Preemptive Security Research Articles

Cyberbiosecurity in the new normal: Cyberbio risks, pre-emptive security, and the global governance of bioinformation

Abstract The Covid-19 pandemic saw a surge in cyber attacks targeting pharmaceutical companies and research organisations working on vaccines and treatments for the virus. Such attacks raised concerns around the (in)security of bioinformation (e.g. genomic data, epidemiological data, biomedical data, and health data) and the potential cyberbio risks resulting from stealing, compromising, or exploiting it in hostile cyber operations. This article critically investigates threat discourses around bioinformation as presented in the newly emerging field of ‘cyberbiosecurity’. As introduced by scholarly literature in life sciences, cyberbiosecurity aims to understand and address cyber risks engendered by the digitisation of biology. Such risks include, for example, embedding malware in DNA, corrupting gene-sequencing, manipulating biomedical materials, stealing epidemiological data, or even developing biological weapons and spreading diseases. This article brings the discussion on cyberbiosecurity into the realms of International Relations and Security Studies by problematising the futuristic threat discourses co-producing this burgeoning field and the pre-emptive security measures it advocates, specifically in relation to bioinformation. It analyses how cyberbiosecurity as a concept and field of policy analysis influences the existing securitised governance of bioinformation, the global competition to control it, and the inequalities associated with its ownership and dissemination. As such, the article presents a critical intervention in current debates around the intersection between biological dangers and cyber threats and in the calls for ‘peculiar’ policy measures to defend against cyberbio risks in the ‘new normal’.

‘It’s like almost hypnotised people’: An exploration of vernacular discourses and social imaginaries of terrorism in the United Kingdom

Despite recent calls for ‘ordinary’ citizens to become active and responsible as individuals in preventing and countering terrorism and radicalisation in the United Kingdom, little is yet known about how members of the general public make sense of political violence, or about how they think it should be dealt with. Using a bottom-up vernacular security studies approach, this article examines what lay citizens believe about the causes of terrorism and what responses they think are appropriate. Based on qualitative data from one-to-one interviews with members of the public and an analysis based on constructivist grounded theory methodology, the article discusses three key figures that emerged from interviewees’ accounts of terrorism: the vulnerable subject, the radicalised individual and the radicaliser. Overall, the results reveal that a radicalisation framework is dominant in participants’ discourses on terrorism. The article argues that the dominant imaginaries of terrorism identified in this research draw consent towards pre-emptive security practices such as the Prevent duty and de-radicalisation interventions. The discussion problematises the depoliticisation of political violence and the normalisation of illiberal security measures that this conceptualisation of terrorism entails, while stressing the discriminatory character of the social imaginaries of terrorism.

Considering stratospheric aerosol injections beyond an environmental frame: The intelligible ‘emergency’ techno-fix and preemptive security

AbstractStratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), is often referred to as a ‘Plan B’ if mitigation strategies to reduce emissions fail and the need to rapidly reduce global temperatures becomes urgent. In theory, SAI would help buy more time to bring carbon and other emissions down while also cooling or keeping the planet below the threshold for dangerous warming, though it is not a solution to the problem of climate change in itself. What little attention it has received in International Relations (IR) is usually focused on the need for governance of the technology and assumes that development and use of the technology will be driven primarily by vulnerability to climate impacts. Through an analysis of common security assumptions and preemptive security framings the article shows that while current assessments of SAI focus on the technology’s environmental impact, broader political and security dynamics, particularly the desire to render climate change more intelligible as a security problem with a solution may have substantial influence on how the technology is used and by whom.

Suspicious cities: An analysis of the securitisation of urban everyday life in London and Brussels

ABSTRACT This article engages with the material-discursive ways in which urban everyday life in London and Brussels has transformed under the impression of (counter)terrorism and demonstrates how human and non-human bodies are entangled in this process. Following Barad’s understanding of posthumanist performativity, I conceptualise urban everyday life as an entanglement of intra-acting sites, objects, and people. My historiographic analysis of everyday life in London and Brussels shows how both metropoles have incrementally adopted a culture of pre-emptive security because more and more human and non-human bodies are increasingly assigned with material-discursive suspiciousness, while simultaneously more and more human and non-human bodies are charged with looking out for suspiciousness. As the notion of entanglement reveals how everyone and everything that intra-acts in urban everyday life is also to some extent accountable for its securitisation, my findings imply ultimately an ethical responsibility to counter the securitisation of everyday life in European metropoles which I argue constitutes a process of urban segregation.

Drones as a form of security

This paper has discussed the question of using drone as a form of pre-emptive security. This is a very old discussion and has divided the academic society into two sides. One of them talks in favour of using drone whereas other talks about not using it as a form of pre-emptive measure. The author in the present paper has used Bethlem’s theory, consequential theory and cited a few scholars to submit that in the case of terrorism, drone should be used a pre-emptive measure.

Counter-terrorism training “at your kitchen table”: the promotion of “CT citizens” and the securitisation of everyday life in the UK

ABSTRACT The growing call for public participation in counter-terrorism in Britain is reflected by the number of recent campaigns directed towards different sectors of the population and, increasingly, towards “ordinary” citizens. However, there has been a lack of research examining how counter-radicalisation campaigns seek to target the whole population and have an impact on everyday subjectivities and actions. Drawing on studies on governmentality, this article examines the promotion of the “CT citizen” as a distinctive political agent and social identity embedded in the participation of mass surveillance and the normalisation of pre-emptive security logics. Based on a critical discourse analysis of the most recent official counter-terrorism and counter-radicalisation websites and e-learning materials (Let’s Talk About It, Educate Against Hate, Action Counters Terrorism, and the Prevent duty), I show how citizens are being inscribed as counter-terrorism officials through discourses of responsibility, care, awareness, empowerment, and action. This article explores the role of British counter-terrorism in the production of new models of citizenship based on a generalised culture of suspicion and in the participation in security duties previously reserved to the authorities. The discussion highlights ultimately that the securitisation of everyday life and the inscription of individuals in “national security” results in the depoliticisation of both the civil society and political violence.

The new EU counter-terrorism Agenda: preemptive security through the anticipation of terrorist events

ABSTRACT This article argues that the new EU Counter-Terrorism Agenda is based on logics of anticipatory action. Three types of anticipatory action that are central to the development of EU counter-terrorism are identified: preparedness, precaution and preemption. We argue that while the original EU Counter-Terrorism Strategy contained a mixture of these three forms of anticipatory action, the new Counter-Terrorism Agenda places a renewed emphasis on preemptive measures with preparedness given less prominence. The reinforcing of preemptive security practice is most vividly reflected in the CT Agenda's new Anticipate workstream, which emphasises the utility of preemptive computer-based technologies, including Artificial Intelligence and algorithms, as key dimensions of the response to terrorism. The article identifies challenges of transparency and effectiveness that arise when applying computer-based technologies to counter-terrorism, highlighting the importance of regulatory oversight if the EU's commitment to the development of security policies that respect fundamental rights is to be guaranteed.

Time will tell: Defining violence in terrorism court cases

Calculating the potential risk of future terrorist violence is at the core of counter-terrorism practices. Particularly in court cases, this potential risk serves as legitimization for the preemptive criminalization of suspicious (financial) behaviour. This article argues that the preemptive temporality seen in such court cases is a practice of ‘sorting time’ and producing distinct legal definitions around future violence. Building on postcolonial and feminist scholarship on temporality, the article examines preemptive temporality as the material, embodied and multiple engagements with time that are enacted in terrorism court cases. Through the use of empirical data obtained from court observations, court judgements and interviews with legal practitioners, accounts of empirical temporalities are traced to illuminate other forms of violence that until now have been overshadowed by the dominant (and relatively unchallenged) perception of future terrorist threats that is enacted in the courtroom. In this way, the article makes two important contributions. First, it advances the theoretical debate on preemptive security through an examination of how legal and security practices co-produce temporality by defining future terrorist violence. Second, it contributes empirically by showing how temporality is constructed in multiple ways, paying specific attention to temporalities resisting dominating perceptions of future terrorist violence.

Research on Behavior-Based Data Leakage Incidents for the Sustainable Growth of an Organization

With the continuously increasing number of data leakage security incidents caused by organization insiders, current security activities cannot predict a data leakage. Because such security incidents are extremely harmful and difficult to detect, predicting security incidents would be the most effective preventative method. However, current insider security controls and systems detect and identify unusual behaviors to prevent security incidents but produce many false-positives. To solve these problems, the present study collects and analyzes data leaks by insiders in advance, analyzes information leaks that can predict security incidents, and evaluates risk based on behavior. To this end, data leakage behaviors by insiders are analyzed through an analysis of previous studies and the implementation of an in-depth interview method. Statistical verification of the analyzed data leakage behavior is performed to determine the validity and derive the levels of leakage risk for each behavior. In addition, by applying the N-gram analysis method to derive a data leakage scenario, the levels of risk are clarified to reduce false-positives and over detection (i.e., the limitations of existing data leakage prevention systems) and make preemptive security activities possible.

From probabilities to possibilities: terrorism peace bonds, pre-emptive security, and modulations of criminal law

Scholars have noted that pre-emptive security practices have gradually been transforming the probabilistic logics of criminal law towards increasingly possibilistic logics. Our article is focused on the terrorism peace bond regime in Canada since 2015, which provides an explicit illustration of the movement from probabilistic to possibilistic thresholds in criminal law. Documenting specific experiences of terrorism peace bond proceedings through the narratives of defence lawyers involved in recent cases, we focus on several manifestations of possibilistic practices; including the difficulties of contesting accusations about future activities, the erosion of evidentiary standards, conjectural reasoning animated by the racialized character of the ‘war on terror,’ and a reverse onus placed on accused subjects in these proceedings. Contributing to research examining the transformations of criminal law, we suggest that terrorism peace bonds are not an exceptionalist practice but a modulation that allows previously excluded legal norms into a broadened, more authoritarian umbrella of criminal law. To conclude, we position terrorism peace bonds not so much a return to the criminal justice model but as a possibilistic modulation of criminal law that accommodates pre-emptive and racialized practices in more depoliticized forms.

Conscription or constriction: Military policing of urban youth

Policing—order-making practices to discipline society and tackle crime—goes beyond the typical work of constabulary forces. There is a plurality of policing actors, rationales, and interests within a larger security assemblage, and multiple configurations of those elements according to specific contexts. This paper presents the phenomenon of batidas militares—military raids with the purpose of enforced conscription—carried out by the Colombian army as an informal policing practice. Through a combination of spatial analysis and fieldwork, including interviews with policing operators and young people involved in documented cases, I explain how the systematic execution of batidas created invisible, yet identifiable, urban borders, and how batidas operated as complementary preemptive security devices imposing a militarist order on the city.

Accepting surveillance – An increased sense of security after terror strikes?

Over the last two decades, several large terror attacks have led to increased discussion of the use of different surveillance technologies. The use of novel technologies for pre-emptive security and surveillance has been discussed and criticized academically, but few studies have addressed the public. Studies that target the public tend to assume an oversimplified trade-off between privacy and security, i.e. how much privacy a person is willing to yield to attain greater security. We used three large surveys of random samples from the Swedish population to study public attitudes to a number of surveillance technologies. The last survey took place shortly after a terror attack in Stockholm, and an aim was to see how this affected acceptance. The main differences between 2009 and 2017 were that the demand for transparency (i.e. public scrutiny) had increased dramatically, and that the notion of risk posed by the new technologies had diminished. Beyond this, changes in attitudes were small. Technologies were perceived as contributing to making society safer – albeit not decisively. Also, acceptance was not only influenced by what data was collected, but also by who was collecting and owning it. In public discussions about security, two things are often assumed: that an increase of hard security measures will increase societal security, and that citizens are willing to do a trade-off between privacy and security. We find that this is not the case. Instead, citizens weigh the pros and cons of surveillance and also distinguish between different forms of surveillance.

The threat of the ‘returning foreign fighter’: The securitization of EU migration and border control policy

This article analyses the European Union’s response to the threat of the ‘returning foreign fighter’ (referred to with increasing frequency as the ‘foreign terrorist fighter’), arguing that it has been characterized by a move to (re)frame migration and border control as essential aspects of EU counter-terrorism policy. The article offers three important observations on the significance of this move. First, it critiques the way in which the EU’s response to this problem is based upon and reinforces a narrow understanding of returning foreign fighters. Second, it argues that the EU has invoked the threat from returning foreign fighters not with the sole intention of preventing terrorism but rather as part of the ongoing securitization of migration and the EU border. Third, it suggests that the threat from returning foreign fighters has been invoked as a way of further legitimizing the EU’s emerging role as a security actor and its embrace of preemptive security practice. The article argues throughout that the move to construct the returning foreign fighter issue in this way has important political and social implications for all categories of migrant, with migrant populations now deemed a potential source of terrorist threat.

Zur Reversibilität von Rechtsfolgen einer vorsorgenden Sicherheitspolitik

Since the terrorist attack on Berlin’s Breitscheidplatz took place in December 2016, German state interior ministries deport potential top terrorists in the accelerated procedure under section 58a Residence Act (AufenthG). As a legal consequence, section 11‍(5) Residence Act imposes a lifelong entry ban to foreigners who have been deported on the basis of § 58a Residence Act. In defining the requirements for deporting potential top terrorists, the ministries do not refer to the foreseeability of a concrete terrorist attack, but to the risk arising from the person concerned. Consequently, deportation orders can also be issued to persons who, although identifying with radical extremist Islamism, would not have committed terrorist attacks in case they had stayed in Germany. This practice of accepting misjudgements, that is of deporting „the wrong“, for the sake of public security forms part of the broader concept of fighting terrorism pre-emptively. The paper reveals that there is a twofold need for reform of the German lifelong entry ban for potential top-terrorists: It arises, on the one hand, from the fact that section 11 Residence Act violates EU law requirements of the „Return Directive“ and, on the other hand, from the constitutional principle of proportionality. De lege lata, this principle is infringed because the legal consequence of a lifelong entry ban does not mitigate the deliberate acceptance of misjudgements within the framework of section 58a Residence Act. The paper argues that the constitutionality of pre-emptive security policy presupposes that the factual and legal consequences of misjudgements are reversible. As a consequence, the constitutionality of section 11 Residence Act with regards to potential top terrorists depends on setting time limits on entry bans.

الأمن الاستباقی وأثره فی وأد الفکر الإرهابی فی النظام السعودی

الملخص باللغة العربية الأمن الاستباقي ضمانة أساسية لدرء مخاطر الإرهاب قبل وقوعه وتجنيب المجتمع ويلاته.وهو واجب من منظور شرعي،فقد أوجب الإسلام اتخاذ کافة التدابير التي تقطع على الإرهاب طريقه ،وذلک في إطار ما يعرف بمنهج الحيطة والحذر ،وما يستوجبه من الفطنة واليقظة ،وعدم الانتظار حتى تقع الجريمة،عملا بقوله تعـــالى : {يا أيها الذين آمنوا خذوا حذرکم} [ سـورة التوبة :71] وقد وجد هذا الموضوع أهميته ،في المملکة العربية السعودية ،خاصة في مجال مکافحة الإرهاب وتجريم الأعمال الإرهابية وفق أحکام الشريعة الإسلامية التي تطبقها المملکة، واعتبارها ضمن جرائم الحرابة التي تخضع إلى أشد العقوبات، إلى جانب تعزيز وتطوير المملکة للأنظمة واللوائح ذات العلاقة بمکافحة الإرهاب والجرائم الإرهابية وتحديث وتطوير أجهزة الأمن وجميع الأجهزة الأخرى المعنية بمکافحة الإرهاب. وتتمة للفائدة قسمت بحثي هذا إلى تمهيد ومباحث أربعة ،وخاتمة .جعلت التمهيد في بيان أهمية الأمن العام في دعم استقرار الأوطان،والمبحث الأول في :تجفيف منابع الانحراف الفکري،والثاني في :ربط المناهج التعليمية بما يتفق وحماية الأمن العام،والثالث في:الضربات الأمنية الاستباقية لدرء خطر الإرهاب،والرابع في :اختراق وتخذيل العمليات الإرهابية قبل وقوعها.ثم ختمته بخاتمة بينت فيها أهم النتائج والتوصيات ،ومنها: أهمية اتخاذ التدابير اللازمة التي تقطع الطريق على الجماعات الإرهابية ،واعتبار ذلک فريضة شرعية ومتطلب وطني ،إعمالا لمبدأ الحيطة والحذر ،وانقاذ الأنفس من موجبات الهلکة ، وأن ضوابط تحقيق هذه الوسائل للنجاح الأمني في وأد الفکر الإرهابي في أمور کثيرة ،منها: السرية التامة ،والمؤاخذة بشدة متى تعلق الضرر بالأمن العام،والدقة في المراقبة لجميع من يظن بهم الإساءة إلى الوطن. Research Summary: Pre-emptive security and its impact on the eradication of terrorist thought in the Saudi system comparative study of Islamic jurisprudence Pre-emptive security is an essential guarantee to prevent the dangers of terrorism before it occurs and to spare the society its scourge. Which is a duty from a legitimate perspective, Islam has enjoined taking all measures that stop terrorism on its way, within the framework of what is known as the method of caution and caution, and what is required of intelligence and vigilance, and not wait until the crime occurs, according to the Almighty: (O ye who believe! Warn you} [Al-Tawbah: 71] n this regard, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, especially in the field of combating terrorism and criminalizing terrorist acts in accordance with the provisions of the Islamic Shari'a applied by the Kingdom, has been considered as a crime under the most severe penalties. The Kingdom also promotes and develops laws and regulations related to combating terrorism and terrorist crimes And the modernization and development of the security services and all other counter-terrorism agencies. The second topic is: Linking educational curricula in accordance with the protection of public security, and the third topic in the following: - The importance of public security in supporting the stability of nations. Proactive security strikes to ward off the threat of terrorism, and the fourth topic in: penetrate and abort terrorist operations before they occur. And concluded by concluding with the most important conclusions and recommendations, including: the importance of taking the necessary measures that cut the way to terrorist groups, and this is a legitimate duty and a national requirement, in accordance with the principle of caution and caution, and save the souls from the causes of death, The terrorist, in many matters, including: total secrecy, which is severely impeded when the damage to public security is concerned, and the accuracy of surveillance for all those who are thought to be abusing the homeland.

A Systemic Approach to Security: Beyond the Tradeoff between Security and Liberty

ABSTRACTThe concept of security has shifted from territorial integrity to human security and, after 9/11, to pre-emptive security. Based on the massive implementation of surveillance-oriented security technologies (SOSTs), pre-emptive security emphasizes anticipation of threats and risk management. While liberty and security get framed as standing in a trade-off, SOSTs are massively deployed to increase security. Due to the mutually constitutive relationship between SOSTs and pre-emptive security, security gets framed as a function of surveillance, forcing increasingly monitored citizens to exchange liberty for security. In contrast, a systemic approach to security may enable security policies pursuing liberty and security.

Acceptable Surveillance-Orientated Security Technologies: Insights from the SurPRISE Project

Pre-emptive security emphasizes the necessity of envisioning and designing technologies enabling the anticipation and management of emergent risks threatening human and public security. Surveillance functionalities are embedded in the design of these technologies to allow constant monitoring, preparedness and prevention. Yet surveillance-orientated security technologies, such as smart CCTVs or Deep Packet Inspection, bring along with their implementation other risks, such as risks of privacy infringement, discrimination, misuse, abuse, or errors, which have often triggered public outrage and resistance. The same measures meant to foster human security, can potentially make people feel insecure, vulnerable, and exposed. This outcome is the result of a narrow approach toward problem solving that does not take into account those same people the technology is supposed to protect. Drawing from both the socio-cultural and psychometric approaches to risk analysis and from the literature on public engagement in science and technology, this article presents a new methodological tool, which combines traditional citizen summit method with an innovative mixed-method research design. The objective of this new form of participatory exercise is to engage the public and gather socially robust and in context knowledge about the public acceptability of these technologies. The method has been developed as part of the SurPRISE project, funded by the European Commission under the SeventhFramework Program. The article presents the theoretical framework and preliminary results of citizen summits organized across Europe.

ALGERIA:Pre-emptive Security Action

Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social and Cultural SeriesVolume 51, Issue 10 p. 20316A-20317A National Security ALGERIA:Pre-emptive Security Action First published: 19 November 2014 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-825X.2014.05953.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume51, Issue10November 2014Pages 20316A-20317A RelatedInformation

Transnational Legal Assemblages and Global Security Law: Topologies and Temporalities of the List

This article examines the UN 1267 Al-Qaida sanctions regime as a technique of global security listing and form of transnational law with distinct legal ordering processes. Conventional literatures frame these sanctions in formalist terms, flattening their complexity. Understanding their qualities and effects demands a dynamic approach capable of grasping how global law unfolds in each of its constitutive dimensions—normative, temporal and spatial. To that end, this paper develops an analytical framework of transnational legal assemblage and deploys it to examine (i) the proposed changes to EU court rules to enable the handling of secret intelligence and (ii) the fortification of exceptional space for pre-emptive security action. Situating this regime within a contested and emergent field of transnational legal assemblage renders it more variegated and contingent than ordinarily thought, opening up different ways of framing the accountability problems, authority claims, normative conflicts and governance practices of global security law.

Disaster, pre-emptive security and urban space in the post-9/11 New York City of Cloverfield and The Visitor

Abstract Using two post-9/11 films set in New York City, Cloverfield (2008) and The Visitor (2008), this article interrogates the urban space of pre-emptive security practice in the United States. Putting these two films together, and tracing their characters’ paths through the city, offers insights into the relationship between threat imaginaries, security practices and the complex cities within which they are interwoven. While pointing to some of the continuities with longer-standing socio-spatial tactics of urban control, this analysis also draws attention to the particular spatio-temporal landscape of pre-emption, which has come to define post-9/11 security stances. It is argued that pre-emptive security imaginaries and practices are stretched across urban spaces in ambiguous and uneven ways as attempts are made to render urban complexity, uncertainty and circulation visible and knowable. The cinematic paths of the characters in Cloverfield and The Visitor offer points of micro-visibility onto post-9/11 urban security practice as a circulatory process that is not ultimately fixed or fully competent. In this way the article complicates the imagination of a seamless, fully rendered urban battlespace and instead stresses the active process of securitizing potentialities and acts that slip in and out of the innumerable spatial stories that compose the urban fabric.