Smoke without fire: subjective determinations, counter-terrorism and semiosis

Abstract

This essay discusses counter-terrorism policing in Portugal, being specifically focused on its preventive and anticipatory dimension, which seeks to neutralize threats before they assume dramatic proportions. On this front, the surveillance of personal positionings that challenge the acceptable limits of citizenship and identity and are there fore labelled as radical assumes special importance. Based on an empirical research conducted in a Portuguese counter terrorism unit, this essay appreciates this modality of criminal investigation as a semiotic type of work, characterized by interpretations and inferences woven around the signs and functions of personhood. Notwithstanding the irrelevance of the terrorist incidents in Portugal, such a dimension of policing clearly merges with a European security culture that has been reinforced over the last twenty years.