Security and Surveillance

Chris Batiste-Boykin recently graduated from the University of San Francisco with dual JD and MBA degrees in May 2016. Chris also holds a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in African-American Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. The purpose of this paper was to investigate how technology will shape the law in the coming future especially in light of data collection, automation, algorithms, surveillance techniques and other technological advancements that shape how we interact with each other. As legal scholarship, it investigates a common data collection practice and proposes how judges may gain a deeper understanding of the law that protects long standing values within society, to apply to technology regardless of our ability to use technology to do, say, think, act, move, faster, with more impact than ever before.

Dynamically changing background ("dynamic background") still presents a great challenge to many motion-based video surveillance systems. In the context of event detection, it is a major source of false alarms. There is a strong need from the security industry either to detect and suppress these false alarms, or dampen the effects of background changes, so as to increase the sensitivity to meaningful events of interest. In this paper, we restrict our focus to one of the most common causes of dynamic background changes: that of swaying tree branches and their shadows under windy conditions. Considering the ultimate goal in a video analytics pipeline, we formulate a new dynamic background detection problem as a signal processing alternative to the previously described but unreliable computer vision-based approaches. Within this new framework, we directly reduce the number of false alarms by testing if the detected events are due to characteristic background motions. In addition, we introduce a new dataset suitable for the evaluation of dynamic background detection. It consists of real-world events detected by a commercial surveillance system from two static surveillance cameras. The research question we address is whether dynamic background can be detected reliably and efficiently using simple motion features and in the presence of similar but meaningful events such as loitering. Inspired by the tree aerodynamics theory, we propose a novel method named local variation persistence (LVP), that captures the key characteristics of swaying motions. The method is posed as a convex optimization problem whose variable is the local variation. We derive a computationally efficient algorithm for solving the optimization problem, the solution of which is then used to form a powerful detection statistic. On our newly collected dataset, we demonstrate that the proposed LVP achieves excellent detection results and outperforms the best alternative adapted from existing art in the dynamic background literature.

We would like to invite you to join this exciting new project as a chapter contributor. Since this is a textbook, a great deal of this chapter entails a survey on the topic under the paradigm of cyber-physical systems, what can be done onboard and remotely, the distributed nature of the system and some exercises on futurology (anticipating trends can shed some light on upcoming designs). IET will bring great visibility to your work. You are welcome to suggest another topic/chapter title if you feel it would be more suitable. Each chapter should be around 20-25 pages each and can be submitted as a Word or Latex File. The IET will send you additional information (formatting, permission form, etc.) with the contributor's agreement once you have agreed to contribute to the book. Visit http:// www.theiet.org/resources/author-hub/books/index.cfm to get all information you need as a contributor to an IET research-level book. Each book is expected to have a total number of 500 printed pages (based on approximately 550 words per page with a 20% allowance for figures and tables). We have included a tentative schedule and list of topics below. If this is something you would consider, please send me the title of your chapter, a short description/abstract of the chapter content, and your full contact details. We will expect original content and new results for this book. You can, of course, reuse published material but the percentage of material reuse for the chapter should be less than 40%. The IET will run a piracy software on the full manuscript to control that you are including original material and will reject chapters who contain a large amount of already-published material so please do take this into consideration.

This contribution asks how the reliance on mass dataveillance of travellers is sustained as a central policy option in the governance of EU border security. It examines this question by analysing a recent initiative of the European Commission proposing the establishment of EU ‘smart borders’. The analysis draws from a set of thinking tools developed by the sociology of association in the field of science and technology studies. The contribution argues that in order to grasp policy outcomes such as smart borders, security would benefit from adopting a compositional outlook on agency, where action is seen as the effect of associated entities. Looking at the smartening of EU borders, the piece finds that this process is held together by multiple translations and enrolments through which the technical side of dataveillance – platforms, automated gates, matching systems and so forth – has become associated to the processes of policymaking on border security, and sustains the furtherance of mass dataveillance.

Video surveillance systems are currently undergoing a transition from traditional analog solutions to digital solutions. This paper will discuss how to implement a digital video surveillance system over internet protocol (IP), using Arduino Mega Board with ATMEGA2560 microcontroller, and IR sensor module for movement detection and 5v relay module as an actuator for AC power IP camera, and GSM module is used to send an alert message to supervisor indicating movement detection and camera activation event, the system is fully implemented and expected results are successfully achieved.

Our aim is to estimate the perspective-effected geometric distortion of a scene from a video feed. In contrast to most related previous work, in this task we are constrained to using low-level, spatio-temporally local motion features only. This particular challenge arises in many semi-automatic surveillance systems which alert a human operator to potential abnormalities in the scene. Low-level, spatio-temporally local motion features are sparse (and thus require comparatively little storage space) and sufficiently powerful in the context of video abnormality detection to reduce the need for human intervention by more than 100-fold. This paper introduces three significant contributions: (i) we describe a dense algorithm for perspective estimation which uses motion features to estimate the perspective distortion at each image locus and then polls all such local estimates to arrive at the globally best estimate, (ii) we also present an alternative coarse algorithm which subdivides the image frame into blocks, and uses motion features to derive block-specific motion characteristics and constrain the relationships between these characteristics, with the perspective estimate emerging as a result of a global optimization scheme, and (iii) we report the results of an evaluation using nine large sets acquired using existing close-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, not installed specifically for the purposes of this work. Our findings demonstrate that both of the proposed methods are successful, their accuracy matching that of human labelling using complete visual data (by the constraints of the setup unavailable to our algorithms).

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

The global threat posed by the corona virus is transforming mobile media and its software applications into state-organized surveillance technologies. How will Covid-19 change the digital world we live in? Is Covid-19 initiating an authoritarian framing of individual and collective activities? Why the push media will rule the digital world.
Die globale Bedrohung durch das Corona-Virus verwandelt mobile Medien und ihre Software-Applikationen in staatlich organisierte Überwachungstechnologien. Wie wird Covid-19 die digitale Welt, in der wir leben, verändern? Wird mit Covid-19 ein autoritäres Framing von digitalen Kontrollmedien eingeleitet? Erobern Push-Medien die Herrschaft im digitalen Raum?

This book deals with the formation of state surveillance and the emergence of institutionalized political policing in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Little has been written on this early formative period for the British security state, which began in earnest as a response to the Fenian dynamite campaign of the 1880s. Based on newly declassified documents, Solomon weaves together separate narrative threads which converge to paint a complex picture of the institutional innovations and personal rivalries that produced Britain's first national political police. The interactions between high-ranking bureaucrats, policemen and politicians reveal how often conflicting ideas on controlling organized radicalism coalesced into a unified counter-subversive strategy. Stressing the distinctness of the early British model of political policing, the narrative goes past the confines of a scholarly account by using source material to flesh out multidimensional characters, ranging from choleric Home Secretaries to remorseful anarchist double agents embroiled in a high-stakes and often unscrupulous combination of espionage, collusion and betrayal.

China’s Social Credit System (SCS) has captured the imagination and power of big data technology. Launched at the national level in 2014, the system’s aim is to assess the trustworthiness of Chinese citizens in keeping their promises and complying with legal rules, moral norms, and professional and ethical standards. It is essentially a collaborative project between the authorities and the business sectors to rate both individuals and other entities. In certain contexts, each individual will be given a social credit score or rank. Despite the claimed good will to curb escalating dishonesty across societal sectors in China, the worry is that the totality of individuals’ lives will be captured, that citizens will be monitored and that the Orwellian state will become a reality. Individuals risk being reduced to transparent selves before the state in this uneven battle. They are uncertain about what contributes to their social credit scores, how those scores are combined with the state system, and how their data is interpreted and used. In short, the big data-driven SCS is confronting Chinese citizens with major challenges to their privacy and personal data, amongst other interests critical to them.

This article first maps out the background to the construction of China’s big data social laboratory and the SCS, and then summarises the legislative history and evolving concept of social credit. It stresses that apart from the conspicuous SCS policy document introduced by the Chinese central government, pilot legislation has already been implemented at the local levels to regulate the collection and processing of social credit data. The third part critically reviews such local legislation (which often uses the term ‘public credit information’) with reference to personal data protection principles. It also highlights the restrictions on the data subjects’ rights that are placed by the uncoordinated legal framework of personal data and the extra-legal regime of personal archive. It argues that existing legislation and proposed regulations require substantial revisions to mitigate the impacts of the SCS on data privacy. This article hopes to lay the groundwork for further legal study related to social credit and big data in China.

Phronetic organizational research is an approach to the study of management and organizations focusing on ethics and power. It is based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, usually as ‘prudence’. Phronesis is the ability to think and act in relation to values, to deliberate about ‘things that are good or bad for humans’ in the words of Aristotle (1976:1140a24–b12). Phronetic organizational research effectively provides answers to the following four value-rational questions, for specific problematics in management and organization studies: 1. Where are we going with this specific management problematic? 2. Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? 3. Is this development desirable? 4. What, if anything, should we do about it?

The Aalborg Project may be interpreted as a metaphor of modern politics, modern administration and planning, and of modernity itself. The basic idea of the project was comprehensive, coherent, and innovative, and it was based on rational and democratic argument. During implementation, however, when idea met reality, the play of Machiavellian princes, Nietzschean will to power, and Foucauldian rationality-as-rationalization resulted in the fragmentation of the project.

This volume examines the ethical issues that arise as a result of national security intelligence collection and analysis. Powerful new technologies enable the collection, communication and analysis of national security data on an unprecedented scale. Data collection now plays a central role in intelligence practice, yet this development raises a host of ethical and national security problems, such as privacy; autonomy; threats to national security and democracy by foreign states; and accountability for liberal democracies. This volume provides a comprehensive set of in-depth ethical analyses of these problems by combining contributions from both ethics scholars and intelligence practitioners. It provides the reader with a practical understanding of relevant operations, the issues that they raise and analysis of how responses to these issues can be informed by a commitment to liberal democratic values. This combination of perspectives is crucial in providing an informed appreciation of ethical challenges that is also grounded in the realities of the practice of intelligence. This book will be of great interest to all students of intelligence studies, ethics, security studies, foreign policy and international relations.

Le tecnologie di riconoscimento facciale consentono di identificare una persona a partire dall’immagine del volto. Grazie alla combinazione di tecniche biometriche e procedimenti algoritmici, queste tecnologie offrono potenzialità uniche a beneficio di autorità pubbliche e soggetti privati. Tramite esse – basti pensare – è possibile risalire alle generalità e alle caratteristiche di una persona che si trova a grande distanza o in movimento, a prescindere da qualsiasi volontà cooperativa. L’impiego di questi strumenti è sempre più diffuso e pervasivo, per finalità quali la repressione di illeciti, la garanzia della sicurezza, l’erogazione di servizi, o per motivi economici e commerciali.
Queste tecnologie, allo stesso tempo, aprono a nuove forme di sorveglianza di massa; conferiscono un potere inedito di tracciamento, di profilazione e di controllo sulle persone; possono originare insidiosi fenomeni di discriminazione. Non è un caso che numerosi Stati, istituzioni come l’Unione Europea e il Consiglio d’Europa, o le stesse imprese private stiano discutendo su una possibile moratoria all’impiego di questi strumenti per determinati scopi.
Nel quadro di queste sfide, il presente Volume intende aprire una nuova riflessione sulle tecnologie di riconoscimento facciale nella prospettiva del diritto costituzionale. L’analisi, in particolare, si pone l’obiettivo di esplorare la capacità di questi sistemi tecnologici di incidere trasversalmente su una pluralità di libertà e di diritti fondamentali, a scapito dei singoli o di interi gruppi sociali. L’indagine vuole offrire un contributo per comprendere le potenzialità, i limiti e i possibili sviluppi della normativa giuridica attualmente vigente, allo scopo di verificare in che termini il diritto possa porre un argine efficace contro questa capacità invasiva e consentire così di beneficiare a pieno di questi strumenti. Con ciò, i legislatori nazionali ed europei sono chiamati ad uno sforzo di ripensamento tanto delle tecniche quanto dei contenuti della regolazione, soprattutto per riconfigurare le modalità di tutela stessa di alcuni diritti fondamentali e la disciplina di tecnologie innovative come quelle in discussione.

At the same time that case studies are widely used and have produced canonical texts, it may be observed that the case study as a methodology is generally held in low regard, or is simply ignored, within the academy. For example, only 2 of the 30 top-ranked U.S. graduate programs in political science require a dedicated graduate course in case study or qualitative methods, and a full third of these programs do not even offer such a course. In contrast, all of the top 30 programs offer courses in quantitative methods and almost all of them require training in such methods, often several courses. In identifying this paradox of the case study’s wide use and low regard, Gerring rightly remarks that the case study survives in a “curious methodological limbo,” and that the reason is that the method is poorly understood. In what follows, we will try to resolve Gerring’s paradox and help case study research gain wider use and acceptance.

Ausstellungskatalog zur gleichnamigen Ausstellung für die Kunstbibliothek im Museum für Fotografie Berlin

Exhibition catalogue to the exhibition curated for for the Kunstbibliothek at the Museum für Fotografie Berlin

Überwachung ist nicht nur ein aktuelles Thema, sondern auch ein historisches Phänomen. Dieser Ausstellungskatalog präsentiert eine Genealogie des überwachenden Blicks.
Vor dem apparativen Auge der Kamera, das heutzutage allgegenwärtig ist, haben andere „Augen“ Menschen überwacht. In der Epoche der Aufklärung symbolisierte das Auge der Vernunft eine selbstüberwachende Idee. Derzeit wurden Staat und Gesetz mit einem allsehenden Auge identifiziert. Den ikonografischen Ursprung hierzu bildet das religiöse Symbol vom Auge Gottes. Dieses „Auge“, das alle Aktionen und Gedanken eines Christen erfasst, übte, als unsichtbare Instanz, eine mächtige Wirkung auf den Gläubigen aus. Sei es Gott, Staat oder Technik – konstant bei dieser Genealogie bleibt der psychologische Druck einer unüberprüfbar höheren Instanz.
Der Titel geht auf einem anonymen Holzschnitt aus dem Jahr 1546 zurück. Aus einer entfernten Vergangenheit sendet dieses Bild die Botschaft: „Vorsicht, Ihr werden gesehen, gehört!“.

Özet
Kapalı Devre Televizyon Sistemleri (KDTS), görüntü, kayıt sistemleri, trafik düzenine yönelik gelişen teknolojik akıllı sistemler ve bunların birbirleriyle uyumu yıllar içerisinde gelişerek günümüz polisliğinde Kent Güvenlik Yönetim Sistemi (KGYS) adı ve anlayışıyla kurumsallaşmıştır. Bu kapsamda bu çalışma ülkemizde Bemtap, MOBESE ve farklı kent güvenlik anlayışlarımızın dünya güvenlik sistemlerinin de etkisiyle geliştirdiği Kent Güvenlik Yönetim Sistemi anlayışını ana hatlarıyla anlatılmaktadır. KGYS bünyesinde yer alan bütünleşik sistemleri ve birbirleriyle olan ilişkileri kısaca açıklamaktadır. Bu amaca yönelik olarak yazarlarca Ankara KGYS, İngiltere Birmingham ve Londra River side KGYS kontrol odaları ziyaret edilerek incelenmiş ve yetkilileriyle yüz yüze mülakatlar yapılmıştır. Bu çalışmada Türkçe ve İngilizce literatür taranmakta; ülkemizdeki uygulamalar örnek yönleri itibariyle ele alınmakta, İzmir ve Konya KGYS yöneticileriyle görüşülerek güncellenmiş tespitler sunulmaktadır. Bu çalışma özetle KGYS kavramını, avantaj - dezavantajlarını, yurt içi-dışı uygulamalarını, halk algısını, hukuki boyutunu ve eleştirilen yönlerini araştırmalar çerçevesinde ele almakta; KGYS üzerine edinilmiş değerlendirme ve tavsiyelerle sonuçlanmaktadır. Bu çalışmayla güvenlik yöneticilerinin KGYS anlayışlarının gelişimine katkı sağlanması amaçlanmakta ve böylelikle üretilen güvenlik hizmet
kalitesinin yükseltilmesi hedeflenmektedir.


ALINTILAMA ÖNERİSİ
Kün, Ü.; Bayram, L. ve Özhan, M.Z. (2014), Kent Güvenlik Yönetim Sistemleri,  Harmancı, F. M; Gözübenli, M. ve Zengin, C. (Ed.),"Güvenlik Sektöründe Temel Stratejiler" içinde (s.243-276). Nobel Yayınevi, ISBN:978-605-133-960-3

BİR BÖLÜMÜ BURADA YER ALAN KİTABIN TAMAMINA AŞAĞIDAKİ LİNKLERDENULAŞABİLİRSİNİZ
https://www.academia.edu/43834170/G%C3%BCvenlik_Sekt%C3%B6r%C3%BCnde_Temel_Stratejiler
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/294836329_Guvenlik_Sektorunde_Temel_Stratejiler

On 21 March 2011 President José Manuel Barroso requested the EGE to draft an Opinion on the ethical implications of information and communication technologies and to produce, subsequently and separately, an Opinion on the ethical implications of security technologies, with due attention given to the development of security technologies and to surveillance technologies. The EGE has provided the Commission with its Opinion on Ethics of Information and Communication Technologies on 22 February 2012. It also drafted an Opinion on Research, Production and Use of Energy that was published on the 16th January 2013, in response to an intervening request from the President of the Commission. The present Opinion addresses the issues of security and surveillance technologies from an ethical perspective. As the group prepared the re- port, the revelations of Edward Snowden emphasised how important a reorganisation and reinterpretation of our approach to security and surveillance is. Indeed the predicament of data flows and surveillance activities thrown into sharp relief by these revelations form part of the evolving backdrop against which this Opinion is set.

National security is the responsibility of the Member States, but the Lisbon Treaty, and particularly the Charter of Fundamental Rights embedded in it provides for action by the Union where necessary to protect the rights of individual citizens. In addition, the EU shares competence with member states as regards the internal security of the Union and has established an Internal Security Strategy to identify and coordinate action against common threats. In this opinion we address the manner in which surveillance has been enhanced due to the availability of new technologies and the means to record and analyse and retain vast amounts of data provided by advances in information and communication technologies.

While national security or state security paradigms pertain to a state’s ability to defend itself against external threats, the notion of human security holds that the referent for security is the individual rather than the state. This is to be considered against the backdrop of the forms of security expected from the Westphalian nation-state (46) (with the social contract on which it is premised calling upon the state to ensure the security of its citizens) and against the backdrop of an increasing technologically mediated attention to border control as well as to the ‘enemy within’.

Security procedures lie within the compass of the State that in addition may procure services from national or international companies to provide the facilities for collection and management of information that the security services require. Information gathered about individuals or organisations may then be held either by the State, where democratic accountability ought to exist, or by private entities where the conditions for handling sensitive material may not be in the public domain and may possibly be retained or may not only be used for the purposes of a particular State. The Opinion addresses the principles by which these forms of surveillance should be governed.

In addition, surveillance of the public by companies or by other individuals should be subject to conditions, and again, the opinion addresses the principles that govern these forms of ‘commercial’ or individual surveillance, and the manner in which the data so gathered may be used as part of a data mining or profiling system by private entities or the state.

The digital revolution and subsequent advances in mobile, wireless and networked devices have significantly contributed to the development of security and surveillance technologies. New technologies offer the possibility of recording the everyday activities of billions of individuals across the globe. Our mobile phones can identify and pinpoint our location at any given moment, loyalty cards allow commercial entities to analyse our spending and track our personal preferences, keystroke software monitors our performance and productivity in the workplace and our electronic communications can be screened for key words or phrases by intelligence services. Moreover, personal data concerning our health, employment, travel and electronic communications are stored in databases, and data mining techniques allow for large amounts of personal data from these disparate sources to be organised and analysed, thereby facilitating the discovery of previously unknown relationships within these data. Security technologies are no longer discrete; the
trend is toward convergence, creating more powerful networked systems. Thus, our everyday lives are scrutinised by many actors as never before, all made possible by developments in technology together with political choices or lack thereof.

In this paper we argue that the use of the communicative theory of Jürgen Habermas in planning theory is problematic because it hampers an understanding of how power shapes planning. We posit an alternative approach based on the power analytics of Michel Foucault which focuses on ‘what is actually done’, as opposed to Habermas’s focus on ‘what should be done’. We discuss how the Foucauldian stance problematises planning, asking difficult questions about the treatment of legitimacy, rationality, knowledge and spatiality. We conclude that Foucault offers a type of analytic planning theory which offers better prospects than does Habermas for those interested in understanding and bringing about democratic social change through planning.

From ubiquitous surveillance to drone strikes that put “warheads onto foreheads,” we live in a world of globalized, individualized targeting. The perils are great. In The Eye of War, Antoine Bousquet provides both a sweeping historical overview of military perception technologies and a disquieting lens on a world that is, increasingly, one in which anything or anyone that can be perceived can be destroyed—in which to see is to destroy.

Arguing that modern-day global targeting is dissolving the conventionally bounded spaces of armed conflict, Bousquet shows that over several centuries, a logistical order of militarized perception has come into ascendancy, bringing perception and annihilation into ever-closer alignment. The efforts deployed to evade this deadly visibility have correspondingly intensified, yielding practices of radical concealment that presage a wholesale disappearance of the customary space of the battlefield. Beginning with the Renaissance’s fateful discovery of linear perspective, The Eye of War discloses the entanglement of the sciences and techniques of perception, representation, and localization in the modern era amid the perpetual quest for military superiority. In a survey that ranges from the telescope, aerial photograph, and gridded map to radar, digital imaging, and the geographic information system, Bousquet shows how successive technological systems have profoundly shaped the history of warfare and the experience of soldiering.

A work of grand historical sweep and remarkable analytical power, The Eye of War explores the implications of militarized perception for the character of war in the twenty-first century and the place of human subjects within its increasingly technical armature.

Dystopian literature is considered a branch of science fiction which writers use to portray a futuristic dark vision of the world, generally dominated by technology and a totalitarian ruling government that makes use of whatever means it finds necessary to exert a complete control over its citizens. George Orwell’s 1984 (1949) is considered a landmark of the dystopian genre: it portrays a futuristic where a totalitarian, fascist party rules London aiming to keep its citizens under their complete control. This paper will take two examples of contemporary dystopian literature, Philip K. Dick’s “Faith of Our Fathers” (1967) and Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta (1982-1985), in order to closely analyze the influence that Orwell’s dystopia played in their construction. It will focus on how these two works took Orwellian vision of a totalitarian state, the different methods of control it employs to keep citizens under complete control and submission, and how they introduce them into their stories.

KEYWORDS: Orwell, V for Vendetta, Faith of Our Fathers, social control, manipulation, submission.



La ciencia ficción es uno de los géneros cuye auge se encuentra al alza hoy en día. De entre sus diversas ramificaciones, la literatura distópica es una de las más usadas por los escritores para proyectar una visión del mundo oscura y futurista, dominado por la tecnología y caracterizada por un gobierno totalitario que hace uso de todos los medios que encuentra necesarios para ejercer un control total sobre sus ciudadanos. La novela de George Orwell 1984 (1949) es considerada un hito del género distópico: en ella, Orwell retrata un Londres futurista, gobernado por un partido fascista y totalitario, cuyo mero objetivo es el control total sobre sus ciudadanos. El objetivo de este ensayo es analizar dos ejemplos de la literatura distópica contemporánea, por un lado "La Fe de Nuestros Padres" (1967) de Philip K. Dick, así como la novela gráfica de Alan Moore  V de Vendetta (1982-1985), con el objetivo de estudiar la influencia que el modelo distópico de Orwell desempeñó en la construcción de las distopías anteriormente mencionadas. De igual modo, este ensayo se centrará en cómo estas dos obras tomaron las representaciones de Orwell de un estado totalitario, los diferentes métodos de control que éste emplea para mantener a sus ciudadanos bajo un estado de absoluta sumisión y control, y cómo plasmaron éstas representaciones en sus respectivas obras.

PALABRAS CLAVE: Orwell, V de Vendetta, La Fe de Nuestros Padres, control social, manipulación, sometimiento.

This article presents results from the first statistically significant study of cost escalation in transportation infrastructure projects. Based on a sample of 258 transportation infrastructure projects worth US$90 billion and representing different project types, geographical regions, and historical periods, it is found with overwhelming statistical significance that the cost estimates used to decide whether such projects should be built are highly and systematically misleading. Underestimation cannot be explained by error and is best explained by strategic misrepresentation, that is, lying. The policy implications are clear: legislators, administrators, investors, media representatives, and members of the public who value honest numbers should not trust cost estimates and cost-benefit analyses produced by project promoters and their analysts.

This article presents the theoretical and methodological considerations behind a research method which the author calls ‘phronetic planning research’. Such research sets out to answer four questions of power and values for specific instances of planning: (1) Where are we going with planning? (2) Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What, if anything, should we do about it? A central task of phronetic planning research is to provide concrete examples and detailed narratives of the ways in which power and values work in planning and with what consequences to whom, and to suggest how relations of power and values could be changed to work with other consequences. Insofar as planning situations become clear, they are clarified by detailed stories of who is doing what to whom. Clarifications of that kind are a principal concern for phronetic planning research and provide the main link to praxis.

Back cover text: If the new fin de siècle marks a recurrence of the real, Bent Flyvbjerg’s Rationality and Power epitomizes that development and sets new standards for social and political inquiry. The Danish town of Aalborg is to Flyvbjerg what Florence was to Machiavelli: a laboratory for understanding the real workings of power, and for grasping what they mean to our more general concerns of social and political organization. Politics, administration, and planning are examined in ways that allow  a rare, in-depth understanding. The reader witnesses, firsthand, the classic and endless drama which defines what modernity and democracy are and can be.

Back cover text: Megaprojects and Risk provides the first detailed examination of the phenomenon of megaprojects. It is a fascinating account of how the promoters of multi-billion dollar megaprojects systematically and self-servingly misinform parliaments, the public and the media in order to get projects approved and built. It shows, in unusual depth, how the formula for approval is an unhealthy cocktail of underestimated costs, overestimated revenues, undervalued environmental impacts and overvalued economic development effects. This results in projects that are extremely risky, but where the risk is concealed from MPs, taxpayers and investors. The authors not only explore the problems but also suggest practical solutions drawing on theory, experience and hard, scientific evidence from the several hundred projects in twenty nations and five continents that illustrate the book. Accessibly written, it will be the standard reference for students, scholars, planners, economists, auditors, politicians and interested citizens for many years to come.

Com o desenvolvimento de novas tecnologias de comunicação, processamento e gerenciamento de dados, cada vez mais o acesso privilegiado à informação torna-se central para as estratégias de segurança pública e internacional. Um exemplo disso são os Drones, cuja capacidade de coleta massiva de dados, e associação à técnicas de perfilização geográfica, tem autorizado assassinatos extrajudiciais
no exterior. De modo semelhante, o governo do estado de São Paulo tem implementado um sistema de vigilância que potencialmente permite prisões e autuações antecipativas. Nosso objetivo apresentar a ascensão desse novo tipo de paradigma militar e de segurança pública, que provisoriamente podemos definir como “segurança preditiva”. Debateremos algumas hipóteses de problematização desse dispositivo
forma de governamentalidade, à luz dos Estudos de Vigilância, dos Estudos sociais da Ciência e da Tecnologia e em certa medida da Sociologia da Punição. Assim, a tônica geral da nossa problematização é que esse dispositivo de “segurança” se orienta a legitimar práticas excessivas em ambientes de guerra, e em contextos urbanos da guerra global ao terror. No entanto, como concluiremos, um estudo mais
detalhado exigirá a compreensão de como se estruturam os algoritmos que sustentam esse dispositivo e práticas.

The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequences are cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the systematic underestimation of risks. Third, implications for cost–benefit analysis are described, including that such analysis is not to be trusted for major infrastructure projects. Fourth, the article uncovers the causes of this state of affairs in terms of perverse incentives that encourage promoters to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits in the business cases for their projects. But the projects that are made to look best on paper are the projects that amass the highest cost overruns and benefit shortfalls in reality. The article depicts this situation as ‘survival of the unfittest’. Fifth, the article sets out to explain how the problem may be solved, with a view to arriving at more efficient and more democratic projects, and avoiding the scandals that often accompany major infrastructure investments. Finally, the article identifies current trends in major infrastructure development. It is argued that a rapid increase in stimulus spending, combined with more investments in emerging economies, combined with more spending on information technology is catapulting infrastructure investment from the frying pan into the fire.

In October 2009, the city of Rio de Janeiro was announced the host of the XXXI Olympic Games. The news came as surprise to many commentators which have previously placed the city as the underdog amidst more high-profile bids, but for those involved with the Brazilian bid the award was the culmination of a project initiated sixteen years earlier. During this period Rio de Janeiro's mega-event strategy evolved through failed Olympic bids, the hosting of the Pan American Games and the mobilisation of expert knowledge from former hosts and bid committees. However, despite the cumulative learning and the relational nature of the project a more nuanced perspective indicates how the strategy was part and parcel of a marked change in local urban politics, appreciated for the ability to leverage funding and accelerate urban development. This study reviews the pre-award years and its aftermath in order to document and interrogate the contested development of Rio mega-event strategy and examine the emerging geography of the city of the 2016 Games.

This article provides an answer to what has been called the biggest problem in theorizing and understanding planning: the ambivalence about power found among planning researchers, theorists, and students. The author narrates how he came to work with issues of power and gives an example of how the methodology he developed for power studies—phronetic planning research—may be employed in practice. Phronetic planning research follows the tradition of power studies running from Machiavelli and Nietzsche to Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. It focuses on four value-rational questions: (1) Where are we going with planning? (2) Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What should be done? These questions are exemplified for a specific instance of Scandinavian urban planning. The author finds that the questions, and their answers, make a difference to planning in practice. They make planning research matter.

A number of scholars have written about the role of globalisation in the development of sport in national and local contexts (cf. Bale & Maguire, 1994; Bale & Sang, 1996; Maguire, 1994; 1999). These studies clearly demonstrate that there is a global sports market and economy that is dominated by major events such as Olympic Games, the World Cups of soccer, rugby and cricket, the IAAF World Championships and by major national leagues in leading sports. These events draw competitors and tourists from all over the world and pit cities and nations against each other in bidding processes to host events that are broadcast to global audiences (Macintosh & Whitson, 1993). What these studies do not do is explore the nexus between sporting hallmark events and representations of local cultures in touristic presentations to the international community. This paper seeks to examine the links between tourism, sport and representation through a case study of South Africa in the 1990s.

During the past three decades sport has assumed an ever greater role within the globalisation process and in the regeneration of national, regional and local identities in the postcolonial and global age. With much of global culture displayed by the media, events, particularly significant sporting ones such as the Olympic Games or the soccer World Cup, have become highly sought after commodities as developed countries, and increasingly some leading developing countries, move towards event-driven economies. In the process, however, many countries are left behind without the necessary infrastructure or visibility to compete successfully. Furthermore, the process of displaying a culture in the lead-up to an event and during the event itself has had to focus on ready-made markets, thus reinforcing stereotypes about a place and its people. This paper discusses the paradoxes and inequalities brought on by the sport-media-tourism complex that drives the emphasis on global sporting events.

As megaprojects have become ubiquitous, their real benefits and costs have come under increased scrutiny. We interviewed Bent Flyvbjerg, who has extensively studied megaproject development. Flyvbjerg has found systematic problems in the development process: by intentionally misrepresenting information and deliberately disregarding risks, proponents instigate projects that result in fewer benefits and higher costs than promised.

Il progresso tecnico-scientifico offre nuove armi alle indagini penali. Tra le novità più rilevanti c’è la possibilità di installare occultamente in un dispositivo elettronico un malware informatico in grado di svolgere attività di ricerca e sorveglianza online. Si tratta di un mezzo tecnologico che invade una sfera di intimità della persona la cui tutela giuridica non è facile da rintracciare, e di difficile sussunzione tra quei diritti che la Costituzione protegge subordinando la loro eventuale compressione – in vista di esigenze fondamentali come quelle della repressione dei reati – alla doppia riserva di legge e di giurisdizione. Il problema è stato fino ad ora complicato dalla mancanza di una disciplina legislativa: di recente una legge molto attesa è stata varata, ma il suo ambito applicativo o copre solo una parte delle potenzialità lesive della nuova tecnologia,
e numerosi profili di criticità restano senza risposta.

The Supplementary Green Book Guidance on Optimism Bias (HM Treasury 2003) with reference to the Review of Large Public Procurement in the UK (Mott MacDonald 2002) notes that there is a demonstrated, systematic, tendency for project appraisers to be overly optimistic and that to redress this tendency appraisers should make explicit, empirically based adjustments to the estimates of a project’s costs, benefits, and duration. HM Treasury recommends that these adjustments be based on data from past projects or similar projects elsewhere, and adjusted for the unique characteristics of the project in hand. In the absence of a more specific evidence base, HM Treasury has encouraged departments to collect data to inform future estimates of optimism, and in the meantime use the best available data. In response to this, the Department for Transport (henceforth DfT), has contracted Bent Flyvbjerg in association with COWI to undertake the consultancy assignment "Procedures for dealing with Optimism Bias in Transport Planning". The present Guidance Document is the result of this assignment.

"Over budget, over time, over and over again" appears to be an appropriate slogan for large, complex infrastructure projects. This article explains why cost, benefits, and time forecasts for such projects are systematically over-optimistic in the planning phase. The underlying reasons for forecasting errors are grouped into three categories: delusions or honest mistakes; deceptions or strategic manipulation of information or processes; or bad luck. Delusion and deception have each been addressed in the management literature before, but here they are jointly considered for the first time. They are specifically applied to infrastructure problems in a manner that allows both academics and practitioners to understand and implement the suggested corrective procedures. The article provides a framework for analyzing the relative explanatory power of delusion and deception. It also suggests a simplified framework for analyzing the complex principal-agent relationships that are involved in the approval and construction of large infrastructure projects, which can be used to improve forecasts. Finally, the article illustrates reference class forecasting, an outside view de-biasing technique that has proven successful in overcoming both delusion and deception in private and public investment decisions.

Niccolò Machiavelli, the founder of modern political and administrative thought, made clear that an understanding of politics requires distinguishing between formal politics and what later, with Ludwig von Rochau, would become known as Realpolitik. No such distinction has been employed in the study of rationality. Yet I will argue that distinguishing between formal rationality and real rationality is as important for the understanding of rationality and planning as the distinction between formal politics and Realpolitik has been for understanding politics.

The purpose of the present chapter is to demonstrate how social scientists may engage with mass media to have their research impact public deliberation, policy and practice. Communicating research to practice is part and parcel of applied phronesis and not something external to it. Even in Aristotle's original definition of phronesis, laid down more than two millennia ago, the knowledge–action relationship is clear. A defining characteristic of phronesis is, in Aristotle's words, that it is ‘reason capable of action’ (The Nicomachean Ethics, 1976: Bk VI, 1140a24–1140b12). Phronetic research results (‘reason’) are therefore results only to the extent they have an impact on practice (‘action’). In public affairs, reason is made capable of action by effectively having reason enter the public sphere and public deliberation. It is reason times exposure in the public sphere that matters, not reason alone. Today, mass media dominate the public sphere in liberal democracies. The relationship of research with media therefore needs to be reflected. However, to my knowledge no study exists that describes in detail this aspect of phronetic research. Even in social science as a whole, studies of how scholars work with mass media to secure public impact of their research seem rare (Bagdikian 2004; McCombs 2004; Bryant and Oliver 2009). This, then, is the purpose of the present chapter: to begin to close this gap in our knowledge of social science and phronesis. Because the field is underexplored, it was found to be prudent to start with a phenomenological case study. The study shows how a group of phronetic social scientists, including the author, engaged with media, including world-leading titles such as The New York Times, in order to place their research results on the public agenda and initiate change in their chosen field of interest: megaproject policy and management.