Case Study 33-1: Trevor Paglen and the Geography of Secret Surveillance

Art as Documentation, Documentation as Politics

The Artist and His Practice

Trevor Paglen describes his practice as a combination of art, geography, and journalism. Trained as a geographer (Ph.D., University of California Berkeley), he brings a spatial analysis to the question of how power makes itself invisible — or rather, how it uses the vast scale of contemporary infrastructure to hide in plain sight.

The NSA's Utah Data Center, one of Paglen's most frequently discussed subjects, sits in Bluffdale, Utah, approximately 25 miles south of Salt Lake City. The facility occupies approximately 1 million square feet of building space across a 654-acre campus. It was constructed between 2010 and 2013 at a cost estimated at $1.5 billion. It is, in the literal sense, one of the largest buildings ever constructed. Its scale is extraordinary — and yet most Americans did not know of its existence until Snowden's revelations in 2013.

Paglen had known of the facility's construction before Snowden, and had photographed it before the revelations. His photograph shows the facility clearly — the scale of the server halls, the cooling infrastructure (visible as distinctive geometric protrusions), the perimeter fencing, the empty landscape around it. The photograph was published before it could be connected to a publicly acknowledged program; after Snowden, its significance shifted.

The Methodology: How Paglen Finds What to Photograph

Paglen's process begins with research, not photography. He works in what he calls "the classified world" — the vast ecosystem of secrecy that surrounds national security programs.

His research methods include: - Document research: Government contracts (available through procurement databases), environmental impact statements (required before federal construction), court documents, and FOIA requests - Collaboration with journalists and researchers: He works regularly with investigative journalists and has published in partnership with journalists covering national security - Satellite tracking communities: For his photographs of classified satellites, Paglen relies on networks of amateur astronomers who track unacknowledged orbital objects - On-the-ground reconnaissance: Identifying the boundaries of classified installations from legal public vantage points

The result is that Paglen's photographs are not random discoveries but the product of sustained investigation — each photograph documents a specifically identified, named aspect of the surveillance apparatus.

The Utah Data Center: A Case Study in Scale

The Utah Data Center was built by the NSA as a storage facility for the data collected through surveillance programs including those revealed by Snowden. Internal NSA documents obtained by Snowden described its purpose as storing "communications of foreign nationals and Americans alike" from intercepted internet and telephone communications.

The facility's scale reflects the scale of the surveillance it supports. NSA officials have declined to specify its storage capacity, but security experts have estimated it in the range of exabytes to yottabytes of data. For context: an exabyte is one billion gigabytes. The facility's purpose is to store data indefinitely — not to analyze it all now, but to preserve it so it can be analyzed later when analytical capabilities improve.

Paglen's photograph of this facility is a photograph of data — specifically, of the physical infrastructure within which data is stored, processed, and retained. It makes concrete the otherwise abstracted concept of "data collection at scale." When advocacy organizations describe NSA programs as collecting "billions" of communications, the Utah Data Center gives that number a physical correlate — a building in a landscape.

The Classified Satellite Photographs: Objects That Don't Officially Exist

Paglen's photographs of classified satellites address a different form of invisibility. The United States launches military and intelligence satellites whose existence is not officially acknowledged. Their orbits are not published in government databases. They do not have official public designations. Their purposes are classified.

And yet they are in space, traveling through public airspace, visible to anyone with a sufficiently powerful telescope and knowledge of where to look. Amateur satellite trackers — a dedicated global community of observers who systematically identify and track all orbital objects — provide the orbital data that allows Paglen to know where to point his camera at the right moment.

The resulting photographs show points of light against starfields — classified objects rendered visible. The photographs are published with identifications: "USA-186, keyhole reconnaissance satellite" or similar designations from the amateur tracking community.

These photographs make a specific argument: the secret is not that these objects exist. Their existence can be determined from public information, if you know what to look for. The secret is specific and narrow — what these satellites collect, how they work, how many there are. Paglen's photographs honor that distinction: they document existence without revealing classified operational details.

The Political Argument

Paglen has articulated his political argument in writing and lectures. In "Operational Images" (2014), he argues that contemporary surveillance produces imagery at an unprecedented scale — imagery that is designed to be invisible to its subjects. Satellite reconnaissance, CCTV networks, biometric databases — these produce vast quantities of images that are never meant for public view.

His counter-argument through photography is about the accountability function of vision. Democratic societies depend on the ability of citizens to see — at least representationally — what is done in their name. A surveillance apparatus that is invisible to those it surveils is an apparatus that cannot be democratically accountable.

This argument has limits that Paglen acknowledges. National security institutions argue that the visibility of their operations creates vulnerability to adversaries. There are legitimate secrecy interests that conflict with Paglen's transparency argument. The question is not whether secrecy has any legitimate place but where its limits should lie — whether the scale and scope of contemporary surveillance infrastructure can be justified by the secrecy claims that surround it.

Paglen's work circulates primarily in art galleries and museums — institutions with predominantly privileged audiences. The people most affected by NSA surveillance programs are unlikely to encounter his photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Tate Modern. This is a genuine limitation of art-as-counter-surveillance.

But gallery circulation is not the only circulation. Paglen's images travel through journalism (his photographs have been published by the New York Times, Der Spiegel, and other major outlets in connection with reporting on NSA programs), through online circulation, and through the broader cultural conversation about surveillance that his work helps constitute. The gallery is a point of production and authentication; the internet is the medium of distribution.

Connections and Analysis Questions

1. Paglen describes his practice as a combination of art, geography, and journalism. How does this interdisciplinary approach affect the political reach of his work? Is a photograph that looks like art more or less effective as political counter-surveillance than a photograph that looks like journalism?

2. Paglen photographs the physical infrastructure of surveillance — buildings, cables, satellites — rather than the surveillance it produces (no photographs of NSA analyst screens or intercepted communications). What does this choice say about what he believes can be made visible without crossing ethical or legal lines?

3. The Utah Data Center's existence was documented by Paglen before the Snowden revelations but did not generate significant public attention until after them. What does this tell us about the relationship between artistic documentation and public understanding? Does documentation matter if it isn't connected to a narrative that people already care about?

4. Amateur satellite trackers — hobbyists who identify and track unacknowledged military and intelligence satellites — are a crucial resource for Paglen's work. They operate in a legal gray zone (tracking objects whose existence the government doesn't acknowledge but whose behavior is visible from public airspace). What does this community tell us about the relationship between technical knowledge, public information, and official secrecy?

5. Paglen's work requires significant financial resources — specialized cameras, travel, research time — that are not available to most people. Does the material privilege of art production undermine the democratic claims of surveillance art? Who can participate in art-as-counter-surveillance, and who cannot?

This case study connects to Chapter 33 Section 33.2 (Paglen's practice) and backward to Chapter 9 (NSA mass interception and the Snowden revelations). It connects forward to Chapter 39 (democratic accountability for surveillance) and Chapter 40 (futures of surveillance).