The Political Hegemony of the American Government as Represented in Glenn Greenwald’s No Place to Hide

ABSTRACT

The American government through the NSA has developed with sophisticated surveillance programs. These programs are made with reasons for state security, but these programs have actually been used far from their main purpose. These programs have been used illegally to monitor the public and cause privacy violations in the internet world. All activities carried out through the internet can be known by the American government. This surveillance system has made the American government violate the civil liberties that are the right of every citizen. No Place To Hide is a book by Glenn Greenwald about Edward Snowden in leaking secrets of the American government about the massive surveillance. This research was made to find out the ideology of the American government in carrying out practices of political hegemony towards its people and even the international world.

This research uses the theory of political hegemony to find out the ideology and form of government programs in conducting massive surveillance of the people represented in the book. Through Hegemony, Antonio Gramsci offered a more "subtle" approach: coercion by consent. Basically, politics is concerned with matters of power, decision making, public policy, and allocation or distribution. In general, it can be said that politics is an attempt to determine regulations that are acceptable to the majority of citizens to achieve a good life. Politics is not always good, in this case it can be seen from human nature that also has a bad instinct where personal interests can be more important than mutual interests, such as the American government which has other goals in carrying out the sophisticated programs they have developed. After 9/11 the government has an ideology that state security is the main thing, so people are not aware that their privacy has been violated by the government in carrying out massive surveillance. The leaked of the secret of the American government by Edward Snowden to the public will help the public in addressing these government policies.

Based on research results, the government has built a sophisticated surveillance system so that it can enter the people's privacy illegally. These surveillance programs have been running for several years without knowing by the public until Edward leaked them to the public. This case has caused serious debate and caused resistance to the American government to reform these programs.