ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the multiple technologies by which state actors work to influence a narrative surrounding an event or process. It describes this analysis within the context of leaked data, through the court-martial of Chelsea Manning. Ethnographic methods can be considered more of an approach to research rather than a specific set of methodological practices. The lack of clear refusal of access, the delays, lack of responses and bureaucratic confusion can be helpfully understood through an understanding of ‘the’ state as inconsistent and emergent. The online documentation of Freedom of Information Act requests requests has resulted in further repositories for redacted data that the democratic state has been forced to release. Technologies of state control are emergent; they arise through a researcher’s interaction with disparate parts of the state apparatus.
