Dinner Table Discussion

Domestic Surveillance for Economic Well-Being in the United Kingdom

Carole Smith

The most commonly cited justification for government authorisation of intrusive surveillance operations, and the covert use of human intelligence sources, is that of national security.

The UK Government Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000 states alternative grounds for such authorisations, one of these being "in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom", a requirement which falls into a different ethical order from that of the already attenuated utilitarian argument of security which has resulted in the non-consensual (and non-acknowledged) use of citizens to develop technology for national security.

Carole Smith is a British psychoanalyst. In recent years she has been openly critical of government use of intrusive technology on non-consenting citizens for the development of methods of state control. Her papers include: "On the Need for New Criteria for the Diagnosis of Psychosis in the Light of Mind-Invasive Technology": Journal of Psycho-Social Studies, 2003. "A Repugnant Philosophy": a paper written for and presented at the Conference on State Regulation and Psychoanalysis, London, April 2006.

"Unfinished Business": a short story about a casualty of psychoanalysis, to be published by Karnac Books in 2006.