San Antonio: “CyberCity, USA” and the Cyber-Security State

Abstract

In this chapter, I explore the tension that exists between San Antonio’s claim to open government and enhanced democracy, its intense focus on systems of surveillance and security, which threaten to thwart democratic practices, and its neoliberal agenda to enhance its economic base through the securitization of cyberspace. I argue that San Antonio represents an example of what Stephen Graham refers to as the “new military urbanism,” as city literature narratively shifts the perception of its civilians, as they operate in both public and private spaces, into sources of threats, to justify and bolster the city’s focus on surveillance and the cyber-security economy. The city’s regime of securitization and militarization materializes, in part, through premediating what could happen and then offering affects of security through increased digital homogeneity. I therefore argue that for San Antonio, security and the protection of democracy become ideological frameworks that help to justify a growing surveillance economy and the use of mass surveillance technologies.