Governing Surveillance Infrastructure: as performed in the Snowden Documents

Abstract

Governing Surveillance Infrastructure is a study that discusses how governance and surveillance are performed in the Snowden documents. This thesis is performed in the intersection between ‘Surveillance Studies’ and ‘Science and Technology Studies’ (STS), with the aim to contribute to the discussions within the field of ‘Surveillance Studies’. In an ongoing debate about how surveillance affects security and our privacy this thesis takes a step away from this dominating narrative and discusses the governing mechanisms of this surveillance infrastructure as performed in the Snowden documents. Avoiding the use of the traditional metaphors used to study surveillance this study is proposing that understanding governance mechanisms enable us to broaden how surveillance can be understood and studied. By identifying and discussing the governance mechanisms as performed in the Snowden documents, I will not only be able to understand how they function in this particular setting. It will also enable me to introduce a way to study surveillance through governance that contributes to a more nuanced way of understanding how surveillance is performed today.