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Monday Morning Linkage

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by Vikash Yadav

15 April 2013, 0500 EDT

Duck_copGood morning ducks!  Here are your links…

  • Even more well off people will be able to exempt themselves from TSA’s airport security theater thanks to Visa credit cards.  Well, it’s not like potential hijackers could afford the annual fee or first-class tickets anyway.  Oh wait…
  • Do you enjoy being frisked, finger printed, and rapiscanned at airports? Then you’ll be delighted to know that Homeland Security will be expanding its use of biometrics to US immigration offices.  Already a citizen? Great! Because the FBI is planning to amass data on US citizens gathered by law enforcement authorities.  The NYPD has already been collecting biometric data since 2010. No, there’s nothing to worry about, because everyone knows how professional and totally unracist the NYPD is about conducting surveillance.
  • America’s stalwart ally, Israel, would like to retain its right to discriminate against certain categories of Americans entering the holy land in exchange for the US granting Israelis visa-free access to the US.  Israel regularly discriminates against Americans who happen to be Muslim or Arab, as well as Americans who happen to be critical of Israel or supportive of Palestinian rights.  Who will be the first American politician to sell out their fellow American citizens?  (Right answer… It’s a tie!: Barbara Boxer and Roy Blunt)
  • Ahh, the Muslim Question in America. So vexing… So not about Muslims at all.
  • Arrianna Marie Conerly Coleman asks: “Is the settler colony a space of exception?”
  • The hunger strike at Guantanamo continues. Guards are now placing strikers in solitary confinement and force feeding – echoes of Maze Prison and other hell holes.  Force feeding is, of course, a form of torture.  And self-inflicted hunger is the weapon of the weakest of the weak.
  • Finally, as long as we are talking security and biopolitics…  No, your cellphone is not likely to interfere with a plane’s navigation system; the rule is just another disciplinary exercise.  Unless of course, your intention is to use this Android app to interfere with the airplane’s navigation system…

Image Source: Ebay

Vikash is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Asian Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY. His main areas of academic interest are (post-) globalization, economic development, and economic freedom, with a regional focus on South Asia

2 Comments

  1. Jeppe Mulich
    Jeppe Mulich on 15 April 2013 at 09.12 EDT

    There’s a pretty thriving literature in history (especially legal history) on the question of settler colonies, and other colonial variations, as being or not being in a state of exception. See for example:

    Nasser Hussain, Jurisprudence of Emergency: Colonialism and the Rule of Law (2003)
    R. W. Kostal, A Jurisprudence of Power: Victorian Empire and the Rule of Law (2005)
    Miranda Frances Spieler, Empire and Underworld: Captivity in French Guiana (2012)

    Lauren Benton also has a lot to say abou the subject in the last chapter of A Search for Sovereignty (2010), and so does Lisa Ford in her book Settler Sovereignty: Jurisdiction and Indigenous Peoples in America and Australia (2010).