| Electronic surveillance is one of the policy options governments may employ when combating terrorist groups. Public discourse often involves concerns that such programs may substantially reduce citizens' privacy while providing marginal, if any, gains against terrorists. This study provides much-needed empirical data on the impact of electronic surveillance on terrorism.;The evidence I generate---examining data from 1970 through 2016, using a multivariate negative binomial panel regression model for longitudinal data---supports a hypothesis that the presence of electronic surveillance laws and the related government surveillance capacity decreases both the incidence of terrorist attacks and the number of individuals killed in terrorist attacks. These findings complement, and may be integrated into, broader scholarly work that finds that when constraints on government institutions are relaxed, they are more effective at counterterrorism. These data provide grounds for additional study in this domain. Qualitative, comparative case studies, for example, that examine the relationship among electronic surveillance and other counterterrorism strategies in which the nation-state is the unit of analysis, could reveal an optimal mix of strategies to limit terrorist activity. This study may help inform the debate over the scope of electronic surveillance and personal privacy in nation states. |
