The use of secret police, security agencies and informers to spy on, disrupt and undermine opposition to the dominant political and economic order has a long history. This book reflects on the surveillance, harassment and infiltration that pervades the lives of activists, organizations and movements that are labelled as ‘threats to national security’.

Activists and scholars from the UK, South Africa, Canada, the US, Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand expose disturbing stories of political policing to question what lies beneath state surveillance.

Problematizing the social amnesia that exists within progressive political networks and supposed liberal democracies, Activists and the Surveillance State shows that ultimately, movements can learn from their own repression, developing a critical and complex understanding of the nature of states, capital and democracy today that can inform the struggles of tomorrow.

Aziz Choudry (1996-2021) was Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Social Movement Learning and Knowledge Production in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University, and Visiting Professor at the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, University of Johannesburg. He was involved in a range of social, political and environmental justice movements and organizations since the 1980s. He is the author of Learning Activism: The Intellectual Life of Contemporary Social Movements, co-author of Fight Back: Workplace Justice for Immigrants. His co-edited books include Organize! Building from the Local for Global Justice, Unfree Labour: Struggles of Migrant and Immigrant Workers in Canada, and Reflections on Knowledge, Learning, and Social Movements.

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