Death by Metadata: The Bioinformationalisation of Life and the Transliteration of Algorithms to Flesh

Abstract

In this chapter I examine the relations of knowledge/power that undergird military technologies that transmute life into anonymous data and thereby render it killable through lethal drone targeting. I specifically focus on tracking technologies developed by the National Surveillance Agency (NSA) that have been incorporated into the United States Department of Defense’s (DoD) drone program. I examine the interlocking of the NSA’s metadata with the DoD’s algorithmic formulae used to conduct drone kills in which the identities of those killed are often not known. I situate what I term the bioinformationalisation of life in the context of Pakistan and Yemen in order to disclose the violent transliteration of abstract metadata to flesh.

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