Evidencing terror

Abstract

Since the 2016 attempted coup in Turkey, more than 215,000 people have been investigated for allegedly using ByLock, an encrypted-message app. According to government officials and courts, the app was used exclusively by Fethullah Gülen's network, which the Turkish state classifies as a terrorist organization. Legal experts transformed ByLock data into vehicles of suspicion that could “testify” to past and future terrorism actions. They did so by combining counterterror doctrine and cultural narratives with digital and legal practices, including data extraction, analysis, legal writing, and courtroom confrontations. I call these practices evidencing terror, a technolegal method that, in setting up suspicion as an element of digital evidence, wields an extensive visceral and political force that suspends people's civil rights. By transforming digital “memories” into endless sources of punitive action, practices of evidencing terror crystallize a new authoritarian politics, one that rests on the intimidation of both state bureaucrats and marginalized communities.