'' One Nation Under Surveillance: A New Social Contract to Defend Freedom Without Sacrificing Liberty '' is a book by

Simon Chesterman Simon Chesterman is an Australian legal academic and writer who is currently a vice provost at the National University of Singapore and dean of the NUS College. He was the dean of NUS Faculty of Law from 2012 to 2022. He is also senior director ...

, Dean and Professor at the

National University of Singapore Faculty of Law The National University of Singapore Faculty of Law (NUS Law) is Singapore's oldest law school. NUS Law was initially established in 1956 as the Department of Law in the University of Malaya, and subsequently, University of Singapore. After its ...

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

published the book in March 2011. It examines what limits—if any—should be placed on a government's efforts to spy on its citizens in the name of national security. Advance praise included a quote from former CIA Inspector-General Frederick Hitz: :"This book squarely faces the taboo subject of domestic privacy in an era of

Islamist terrorism Islamic terrorism (also known as Islamist terrorism, radical Islamic terrorism, or jihadist terrorism) refers to terrorist acts carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists. Since at least the 1990s, Islamist ...

. Our enemies are not nation-states, so the targets of the intelligence services seeking to pre-empt terrorist attacks must be individuals. The casualty will be individual privacy. People will struggle against heightened surveillance, Chesterman notes, 'but the war will be lost.'" Gareth Evans, president emeritus of

Crisis Group The International Crisis Group (ICG; also known as the Crisis Group) is a global non-profit, non-governmental organisation founded in 1995. It is a think tank, used by policymakers and academics, conducting research and analysis on global crises. ...

and former Foreign Affairs Minister of Australia has written: :"This is an important book, breaking new ground in the sweep of its analysis, its analytical insights, and the policy implications it draws out. It shows just how often foreign and domestic intelligence gathering in the major democracies has been insensitive to public accountability, legality, and its consequences for individuals, to the detriment of both liberty and security—and how this can and must change. Simon Chesterman writes, as always, with compelling clarity and authority." Writing in the

New York Review of Books New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 ** "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, 1995 * "New" (Daya song), 2017 * "New" (No Doubt song), 1 ...

David D. Cole David D. Cole was the National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for six years until 2024. Earlier, for two years Cole was the Hon. George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy at the Georgetown University Law ...

observed that Chesterman :"argues convincingly that the specter of catastrophic terrorist attacks creates extraordinary pressure for intrusive monitoring; that technological advances have made the collection and analysis of vast amounts of previously private information entirely feasible; and that in a culture transformed by social media, in which citizens are increasingly willing to broadcast their innermost thoughts and acts, privacy may already be as outmoded as chivalry."

References

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External links

One Nation Under Surveillance website
* http://www.SimonChesterman.com 2011 non-fiction books Non-fiction books about espionage Oxford University Press books

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Further reading

External links