Between liberty and control: citizens’ attitudes towards Romanian state surveillance
##plugins.themes.academic_pro.article.sidebar##
Published
May 19, 2021
Download
Statistic
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
##plugins.themes.academic_pro.article.main##
Abstract
Surveillance was extensively analyzed in the literature from multiple standpoints. Some studies looked to the temporal development of surveillance, while others analyzed the traditional theories that influenced many of the contemporary surveillance studies. All these studies define surveillance as an activity that is ubiquitous and performed globally, by multiple private and public institutions, through the involvement of specific technologies. However, little attention was paid to the perceptions of citizens about surveillance. This article addresses this gap in the literature and analyses how state surveillance is perceived by the Romanian citizens according to the socio-demographic factors (i.e., age, education, income, gender and medium of residence). The aim of the study is to explain how socio-demographic factors influence the acceptance of state surveillance. It also controls for the left-right self-placement, and the use of Facebook as source of information. The statistical analysis uses individual level data from an original survey conducted between October-November 2020. The survey was completed by 1,140 respondents, and the article uses correlation and linear regression to analyze the data. The findings illustrate that the acceptance of state surveillance is influenced by the gender, level of education and medium of residence of the individuals. The age and income of the citizens have no effect on the acceptance of state surveillance.
##plugins.themes.academic_pro.article.details##
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
Tap, P. (2021). Between liberty and control: citizens’ attitudes towards Romanian state surveillance. Sociologie Românească, 19(1), 183-205. https://doi.org/10.33788/sr.19.1.10
References
Andrew, C. (2018). The Secret World: A History of Intelligence. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ball, K., Haggerty, K. D., & Lyon, D. (eds.) (2012). Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies. Abingdon: Routledge.
Ball, K., & Webster, F. (eds.) (2003). The Intensification of Surveillance. Crime, Terrorism and Warfare in the Information Age. London: Pluto Press.
Beck, U. (1996). Risk, Environment and Society. Towards a New Ecology. (Edited by S. Lash, B. Szerszynski, and B. Wynne). London: Sage Publication.
Bene, M. (2017). Influenced by peers: Facebook as an information source for young people, Social Media and Society, 3(2).
Boersma, K. et al. (eds.) (2014). Histories of State Surveillance in Europe and Beyond. Abingdon: Routledge.
Boyce, C. J., Brown, G. D. A., & Moore, S. C. (2010). Money and happiness: Rank of income, not income, affects life satisfaction, Psychological Science, 21(4), 471-475.
Brunon-Ernst, A. (ed.) (2012). Beyond Foucault. New Perspectives on Bentham’s Panopticon, Beyond Foucault. Burlington: Ashgate.
Bungert, H., Heitmann, J. G., & Wala, M. (eds.) (2003). Secret intelligence in the twentieth century, Secret Intelligence in the Twentieth Century. London: Frank Cass.
Carter, K. N. et al. (2011). The association of food security with psychological distress in New Zealand and any gender differences, Social Science and Medicine, 72(9), 1463-1471.
Coburn, D. (2004). Beyond the income inequality hypothesis: Class, neo-liberalism, and health inequalities, Social Science and Medicine, 58(1), 41-56.
Corner, P. (ed.) (2009). Popular Opinion in Totalitarian Regimes: Fascism, Nazism, Communism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Couch, D. et al. (2015). Public health surveillance and the media: a dyad of panoptic and synoptic social control, Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine, 3(1), 128-141.
Deletant, D. (2019). Romania under Communism. Paradox and Degeneration. London: Routledge.
Digi24 (2020). Cluj-Napoca va fi monitorizat cu drone. Oamenii vor fi verificați dacă respectă izolarea (Cluj-Napoca will be monitored by drones. People will be checked for insulation). Available at: https://www.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/video-cluj-napoca-va-fi-monitorizat-cu-drone-oamenii-vor-fi-verificati-daca-respecta-izolarea-1289176. Accessed on November 26, 2020.
Dinev, T. et al. (2006). ‘Internet Users’ Privacy Concerns and Beliefs About Government Surveillance: An Exploratory Study of Differences Between Italy and the United States’, Journal of Global Information Management, 14(4), pp. 57-93.
Douglas, K. M. et al. (2019). Understanding Conspiracy Theories, Political Psychology, 40(S1), 3-35.
Dow, J. K. (2011). Political knowledge and electoral choice in the 1992-2004 United States presidential elections: Are more and less informed citizens distinguishable?, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 21(3), 381-405.
Eveland, W. P. J. (2004). The effect of political discussion in producing informed citizens: The roles of information, motivation, and elaboration, Political Communication, 21(2), 177-193.
Field, A. (2013). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics. (4th edn). Los Angeles: Sage.
Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books.
Gandy, O. H. (2003). Public opinion surveys and the formation of privacy policy, Journal of Social Issues, 59(2), 283-299.
Garland, D. (2001). The Culture of Control. Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Chicago: The University of Ghicago Press.
Haggerty, K. D., & Ericson, R. V. (2000). The surveillant assemblage, British Journal of Sociology, 51(4), 605-622.
Haggerty, K. D., & Ericson, R. V. (eds.) (2006). The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Hindman, D. B. (2000). The rural-urban digital divide, Journalism and Mass Communication Quaterly, 77(3), 549-560.
Kharpal, A. (2020). Use of surveillance to fight coronavirus raises concerns about government power after pandemic ends, CNBC. Available at https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/coronavirus-surveillance-used-by-governments-to-fight-pandemic-privacy-concerns.html. Accessed on November 21, 2020.
Kitschelt, H., & Hellmans, S. (1990). The Left-Right Semantics and The New Politics Cleavage, Comparative Political Studies, 23(2), 210-238.
Lane, J., & Meeker, J. W. (2003). Women’s and men’s fear of gang crimes: Sexual and nonsexual assault as perceptually contemporaneous offenses, Justice Quarterly, 20(2), 337-371.
Lewinsohn, P. M. et al. (1998). Gender differences in anxiety disorders and anxiety symptoms in adolescents, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 107(1), 109-117.
Lucas, R. E., & Schimmack, U. (2009). Income and well-being: How big is the gap between the rich and the poor?, Journal of Research in Personality. Elsevier Inc., 43(1), 75-78.
Lyon, D. (2002a). Everyday Surveillance: Personal data and social classifications, Information, Communication & Society, 5(2), pp. 242-257.
Lyon, D. (2002b). Surveillance studies: Understanding visibility, mobility and the phenetic fix’, Surveillance and Society, 1(1), 1-7.
Lyon, D. (ed.) (2003). Surveillance as Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk and Automated Discrimination. London: Routledge.
Lyon, D. (ed.) (2006). Theorizing Surveillance, Theorizing Surveillance. The panopticon and beyond. Uffculme: William Publishing.
Marinescu, E. (2020). Eurobarometru: românii au încredere în UE şi se tem de imigraţie şi terorism (Eurobarometer: Romanians trust the EU and fear immigration and terrorism), Capital. Available at https://www.capital.ro/eurobarometru-romanii-au-incredere-in-ue-si-se-tem-de-imigratie-si-terorism.html. Accessed on January 1, 2020.
Mathiesen, T. (1997). The Viewer Society: Michel Foucault’s “Panopticon” Revisited, Theoretical Criminology, 1(2), 215-234.
McGill, T., & Thompson, N. (2018). Gender differences in information security perceptions and behaviour, 29th Australasian Conference on Information Systems, 1-11.
Mediafax (2015). Corupția, una dintre vulnerabilitățile României, în Strategia Națională de Apărare a Țării (Corruption, one of Romania’s vulnerabilities, in the National Defense Strategy of the Country). Available at https://www.mediafax.ro/politic/coruptia-una-din-vulnerabilitatile-romaniei-in-strategia-nationala-de-aparare-a-tarii-14445752. Accessed on February 25, 2021.
Mediafax (2017). Documente privind implicarea serviciilor în justiție și colaborarea SRI-DNA (Documents regarding the involvement of the services in justice and the collaboration of SRI-DNA), Mediafax.ro. Available at https://www.mediafax.ro/social/documente-privind-implicarea-serviciilor-in-justitie-si-colaborarea-sri-dna-16142465. Accessed on December 14, 2020.
Meyrowitz, J. (1985). No sense of Place. The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behaviour. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mitzner, T. L. et al. (2010) Older Adults Talk Technology: Technology Usage and Attitudes, Computers in Human Behavior, 26(6), 1710-1721.
Nam, T. (2019). What determines the acceptance of government surveillance? Examining the influence of information privacy correlates, Social Science Journal. Western Social Science Association, 56(4), 530-544.
Nellis, A. M. (2009). Gender Differences in Fear of Terrorism, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 25(3), 322-340.
Pitu, L. (2020). România și violența împotriva femeilor: nu există nicio scuză! (Romania and violence against women: there is no excuse!), DW. Available at https://www.dw.com/ro/românia-și-violența-împotriva-femeilor-nu-există-nicio-scuză/a-52357601. Accessed on January 2, 2021.
Piurko, Y., Schwartz, S. H., & Davidov, E. (2011). Basic Personal Values and the Meaning of Left-Right Political Orientations in 20 Countries, Political Psychology, 32(4), pp. 537-561.
Rosenbloo, D. H. (2014). Public Administration and Civil Liberties, Public Administration Review, 62(s1), 58-60.
Sarigül, F. A. (2018). The Changing Types of Social Surveillance Through Globalization, International Journal of Social Sciences, 4(2), 200-211.
Slobogin, C. (2007). Privacy at Risk. The New Government Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment, Privacy at Risk. Chicago: The Univeristy of Chicago Press.
Solomon, B. (2019). Scandal la STS în cazul presupuselor crime din Caracal. Ce greşeli ar fi făcut serviciul la localizare. Reacţia ministrului de Interne (STS scandal in the case of the alleged crimes in Caracal. What mistakes would the location service have made? The react, Fanatik.ro. Available at https://www.fanatik.ro/scandal-la-sts-in-cazul-presupuselor-crime-din-caracal-ce-greseli-ar-fi-facut-serviciul-la-localizare-reactia-ministrului-de-interne-19036709. Accessed on December 14, 2020.
Stan, L., & Zulean, M. (2018). Intelligence sector reforms in Romania: A scorecard, Surveillance and Society, 16(3), 298-313.
Ștefănescu, C. (2020). Victimele abuzurilor sexuale sunt victimele societății (Victims of sexual abuse are victims of society), DW. Available at https://www.dw.com/ro/victimele-abuzurilor-sexuale-sunt-victimele-societății/a-53853502. Accessed on January 2, 2021.
Stern, M. J., Adams, A. E., & Elsasser, S. (2009). Digital inequality and place: The effects of technological diffusion on internet proficiency and usage across rural, Suburban, and Urban Counties, Sociological Inquiry, 79(4), 391-417.
Svenonius, O., & Björklund, F. (2018a). Explaining attitudes to secret surveillance in post-communist societies, East European Politics. Taylor & Francis, 34(2), 123-151.
Svenonius, O., & Björklund, F. (2018b). Surveillance from a post-communist perspective, Surveillance and Society, 16(3), 269-276.
Sztompka, P. (1998). Trust, Distrust and Two Paradoxex of Democracy, European Journal of Social Theory, 1(1), 19-32.
Tache, C. (2020). Iohannis, ”paradit” de Hăpău! Scandal HUMINT la DGIA! (Iohannis, ‘damaged’ by Hăpău! HUMINT scandal at DGIA!), Național.ro. Available at https://www.national.ro/dezvaluiri/iohannis-paradit-de-hapau-scandal-humint-la-dgia-693427.html. Accessed on December 14, 2020.
Tomoiaga, T. (2020). Realitatea dură din România, 50% dintre elevi nu au acces la Internet: Este un an pierdut (The harsh reality in Romania, 50% of students do not have access to the Internet: It is a lost year), Mediafax. Available at https://www.mediafax.ro/social/realitatea-dura-din-romania-50-dintre-elevi-nu-au-acces-la-internet-este-un-an-pierdut-19105591. Accessed on January 2, 2021.
Valentova, M., & Alieva, A. (2014). Gender differences in the perception of immigration-related threats, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 39(1), 175-182.
Veenhoven, R. (1991). Is happiness relative?, Social Indicators Research, 24(1), 1-34.
Wood, D. M., & Webster, C. W. R. (2009) Living in Surveillance Societies: The Normalisation of Surveillance in Europe and the Threat of Britain’s Bad Example, Journal of Contemporary European Research, 5(2), 259-273.
Zoltan, P. (2017). Și ”Doi și-un sfert” ne ascultă telefoanele! Este bomba lansată de un fost șef al DGPI, Remus Șpan (And ‘Two and a Quarter’ is listening to our phones! It is the bomb dropped by a former head of DGPI, Remus Șpan), România Liberă. Available at https://romanialibera.ro/special/dezvaluiri/exclusivitate--comisarul-remus-span--fostul-sef-al--interceptarilor--la-dgpi---dezvaluire-bomba--si--doi-si-un-sfert--ne-asculta-telefoanele--461357. Accessed on December 14, 2020.
Ball, K., Haggerty, K. D., & Lyon, D. (eds.) (2012). Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies. Abingdon: Routledge.
Ball, K., & Webster, F. (eds.) (2003). The Intensification of Surveillance. Crime, Terrorism and Warfare in the Information Age. London: Pluto Press.
Beck, U. (1996). Risk, Environment and Society. Towards a New Ecology. (Edited by S. Lash, B. Szerszynski, and B. Wynne). London: Sage Publication.
Bene, M. (2017). Influenced by peers: Facebook as an information source for young people, Social Media and Society, 3(2).
Boersma, K. et al. (eds.) (2014). Histories of State Surveillance in Europe and Beyond. Abingdon: Routledge.
Boyce, C. J., Brown, G. D. A., & Moore, S. C. (2010). Money and happiness: Rank of income, not income, affects life satisfaction, Psychological Science, 21(4), 471-475.
Brunon-Ernst, A. (ed.) (2012). Beyond Foucault. New Perspectives on Bentham’s Panopticon, Beyond Foucault. Burlington: Ashgate.
Bungert, H., Heitmann, J. G., & Wala, M. (eds.) (2003). Secret intelligence in the twentieth century, Secret Intelligence in the Twentieth Century. London: Frank Cass.
Carter, K. N. et al. (2011). The association of food security with psychological distress in New Zealand and any gender differences, Social Science and Medicine, 72(9), 1463-1471.
Coburn, D. (2004). Beyond the income inequality hypothesis: Class, neo-liberalism, and health inequalities, Social Science and Medicine, 58(1), 41-56.
Corner, P. (ed.) (2009). Popular Opinion in Totalitarian Regimes: Fascism, Nazism, Communism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Couch, D. et al. (2015). Public health surveillance and the media: a dyad of panoptic and synoptic social control, Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine, 3(1), 128-141.
Deletant, D. (2019). Romania under Communism. Paradox and Degeneration. London: Routledge.
Digi24 (2020). Cluj-Napoca va fi monitorizat cu drone. Oamenii vor fi verificați dacă respectă izolarea (Cluj-Napoca will be monitored by drones. People will be checked for insulation). Available at: https://www.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/video-cluj-napoca-va-fi-monitorizat-cu-drone-oamenii-vor-fi-verificati-daca-respecta-izolarea-1289176. Accessed on November 26, 2020.
Dinev, T. et al. (2006). ‘Internet Users’ Privacy Concerns and Beliefs About Government Surveillance: An Exploratory Study of Differences Between Italy and the United States’, Journal of Global Information Management, 14(4), pp. 57-93.
Douglas, K. M. et al. (2019). Understanding Conspiracy Theories, Political Psychology, 40(S1), 3-35.
Dow, J. K. (2011). Political knowledge and electoral choice in the 1992-2004 United States presidential elections: Are more and less informed citizens distinguishable?, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 21(3), 381-405.
Eveland, W. P. J. (2004). The effect of political discussion in producing informed citizens: The roles of information, motivation, and elaboration, Political Communication, 21(2), 177-193.
Field, A. (2013). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics. (4th edn). Los Angeles: Sage.
Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books.
Gandy, O. H. (2003). Public opinion surveys and the formation of privacy policy, Journal of Social Issues, 59(2), 283-299.
Garland, D. (2001). The Culture of Control. Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Chicago: The University of Ghicago Press.
Haggerty, K. D., & Ericson, R. V. (2000). The surveillant assemblage, British Journal of Sociology, 51(4), 605-622.
Haggerty, K. D., & Ericson, R. V. (eds.) (2006). The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Hindman, D. B. (2000). The rural-urban digital divide, Journalism and Mass Communication Quaterly, 77(3), 549-560.
Kharpal, A. (2020). Use of surveillance to fight coronavirus raises concerns about government power after pandemic ends, CNBC. Available at https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/coronavirus-surveillance-used-by-governments-to-fight-pandemic-privacy-concerns.html. Accessed on November 21, 2020.
Kitschelt, H., & Hellmans, S. (1990). The Left-Right Semantics and The New Politics Cleavage, Comparative Political Studies, 23(2), 210-238.
Lane, J., & Meeker, J. W. (2003). Women’s and men’s fear of gang crimes: Sexual and nonsexual assault as perceptually contemporaneous offenses, Justice Quarterly, 20(2), 337-371.
Lewinsohn, P. M. et al. (1998). Gender differences in anxiety disorders and anxiety symptoms in adolescents, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 107(1), 109-117.
Lucas, R. E., & Schimmack, U. (2009). Income and well-being: How big is the gap between the rich and the poor?, Journal of Research in Personality. Elsevier Inc., 43(1), 75-78.
Lyon, D. (2002a). Everyday Surveillance: Personal data and social classifications, Information, Communication & Society, 5(2), pp. 242-257.
Lyon, D. (2002b). Surveillance studies: Understanding visibility, mobility and the phenetic fix’, Surveillance and Society, 1(1), 1-7.
Lyon, D. (ed.) (2003). Surveillance as Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk and Automated Discrimination. London: Routledge.
Lyon, D. (ed.) (2006). Theorizing Surveillance, Theorizing Surveillance. The panopticon and beyond. Uffculme: William Publishing.
Marinescu, E. (2020). Eurobarometru: românii au încredere în UE şi se tem de imigraţie şi terorism (Eurobarometer: Romanians trust the EU and fear immigration and terrorism), Capital. Available at https://www.capital.ro/eurobarometru-romanii-au-incredere-in-ue-si-se-tem-de-imigratie-si-terorism.html. Accessed on January 1, 2020.
Mathiesen, T. (1997). The Viewer Society: Michel Foucault’s “Panopticon” Revisited, Theoretical Criminology, 1(2), 215-234.
McGill, T., & Thompson, N. (2018). Gender differences in information security perceptions and behaviour, 29th Australasian Conference on Information Systems, 1-11.
Mediafax (2015). Corupția, una dintre vulnerabilitățile României, în Strategia Națională de Apărare a Țării (Corruption, one of Romania’s vulnerabilities, in the National Defense Strategy of the Country). Available at https://www.mediafax.ro/politic/coruptia-una-din-vulnerabilitatile-romaniei-in-strategia-nationala-de-aparare-a-tarii-14445752. Accessed on February 25, 2021.
Mediafax (2017). Documente privind implicarea serviciilor în justiție și colaborarea SRI-DNA (Documents regarding the involvement of the services in justice and the collaboration of SRI-DNA), Mediafax.ro. Available at https://www.mediafax.ro/social/documente-privind-implicarea-serviciilor-in-justitie-si-colaborarea-sri-dna-16142465. Accessed on December 14, 2020.
Meyrowitz, J. (1985). No sense of Place. The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behaviour. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mitzner, T. L. et al. (2010) Older Adults Talk Technology: Technology Usage and Attitudes, Computers in Human Behavior, 26(6), 1710-1721.
Nam, T. (2019). What determines the acceptance of government surveillance? Examining the influence of information privacy correlates, Social Science Journal. Western Social Science Association, 56(4), 530-544.
Nellis, A. M. (2009). Gender Differences in Fear of Terrorism, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 25(3), 322-340.
Pitu, L. (2020). România și violența împotriva femeilor: nu există nicio scuză! (Romania and violence against women: there is no excuse!), DW. Available at https://www.dw.com/ro/românia-și-violența-împotriva-femeilor-nu-există-nicio-scuză/a-52357601. Accessed on January 2, 2021.
Piurko, Y., Schwartz, S. H., & Davidov, E. (2011). Basic Personal Values and the Meaning of Left-Right Political Orientations in 20 Countries, Political Psychology, 32(4), pp. 537-561.
Rosenbloo, D. H. (2014). Public Administration and Civil Liberties, Public Administration Review, 62(s1), 58-60.
Sarigül, F. A. (2018). The Changing Types of Social Surveillance Through Globalization, International Journal of Social Sciences, 4(2), 200-211.
Slobogin, C. (2007). Privacy at Risk. The New Government Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment, Privacy at Risk. Chicago: The Univeristy of Chicago Press.
Solomon, B. (2019). Scandal la STS în cazul presupuselor crime din Caracal. Ce greşeli ar fi făcut serviciul la localizare. Reacţia ministrului de Interne (STS scandal in the case of the alleged crimes in Caracal. What mistakes would the location service have made? The react, Fanatik.ro. Available at https://www.fanatik.ro/scandal-la-sts-in-cazul-presupuselor-crime-din-caracal-ce-greseli-ar-fi-facut-serviciul-la-localizare-reactia-ministrului-de-interne-19036709. Accessed on December 14, 2020.
Stan, L., & Zulean, M. (2018). Intelligence sector reforms in Romania: A scorecard, Surveillance and Society, 16(3), 298-313.
Ștefănescu, C. (2020). Victimele abuzurilor sexuale sunt victimele societății (Victims of sexual abuse are victims of society), DW. Available at https://www.dw.com/ro/victimele-abuzurilor-sexuale-sunt-victimele-societății/a-53853502. Accessed on January 2, 2021.
Stern, M. J., Adams, A. E., & Elsasser, S. (2009). Digital inequality and place: The effects of technological diffusion on internet proficiency and usage across rural, Suburban, and Urban Counties, Sociological Inquiry, 79(4), 391-417.
Svenonius, O., & Björklund, F. (2018a). Explaining attitudes to secret surveillance in post-communist societies, East European Politics. Taylor & Francis, 34(2), 123-151.
Svenonius, O., & Björklund, F. (2018b). Surveillance from a post-communist perspective, Surveillance and Society, 16(3), 269-276.
Sztompka, P. (1998). Trust, Distrust and Two Paradoxex of Democracy, European Journal of Social Theory, 1(1), 19-32.
Tache, C. (2020). Iohannis, ”paradit” de Hăpău! Scandal HUMINT la DGIA! (Iohannis, ‘damaged’ by Hăpău! HUMINT scandal at DGIA!), Național.ro. Available at https://www.national.ro/dezvaluiri/iohannis-paradit-de-hapau-scandal-humint-la-dgia-693427.html. Accessed on December 14, 2020.
Tomoiaga, T. (2020). Realitatea dură din România, 50% dintre elevi nu au acces la Internet: Este un an pierdut (The harsh reality in Romania, 50% of students do not have access to the Internet: It is a lost year), Mediafax. Available at https://www.mediafax.ro/social/realitatea-dura-din-romania-50-dintre-elevi-nu-au-acces-la-internet-este-un-an-pierdut-19105591. Accessed on January 2, 2021.
Valentova, M., & Alieva, A. (2014). Gender differences in the perception of immigration-related threats, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 39(1), 175-182.
Veenhoven, R. (1991). Is happiness relative?, Social Indicators Research, 24(1), 1-34.
Wood, D. M., & Webster, C. W. R. (2009) Living in Surveillance Societies: The Normalisation of Surveillance in Europe and the Threat of Britain’s Bad Example, Journal of Contemporary European Research, 5(2), 259-273.
Zoltan, P. (2017). Și ”Doi și-un sfert” ne ascultă telefoanele! Este bomba lansată de un fost șef al DGPI, Remus Șpan (And ‘Two and a Quarter’ is listening to our phones! It is the bomb dropped by a former head of DGPI, Remus Șpan), România Liberă. Available at https://romanialibera.ro/special/dezvaluiri/exclusivitate--comisarul-remus-span--fostul-sef-al--interceptarilor--la-dgpi---dezvaluire-bomba--si--doi-si-un-sfert--ne-asculta-telefoanele--461357. Accessed on December 14, 2020.