Um big brother global? os programas de vigilância da NSA à luz da securitização dos espaços sociotecnológicos

Abstract

The increasing use of cyberspace in International Relations is providing a new scenario for world politics. The evolution of digital media has provided a data flow never before seen in human history, which eventually expanded the role of information as a bargaining chip in the power relations of the current international scenario. One of the changes observed from this process was the strengthening of surveillance – which gains new tools in the cyber environment – as a mechanism of monitoring, law enforcement, control and acquisition of information that makes international actors relevant in the new cyberpower relations. Thus, this dissertation analyzes this phenomenon from two main lines that complement each other: the evolution of surveillance as a key dimension of (cyber)security through a panoptic and post-panoptic approach and how these perspectives influence the current cyber surveillance phenomena. To do so, we present Foucault's studies of disciplinary society and its developments that have given rise to an information society of control, and Bauman’s analysis on liquid modernity and how its characteristics can influence contemporary surveillance. The second line of analysis, drawn from the data collected so far, deals with a vision of cyber surveillance as a tool of cyberspace securitization process. Following this logic, studies of the Copenhagen School, based on the constructivist theory of International Relations, point out a favorable path to understanding the role of cyber surveillance within the cybersecurity issues. As an example case, we examine how this process took place within NSA programs of global surveillance revealed in mid-2013 by Edward Snowden. In order to achieve these objectives, classical authors of surveillance and security studies will be reviewed, as well as new approaches; for the presentation and analysis of the proposed case, documentary analysis, reports and speeches relating to international responses in the face of revelations of the NSA programs will be used.