Intelligence agencies collecting email communications, anti-terrorism legislation, biometric technology, drones, building security in national capitals, scooping up citizensā personal metadata, emergency preparedness, sharing intelligence across agencies, cross-border maritime enforcement, state surveillance of Indigenous protest, and framing incidents as terrorism and national interests as security-related are the myriad practices of the vast, complex, growing realm of national security. Citizens are told national security practices in Western countries keep them safe, especially from terrorism, which the Australian prime minister, in his rhetorical response to November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, termed āthe work of the devilā (The Guardian 2015). But when probed further the level of safety claimed to be created by these complicated and apparently near divine national security practices more than occasionally turns out to be grossly overstated or inaccurate (e.g. Bronskill 2012; PCLOB 2014) and the practices themselves are revealed as decidedly mortal. It is precisely between the rhetoric and reality of these practices that we find the rightful place for scholarly study and this collection of 14 chapters. Such inquiry is essential if, as noted by various commentators (Petersen 2014; Oriola 2009; Wright 2009; Neocleous 2008), national security is now a key organising principle of government practices and everyday life in the twenty-first century.
Though the history of national security practices is imperative to explore (Hewitt 2002, 1998; Whitaker and Marcuse 1994), the complexity of national security in the early twenty-first century demands empirical research among criminologists, sociologists, political scientists, legal scholars, and others. Focusing on developments in only one country risks missing the similarities and differences that the comparative method provides and which promises to lend greater insight into the trajectories and dilemmas of comparators. Comparing national security practices, policies, and laws in two nations, National Security, Surveillance, and Terror: Canada and Australia in Comparative Perspective brings together leading scholars to investigate these issues and raise conceptual questions about the relationship among governments, police and security agencies, and citizens in these two major Western jurisdictions.
National security practices and the surveillance processes they often entail are legitimated through reference to terror policing, critical infrastructure protection, and border security (Walby and Lippert 2015; Warren 2015; Bell and Evans 2010; McCulloch and Pickering 2009; Aradau and van Munster 2009; Palmer and Whelan 2006; Lippert and OāConnor 2003). Resiliency testing and emergency preparedness planning are used to reorganise state practices and the relationship between state and citizens in profound ways (Henstra 2013). Indicative of the extent of these changes and the concerns they raise, the United Nationsā Special Rapporteur for counter-terrorism and human rights issued a formal report to the UN General Assembly on 15 October 2014 condemning mass surveillance as violating core privacy rights guaranteed by multiple treaties and conventions. This has direct implications for Canada and Australia, given the significant recalibration of rights and freedoms in relation to deployment of a host of new national security and related surveillance initiatives in both countries.
Our volume provides an analysis of national security and surveillance practices that are legitimated through references to terror policing. With a slate of chapters on national security, surveillance, and terror policing in Canada and Australia, the volume provides a comparative analysis that contributes significantly to international debates currently dominated by US and UK perspectives. Canada and Australia have been traditional comparators in other key realms such as refugee and immigration policy (Adelman et al. 1994) and local government (Brunet-Jailly and Martin 2010) due to similar characteristics and histories but not regarding the complex realms of national security and surveillance. This volume offers empirical investigations of national security practices in two major affluent, technologically advanced Western countries.
During the 1990s, critical scholarship about security cast a wide net, focusing not only on state agencies and national or federal issues, but also a wide range of local and non-state regulatory agencies (Gad and Petersen 2011). The examination of state security and surveillance took a backseat to inquiries into discrete, more localised, and diffused practices of power, especially in governmentality studies (Lippert and Walby 2016). However, 9/11 sparked a resurgence of interest in state surveillance as part of national security strategies and non-state agenciesā role in the provision of security services. The revival of a so-called global war on terror in 2014āand recent terror-related shootings in Canada and Australiaāhas made understanding these issues even more timely, as have the revelations of Edward Snowden on mass surveillance and its relation to national security across the West. On this point it should be made clear that national security is the primary organising concept of the volume and entails some strategies and processes that are not necessarily surveillance-related. As well, surveillance has applications that are not always related to national security or other forms of security. Yet, many chapters that follow in this volume reveal instances of the strong affinities security and surveillance have for one another, how they become realised, and their far-reaching effects.
Surveillance and terror policing are prominent themes in these events above and are key themes in this volume and in what is called surveillance studies (e.g. Monahan and Palmer 2009; Haggerty 2009). Indeed, earlier writings associated with surveillance studies (Higgs 2001; Dandeker 1990; Giddens 1981) proposed that the connection between national security and surveillance is profound and long-standing. Our contributors suggest surveillance should be studied as part of an analysis of power structures, political forces, and social relations. Surveillance is a crucial element of enhancing government security practices, as well as a challenge to civil liberties in both Canada and Australia. To date, the tensions among surveillance, protection, and government transparency are poorly understood in light of the diverse approaches to national security policy development and implementation. The idea of terror policing is often used as a framing device to legitimise legislation or extended policing and security powers, despite the fact that these legal developments almost always raise questions about the erosion of civil liberties and privacy in Commonwealth countries (Oriola 2009). Although the empirical contributions focus on one or the other country, they do not sacrifice depth of critical investigation. For these reasons, National Security, Surveillance, and Terror: Canada and Australia in Comparative Perspective is critical and wide-reaching with its focus on national security and terror policing.
National Security, Surveillance, and Terror also addresses how new varieties and practices of national security are reshaping conceptions of sovereignty in the two countries. In much previous scholarship, national security has been depicted as a matter for state agencies to address. However, private entities, such as commercialised mercenary forces, risk mitigation firms, and private security intelligence firms are now not only prominent providers of national security but increasingly operate across āprivateā and āpublicā lines. New cross-sectoral and cross-jurisdictional national security networks mean the reach of national security practices is expanded. Examination of the pluralisation of agencies responsible for expanded national security and surveillance is another feature of the volume.
Leffler (1990) has remarked that ā[e]very year scores of books and hundreds of articles appear on the topic of national securityā (143), yet there has been no edited volume on national security, surveillance, and terror policing comparing trends and developments in Canada and Australia. These two contexts have been obscured by near exclusive attention to national security practices in the USA and UK. While sometimes seen as distinct, this volume is among the first to draw together national security, surveillance, and terror policing domains and identify their affinities and overlap. To do so, it draws on multidisciplinary frameworks rather than only one or two disciplines. Many previous contributions in this area of study draw primarily from international relations theory (e.g. Katzenstein 1996; Mangold 1990), focus solely on national security in one country or region, and sometimes lack a critical assessment of associated state power, authority, and sovereignty (see Rubin et al. 2014).
Context
Previous contributions abou...