Computers and Surveillance Scandals in the 1960s-70s: Shielding the “Crown Jewel” of US Intelligence from Democratic Claims? (Hypothesis and narrative)

Félix Tréguer (1)

1 CERI - Centre de recherches internationales (Sciences Po, CNRS)

Faced with surveillance scandals that documented the growing use of computer technologies for state surveillance purposes, oversight reformers of the 1970s, who saw computers as a solution rather than a problem, downplayed the reality and risks entailed by these new technologies of surveillance, and left it outside of the new oversight mechanisms they put in place (or how the technocratic ethos of liberal reformer undermined democratic claims of more radical actors.

Keywords: scandals; computer technologies; surveillance

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; Political science

Félix Tréguer. Computers and Surveillance Scandals in the 1960s-70s: Shielding the “Crown Jewel” of US Intelligence from Democratic Claims? (Hypothesis and narrative). 2020. ⟨hal-03952774⟩