Revealing (in)security: scandals, guilty secrets, and the promise of counter-forensics

Abstract Making (in)security public often occurs through the frame of scandal, which reveals failures as individuated malpractice or malfunction but forecloses acknowledgement of systemic and structural harms. Drawing on British public inquiries (including Bloody Sunday, the Iraq War, and Grenfell Tower), the article explains how this foreclosure occurs through reliance on methodological individualism and the exposure of individual responsibility (guilty secrets) as a way of staging credibility. An alternative form of making (in)security public is found in civil society “counter-forensics” groups. Using the interactions between the Iraq Body Count and the Iraq “Chilcot” Inquiry as a case study, the article shows how counter-forensics reveal patterns of socially mediated and preventable harm. This approach can expand societal acknowledgement of security practices and their harmful effects, providing an alternative register to reveal, debate, and contest (in)security.