surveillance, total surveillance, sousveillance

privacy-neglectful, privacy-positive, secrecy-positive, total surveillance-compliant

cultural criminology, sensory criminology

automation, industrialisation

machines, humans

nudge theory, picture superiority effect, human agency

Terrorism aims to induce a very public fear into the masses via efficient and cost-effective acts of violent theatre. Neo-terrorism on the individual (NOI) involves terrorising concrete and discrete individuals over extended periods of time, via covert, stealthy and difficult-to-share life events, subliminally sensed experiences, and sociophysical relationships. Such relationships and exchanges, couched in the main in visual communication systems and modes, are challenging to detect and therefore properly give credence to, even for the objects themselves of such acts of neo-terrorism; but are nevertheless impactful on the individuals they are aimed at, in both their ultimate life and professional trajectories.

My name is Mil Williams. I have a recent MA in International Criminal Justice from Liverpool John Moores University, where I took a particular interest in UN law, crimes of the powerful, surveillance and sousveillance, and the repurposing of mental health legislation for criminal justice ends.

My dissertation discussed the relationship between the modern British state and surveillance understood in its widest sense.

The four end-goals of the PhD research proposed today are:

1. to develop a body of thought and praxis which supports those who have policing responsibilities across Britain and the EU, in order that they may ultimately incorporate what this author has been recently describing as neo-terrorism on the individual (NOI) – ie cyber-bullying in the age of AI which serves to connect intimately the virtual and real worlds, to the clear detriment of sovereign subjects and their democracies – as a legal figure in legislations across the Continent, and ultimately globally.

2. alongside the above goal, gain intellectual and financial support for developing not only the still nascent philosophies of intuitive-thought capture, evidencing, and validating, but also the software tools and platforms themselves which would deliver such possiblities.

3. with such tools to hand, and where legally evidenced and correctly validated, institute in the UK and the EU, and as a guiding principle at UN level, the legal figure of neo-terrorism on the individual as something properly detectable and punishable by law.

4. assuming that in order for such a case to be made to a change in the law, the relevant software tools would also first need to be developed and tested, this then would form a key part of the proposed PhD research programme.

In the light of the authorities and starting-points already quoted:

1. It is assumed that neoliberalism is a fact, and exists, and has since the 1970s impacted on living standards, government policy, criminal justice, mental health, education, and security.

2. It is assumed that neoliberalism does not need to be a de facto conspiracy for its impact on societies’ structures to deliver the same effect as if conspiracywere the structure used to implement it.

3. It is assumed that left-wing actors in particular were brought up, after Marx and social democracy more generally, to believe in a slow but sure progression towards what they saw as a better world. History turned not so much on events and individuals as on movements.

4. It is assumed that far-right actors in particular have never forgotten the lessons of key individuals, their lives and deaths, and their speeches and concrete actions in the making of societies’ dynamics.

5. It is assumed in all this, as a result, that it is more likely for neo-terrorism on the individual as defined above to be a tool for toxic impact on democratic societies, rather than for unpredictably benevolent effects. It would be appropriate to mention, in this respect, the recent data scandals with respect to Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, the Brexit Leave campaign, and the alleged Russian online intervention in free and democratic process in the US and elsewhere.

6. It is assumed that the most effective kind of mass terrorism combines technology with real-world effects. And similarly, it is therefore also assumed that neo-terrorism on the individual would act no differently.

This author proposes building on the ethnography used in his MA dissertation on surveillance & sousveillance and the 21st century state. The second half of the proposed PhD experimental procedures would use intuition-capture tools and software platforms specifically developed to this end, whose outcomes would be validated using AI (deep neural networks), also designed and developed to this same end. It is suggested that the same partners who have already worked together on a Defence and Security Accelerator submission for situational awareness software (to easily, inclusively and efficiently capture the feelings rail passengers have when they see something that makes them uneasy), all three including the author located already in Liverpool, would work in collaboration with an interested and academically relevant University to create the software proposed. The overall three stages and process of the PhD are suggested to stand as follows:

1. Properly evidence, firstly, that multiple networks are communicating visually, and using other means, to prioritise their own internal agendas over those of properly constituted and functioning Western liberal democracies, by influencing covertly how citizens behave, see and understand the environments around them.

2. Develop, test and validate the software tools which would allow all citizens – some of whom may already perceive what is happening to them but currently find it difficult to evidence or validate their own perceptions to the necessary satisfaction of criminal justice systems – to both capture, evidence, share, store & retrieve, and finally validate their beliefs about the criminality and neo-terrorisms they are being subjected to.

3. Achieve that the UK, the EU, and the UN eventually incorporate the figure of neo-terrorism on the individual in their legislations, charters, etc., as well as accepting the admissibility in such systems of the evidence produced by the tools and procedures.

Particular reference- and starting-points for the research will look to Edward Snowden’s 2013 paradigmatic revelations into total surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA), the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Western and other countries’ tech companies, and other organisations both governmental and a-governmental, published by newspapers such as the UK Guardian ; Oliver James’ assertions on selfish capitalism and mental health in English-speaking countries compared to other cultures, from his book The Selfish Capitalist – Origins of Affluenza (2008); Emma Bell’s writings on neoliberalism and the impact it has had on the criminal justice systems in Western liberal democracies in her publication Criminal Justice and Neoliberalism (2011); Colin Crouch’s writings on neoliberalism’s impact on Western liberal democracies and economies more generally, in his Fabian pamphlet Coping with Post-Democracy (2001); and Pablo Torija’s econometric study on voting and representational patterns across the political spectrum in OECD countries since the 1970s, Do Politicians Serve the One Percent? Evidence in OECD Countries (2013).

Please see the PDFs linked to below. The first is the original text version from around 2018 of this proposal.

The second is the latest, updated slide-deck presentation of the above.

The third is a diary of lived experiences which I sensed from 2002 onwards, when I worked for six months on the website #openofficeorg as a volunteer HTML coder and related.

The fourth is a paper I wrote whilst studying an MA in International Criminal Justice in 2017.

Finally, follow-up videos which represent intervening research of my own can be seen at the foot of this page.

These are also available at the #phd2529 Background Review page, with other framing links and materials.