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Intelligence agencies are reflections of the societies they serve. No surprise, then, that modern spies and the agencies they work for are fixated on the internet and electronic communications. These same officials also struggle with notions of privacy, appropriateness, national boundaries and the problem of disinformation. They are citizens of both somewhere and nowhere, serving a national public yet confronting spies who operate across borders. These adversaries are utilising new technologies that offer a transnational anonymity. Meanwhile, ordinary people are keen to be protected from threats, but equally keen – basing their understanding of intelligence on news and popular culture – to avoid over-reach by authorities believed to have near-God-like powers. This is the new operating environment for spies: a heady mix of rapid technological development, identity politics, plausible deniability, uncertainty and distrust of authority. Hacker, Influencer, Faker, Spy explores both the challenges spies face from these digital horizons, and the challenges citizens face in understanding what spies do and how it impacts on them. Robert Dover makes a radical case for overhauling intelligence to capitalise on open-source information: shrinking the secret state, whilst still supporting the functioning of modern governments in the post-COVID age.

With particular reference to the development and negotiation of the European Security and Defence Policy, arms trade policy and the decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003, this book provides a strong contemporaneous account of the processes within Europeanization.

Over the last twenty years, revolutions in data capture and analysis have given enforcement and security agencies unparalleled access to the inner workings and private lives of their adversaries—and ordinary citizens. As a consequence, we would expect to see dramatic improvements in state and private security. However, domestic security agencies are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information available to them, and have only marginally improved their operational effectiveness. The third wave global Jihadist insurgency works from a model that is analogous to "unicorn" technology corporations, which then provides insights on how to counter these groups. Attempts to keep up with the evolving enemy shift the social contract between governments and citizens. Whilst technologically advanced functionaries create ever more impressive technology, legislators struggle to understand and regulate its impact: the focus on the rights of the individual has been replaced with the primacy of protecting the state. Whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and the LuxLeaks and Panama Papers regarding tax evasion have been the route to transparency for these developments and have made these revelations without protection and to wide scorn. Yet whistleblowers remain the key route for legislators to generate popular and interest group support to try to impose governance over the ungovernable information wars. ; Peer-reviewed ; Publisher Version