’s “Samuel Bentham’s Panopticon”: ingentaconnect.com/contentone/ucl…

@GeorgetownCPT @gabriellexgem @Slate @ucl 8/ Everywhere you look, the myth of the untrustworthy pauper or worker -- and the idea that they *must be watched* -- pervades canonical moments in surveillance history. #colorofsurveillance

@GeorgetownCPT @gabriellexgem @Slate @ucl 9/ Take (and finally, for now) the Palmer Raids.

April & June 1919. Bombs go off at the offices of various prominent officials.

So the government swings in to deport the anarchists and radicals behind them. Right?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Ra…

@GeorgetownCPT @gabriellexgem @Slate @ucl 10/ Not exactly. Here’s who the raids *actually* swept up, according to Assistant Secretary of Labor Louis Post, who took the time to painstakingly go through the deportation hearings:

Immigrant workers.

(From the Congressional Record in 1920:)

@GeorgetownCPT @gabriellexgem @Slate @ucl 11/ Why did they get swept up?

Maybe it had to do with the young staffer co-leading the effort: None other than a 24-year-old J. Edgar Hoover, eager to try out a new databasing system he learned at the Library of Congress.

From Robert K. Murray’s Red Scare (1955):

@GeorgetownCPT @gabriellexgem @Slate @ucl 12/ The silver lining: People organized. Organizations got organized.

The *@ACLU* got organized in the ashes of this calamity. aclu.org/about/aclu-his…

@GeorgetownCPT @gabriellexgem @Slate @ucl 13/ The craziest part, though? *They never caught any of the bombers.*

That's another theme running through our research: The incompetence of worker surveillance. People think that surveilling workers… works. But, it often doesn’t. Often, it fails. Spectacularly.

@GeorgetownCPT @gabriellexgem @Slate @ucl 14/ In “Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?”, Dr. Seuss tells us about the town of Hawtch-Hawtch.

In Hawtch-Hawtch, the town bee isn’t working hard enough. So they put a Hawtch-Hawtcher on bee watch. Because: “A bee that is watched will work harder, you see.”

@GeorgetownCPT @gabriellexgem @Slate @ucl 15/ It… it doesn’t work.

@GeorgetownCPT @gabriellexgem @Slate @ucl 16/ This year’s #ColorofSurveillance conference is about life in Hawtch-Hawtch.

RSVP today (below), and follow @gabriellexgem and @GeorgetownCPT for speaker announcements, which we’re rolling out over the next few weeks.
eventbrite.com/e/the-color-of…