The month of June is upon us and on the 25th I’ll be heading to Oxfordshire for a picnic beside the grave of Eric Arthur Blair. This will be the eighth year running where a number of us have made the pilgrimage to share in a conversation on George Orwell’s birthday.
A mini informal symposium. A chat around mass surveillance, consumer data and our civil liberties. Accompanied of course with food, drink and the hashtag #1984Symposium.

If you are ‘free’ to join us on the 25th of June here is the the where, when and how:
When: 25th June 2015
Time: 11am – till 3pm.
Location: Behind The Church of All Saints, The Green, Sutton Courtenay,
Oxfordshire, OX144AE
Google Map: link
Train: London to Didcot Parkway Station ..Then ask for a lift.
Approximate Grid Reference: 51.643973,-1.270901
Bring: Food, drink, thoughts and something to sit on.
This year, I thought I’d curate a small reading list of surveillance themed books. [At the bottom of this post.]
Some easily available. Others you may not have heard of before or not on general release.
If you have any personal recommendations you’d like to add, please leave them in a comment below.
Here is a selection of audio recorded at Orwell’s graveside over the years.
Let me know if you plan to attend. It might be you want to get stuck into some of the titles below and we can discuss on the day.
No Place To Hide: Edward Snowden, The NSA And The Surveillance State by Glen Greenwald
“This is the inside account of the events documented in Laura Poitras Citizenfour. Glenn Greenwald’s No Place to Hide is the story of one of the greatest national security leaks in US history. In
Data and Goliath by Bruce Schneier
“Your cell phone provider tracks your location and knows who’s with you. Your online and in-store purchasing patterns are recorded, and reveal if you’re unemployed, sick, or pregnant. Your e-
Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance by Julia Angwin
“We are being watched. We see online ads from websites we’ve visited, long after we’ve moved on to other interests. Our smartphones and cars transmit our location, enabling us to know what’s in the neighborhood but also enabling others to track us. And the federal government, we recently learned, has been conducting a massive data-gathering surveillance operation across the Internet and on our phone lines.
In Dragnet Nation, Julia Angwin of The Wall Street Journal reports from the front lines of America’s surveillance economy, a revelatory and unsettling look at how the government, private companies, and even criminals use technology to indiscriminately sweep up vast amounts of our personal data.
In a world where we can be watched in our own homes, where we can no longer keep secrets, and where we can be impersonated, financially manipulated, or even placed in a police lineup, Angwin argues that the greatest long-term danger is that we start to internalize the surveillance and censor our words and thoughts, until we lose the very freedom that makes us unique individuals. Appalled at such a prospect, Angwin conducts a series of experiments to try to protect herself, ranging from quitting Google to carrying a “burner” phone, showing how difficult it is for an average citizen to resist the dragnets’ reach.”
The Black Box Society: the Secret algorithms that Control money and Information by Frank Pasquale
“Every day, corporations are connecting the dots about our personal behavior silently scrutinizing clues left behind by our work habits and Internet USE. The data compiled and portraits created
The Silent State: Secrets, Surveillance And The Myth Of The British Democracy by Heather Brooke
“Award-winning investigative journalist Heather Brooke exposes the shocking and farcical lack of transparency at all levels of government. At a time when the State knows more than ever about us,
The Private Security State? Surveillance, Consumer Data and the War on Terror by Kirstie Ball & others.
“When businesses are required to send customer data to government, their systems and their employees become part of a wider security framework. Their commercial activities become shot through with insecurities and they are placed in a kind of double jeopardy: a failure to address these regulations can result in both national and commercial insecurity. The Private Security State? is the first full-length academic text to address the enrolment of the private sector in national security surveillance regimes. Through detailed empirical analysis, it questions how private organizations achieve compliance with demands for customer data. The book revolves around case studies of two public-private surveillance regimes: Anti-Money Laundering/Counter Terror Finance in retail financial services and the EBorders in the retail travel industry.”
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
“The ultimate tale of teen rebellion – one seventeen-year-old against the surveillance state. Big Brother is watching you. Who’s watching back? Marcus is only seventeen years old, but he
Homeland by Cory Doctorow
“Marcus Yallow is no longer a student. California’s economy has collapsed, taking his parents’ jobs and his university tuition with it. Thanks to his activist past, Marcus lands a job as
Nineteen Eighty Four N by George Orwell
“Classic / Winston Smith lives in a society where the government controls people’s lives every second of the day. Alone in his small, one-room apartment, Winston dreams of a better life. Is freedom from this life of suffering possible? There must be something that the Party cannot control something like love, perhaps?”
Please leave any of your book, film or documentary recommendations in the comments below.
Any other thoughts or questions please leave a comment or I’m @Documentally on Twitter.
See you on the 25th!
A few I’d recommend are:
Stasiland by Anna Funder
The Snowden Files by Luke Harding
Red Love by Maxim Leo
I really can’t make any promises but I’ll try and get there this year.
I hope so.. Get to mine and i’ll drive you the rest of the way 😉
“Data & Goliath” by Bruce Schneier – I’m at chapter 13 listening via audible. What a *powerful* read/listen. And at this writing (31-May-2015, 5:34pm MDT) the USA congress is deciding on the continued existence of the “Patriot Act”. Mr. Schneier refers to this and explains its various sections in all their scary detail. I highly encourage “Data & Goliath” as a resource — especially relevant in honor of the #1984Symposium and in honor of Eric Arthur Blair. Maybe one year, I’ll be able to be there with you all in person; until then, please know that I am with you in spirit.
Thanks Jeff, I’m reading Data and Goliath at the moment. It’s an easy read literally but not when it comes to the truths laid bare. Thanks for the comment. Hope you can get over one day too.
I have a short that has secondary elements of monitoring and privacy – the main theme focuses on communication: http://neildixon.com/brevity/
Information Security for Journalists
http://www.tcij.org/resources/handbooks/infosec
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson may be a good fit. Lots of stuff in there about crypto, privacy and the like.
Cory Doctorow’s For the Win is another good one. Or you could go back a little further and go for some Hobbes (e.g http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(book)), Locke (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Treatises_of_Government)
reading nineteen eightyfour at the minute.
I’ll be there. If someone want a lift I’m coming from Bedford, heading down on the a38.
If so let me know.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. A future when a fireman’s job is to start fires to burn books. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451
A classic. Brilliant film too.
Hi
I’m coming along, see you all tomorrow.