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Europe - new material (47)

01 May 2005

Surveillance in Greece - from anticommunist to consumer surveillance, by Minas Samatas. Pella Publishing Company, 2004, 245pp. Minas Samatas's book provides a valuable history and analysis of Greece in the post war period. It charts the different forms of surveillance from the Civil War and the military dictatorship (under the US backed coup which fell in 1974) through to democratisation, Europeanisation and globalisation: "From the "ugly" repressive anti-communist, political control state/police monopoly of surveillance in the past, the Greek people are now subjects of a galaxy of multiple electronic surveillance by the state and suprastate, institutions and individuals, public and private, with and without consent, for legitimate and illegitimate purposes, for security and profit, and even for entertainment and self monitoring". Consciousness of surveillance was heightened during the 2004 Athens Olympics when Greece joined the advanced surveillance states. There is, he argues, a traditional hostility to state surveillance but as yet not an anti-surveillance movement. "Hopefully this will happen when citizens eventually realise that like traditional state surveillance, all types of new surveillance even direct marketing and consumer profiles can cause new exclusions and discriminations; that every type of surveillance, regardless of its legitimacy , raises political issues, because it can be used to undermine democracy and human autonomy". Highly recommended - every European country would benefit from parallel studies of this kind.