New Criticals

They invoked terrorism to justify PRISM - the usual tricks.  Obama: "You can't have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience." This is our post-9/11, post-Bush world. But unlike the Patriot Act - an explicitly anti-terror program in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks  - PRISM's offense was an uncommon double: 1) white America, predominantly, was subject to an unwelcome gaze and 2) the complicity of information capitalism's technology sector was unexpectedly exposed. At best, these corporations have plausible deniability - Apple says, "We have never heard of PRISM." At worst, they stand their ground but shift their ethico-political footing, appealing to our sense of security and spectral fear of terrorism, coming to rest final responsibility on the ultimate authority of the state.  We had no choice.