Problem Statement and Group Literature Review

Part A
On June 17, 2013, Edward Snowden alerted the world to what the United States organization known as the
NSA was perpetrating; the simultaneous surveillance of multiple entities across the world in search for a terrorist threat. The reading of emails, texts, posts, Facebook updates, phone calls, everything, all done for the purpose of national security. The defilement of the Fourth Amendment, created for the defense of one's privacy and the inability for the government to gain evidence illegally, while the Supreme Court proceeded to call the act constitutional because of a ruling in 1979.

To some, this is acceptable. National security should be a nation's prime focus, and the Supreme Court did declare this acceptable. This is a price we must pay for our safety and our protection.

To others, it is a breach of freedom and must be destroyed. To forsake the Constitution and ignore those laws put in place by our founding fathers is an action considered dishonorable and wrong. Groups such as the ACLU and millions of independent Americans protest these actions, pushing for Congressional laws and restrictions, urging presidential action. They attempt to keep the fight precipitated by Snowden's betrayal going, reminding people of this problem.

As with any political issues, the main problem is the short term memory of the public. People forget great problems rather quickly and, unless continually reminded by the media, cease to pursue the completion of the original goal. With the case of this serious breach of our human rights, we need to keep the knowledge and movement alive because if this heinous crime falls into anonymity, or rights as a whole will remain in a state of peril.

Part B

In our social action project my group is discussing the issue of government surveillance and the abuse of their power provided. Our ethical goal would be to raise the public’s awareness so they can monitor what information they provide of themselves. The significance of doing this will limit the availability of the governments access to the person lives of the individuals and keep their private life private. Making people aware of the government surveillance will cause them to get involved and possibly starting a change reaction letting the awareness to rise quicker. We would like to reach the political goal of restricting the access of the government to their citizen’s personal life. If possible we could limit the access of personal information of the government by passing a potential law making it illegal for the government to access certain information. The significance of this would be that of allowing citizens to live a private lifestyle keeping personal things personal.

Part C

The practical questions about our project are who, what, where, when, and how. The first one who, is all five of us. We will be the ones responsible for the project and making it happen. Connor, James, Ethan, Mason, and myself will be accomplishing the what, which is creating a cross between guerilla art and culture jamming. We will be crafting and putting up posters with fake personal information on them, such as usernames and passwords to social media sites and other private material. Since our issue is NSA surveillance, our aim is to show the general public private information and emphasize to them that privacy is important by forcing them to ask themselves the question “What if this were my information? Would I permit it to be accessible?” We chose the Lombardo Student Center atrium as the location of the posters. We chose that site because a great deal of students pass through it multiple times a day, whether they are going to lunch, or going anywhere in the LSC. Also, the Atrium always has posters and such covering the walls, and thus it is the ideal place for our project to take place in. Ideally, the project will be on the Monday November 24, which is the Monday before Thanksgiving Break. This is a suitable time to do it, because our project is due soon after that. And as for how, we will be asking permission for the use of the Lombardo Student Center from the Office of Student Activities.

Group Lit Review

Our choice for the social action project is a combination of elements from guerilla art and culture jamming with the goal of making the community at John Carroll University more conscious about surveillance, privacy, and government boundaries. Both guerilla art and culture jamming are alternative forms of art used to provoke thought, discussion, and, usually, controversy. Almost always coming with political undertones, they provide a voice and a mode of social commentary for those who want to spread a message in a unique, effective way. Though they are mostly underground movements where the identities of those involved are left secret, the messages left by those involved can be far reaching and influential.

On the University of Washington’s website, they provide information about culture jamming, stating that it is “an intriguing form of political communication that has emerged in response to the commercial isolation of public life.” It goes on to give several links to articles containing different perspectives and useful information on culture jamming. Some of the articles, such as those written by Sven Woodside and David Cox look at culture jamming from a more humorous standpoint, talking about how the humor of culture jamming is often what provokes thought and attention from the public. Others look at it from a more serious standpoint, discussing the social implications of the messages left by culture jammers. Both viewpoints provide a better understanding of culture jamming and the different ways it can be utilized. The page on the University of Washington also provides links to organizations, such as Adbusters Magazine, who are dedicated to street art and culture jamming.

In his article about subvertisements, Scott Tsuchitani gives a specific example of a culture jamming/guerilla art piece where an advertisement for an “hyper-sexualized Orientalist fantasy” being shown at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco was subverted and put on a billboard in protest. The author then gives a detailed list of objectives to have when making guerilla art/participating in culture jamming.

Another article that caught our attention is contained information about using culture jamming to inspire student activism. In the article by Marilyn Frankenstein, the author writes about different forms of culture jamming (visual and written text, visual and oral text, sound), The Yes Men (a famous, movie making culture jamming duo) and how to inspire students to seriously consider social issues. The author states that, in her experience, if you can connect students to social issues in unconventional ways, they will retain and ponder the issues more.

Similar to this, an article by Steven Ciampaglia describes a class that he and a colleague created to get students to create art that would reach the attention of people outside of their classroom and provoke thought on a social issue, much like our session of FYS. Both of these articles reaffirm our belief that these alternative methods of art can be used effectively in the JCU community.