The Rise of the Information State: Domestic Surveillance in France and Britain during World War I

Domestic surveillance is a fixture of modern states, though the centralized accumulation of mass data has been a relatively recent phenomenon. Britain and France’s surveillance of their citizen population before the 20th century usually fell to the local authorities, due to slow communication and transportation networks inhibiting the central state’s ability to act quickly. World War I brought with it the necessity and popular justification for the massive expansion and centralization of the state’s modern intelligence-gathering services, the MI5 in Britain and the Deuxième Bureau in France. The experiences and precedents these agencies set during World War I laid the foundation for contemporary intelligence-gathering in these countries. As the world grows increasingly interested in mass domestic surveillance due to the controversial revelations of Edward Snowden, WikiLeaks, widespread fear of a lack of privacy, and increased accusations that modern governments are moving rapidly towards Orwellianism, we must understand the origins of modern mass surveillance practices. This dissertation compares the rise of the domestic surveillance state in Britain and France during World War I and its relation to the citizenry of each nation. It examines both the agents of state power and the objects of surveillance and punishment to create a complete picture of the power and presence of these information agencies, uncovering the origins of an essential structure within Western nations. This study addresses the remarkable popular interest in a topic that so far has little scholarly work. Most histories of domestic intelligence-gathering are largely broad overviews, confined to singular countries, from roughly the turn of the 20th century to the end of the Cold War. By focusing on the foundational period of Western domestic surveillance, this study illuminates how modern Western intelligence agencies developed the practical, legal and moral arsenal to spy on their own citizenry.