Race and National Security by Matiangai V. S. Sirleaf

Author:Matiangai V. S. Sirleaf
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2023-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Biometric-Enabled Warfare and Biometric Cybersurveillance as Experiment in Sociotechnical Control and Coercion

Sociotechnical inquiries consider the interplay between human and technological systems.65 This section of this chapter turns its attention to the sociotechnical and data colonizing questions raised by the U.S. military’s strategy of “identity dominance” in Afghanistan during its twenty-year military operation.66 The concept of identity dominance stems from a biometric-enabled warfare rationale: that national security dominance and control in counterinsurgency postures depends on fully transparent identities. Biometric-enabled warfare arguably is a technological outgrowth of a data colonialism mindset. At the earliest stages of biometric data colonialism, Afghanistan witnessed the universal beta testing of cybersurveillance tools through the attempted data colonization of the digitized bodies of almost the entire Afghan population.67

The embrace of biometric cybersurveillance technologies—widespread collection of scanned fingerprints and irises, facial images, and in some instances, DNA—allowed for the U.S. military to coordinate biometric collection and sharing among the military, criminal, and civil functioning of the Afghan government. Biometric surveillance tools should also be understood as racialized technologies with empirically disparate accuracy. “Biometric technologies ‘privilege [W]hiteness’ (Browne, 2015) with significantly higher margins of error when measuring or verifying ‘othered bodies’ whether in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, class, disability or age (Magnet, 2011).”68

The dependence of the U.S. military and other federal agencies on tech corporations has led to additional concerns of a merger between a military-surveillance and industrial-corporate colonizing project. In recent years, more attention has been given to the use of technology by the United States and other Western powers in humanitarian and military settings. Guided by concerns for national security and a desire to solve various social problems, national and international agencies often seek collaboration and support from private sector companies—allowing already complicated motivations to be further muddled by capitalist opportunity. A common criticism is that humanitarian aid can transform into a coercive dynamic—a means of cultivating dependence and recreating colonial relationships among the beneficiary countries.69 These theories are helpful for contextualizing the discussion, but do not give as weighty a focus to the explicit military relationships that are often interwoven with the humanitarian ones. Using elements of technocolonialism theory in the humanitarian sphere, we can apply a more explicit national security framework to consider the biometric data colonialism ambitions in Afghanistan.

Colonialism is marked by power imbalances and resource extraction.70 In civil conflict and humanitarian crises, the populations involved have an added layer of vulnerability. The United States, among other nations, researched a host of new applications of biometric technology in Afghanistan, purportedly for the ultimate benefit of the Afghan people. However, questions about risk, benefit, and consent remain unanswered. In conflicts like Afghanistan, the testing of new technology—biometric technology in particular—can be categorized as serving three distinct but overlapping themes: securitization, solutionism, and capitalism.

Considering securitization within a colonialist framework allows for keener interrogation of the consequences of biometric surveillance technology deployed first abroad and then stateside. During U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, biometric data and other data were collected with the aim to de-anonymize Taliban forces.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.