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Author Montalbano, Kathryn, author

Title Government surveillance of religious expression : Mormons, Quakers, and Muslims in the United States / Kathryn Montalbano
Published Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019
©2019

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Description 1 online resource (ix, 168 pages)
Series Routledge studies in religion
Routledge studies in religion.
Contents Cover; Half Title; Title; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgments; 1 Regulating religion in the United States; 2 The Mormons of the Territory of Utah: distinguishing between belief and action; 3 The Quakers of the AFSC: unveiling communism in the Cold War era; 4 The Muslims of Brooklyn, New York: predicting terrorism after September 11; 5 Religion, communication, and the state; Index
Summary Recent revelations about government surveillance of citizens have led to questions about whether there should be better defined boundaries around privacy. Should government officials have the right to specifically target certain groups for extended surveillance? United States municipal, territorial, and federal agencies have investigated religious groups since the nineteenth century. While critics of contemporary mass surveillance tend to invoke the infringement of privacy, the mutual protection of religion and public expression by the First Amendment positions them, along with religious expression, comfortably within in the public sphere. This book analyzes government monitoring of Mormons of the Territory of Utah in the 1870s and 1880s for polygamy, Quakers of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) from the 1940s to the 1960s for communist infiltration, and Muslims of Brooklyn, New York, from 2002 to 2013 for suspected terrorism. Government agencies in these case studies attempted to understand how their religious beliefs might shape their actions in the public sphere. It follows that government agents did not just observe these communities, but they probed precisely what constituted religion itself alongside shifting legal and political definitions relative to their respective time periods. Together, these case studies form a new framework for discussions of the historical and contemporary monitoring of religion. They show that government surveillance is less predictable and monolithic than we might assume. Therefore, this book will be of great interest to scholars of United States religion, history, and politics, as well as surveillance and communication studies
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Kathryn Montalbano is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Young Harris College. Her interdisciplinary research examines the intersection of religion, history, media, and communication. She received her Ph. D. in communications from Columbia University in 2016 and her B.A. in English and sociology (minor) from Haverford College in 2009
Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on November 29, 2018)
Subject Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
SUBJECT Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints fast
Subject Freedom of religion -- United States
Society of Friends -- United States
Islam -- United States
Intelligence service -- United States.
Electronic surveillance -- United States
National security -- United States.
Privacy, Right of -- United States
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Infrastructure.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- General.
RELIGION -- Religion, Politics & State.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Sociology of Religion.
Electronic surveillance
Freedom of religion
Intelligence service
Islam
National security
Privacy, Right of
Society of Friends
SUBJECT United States -- Religious life and customs. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85140506
Subject United States
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2018040089
ISBN 9781351393102
1351393103
9781351393096
135139309X
9781351393089
1351393081
9781315141961
1315141965