Unknown Unknowns

Explanation

“Unknown unknowns” refers to risks that are entirely unforeseeable, lying outside the scope of current knowledge or prediction. In security studies and criminology, this concept has been used to justify increasingly expansive and preemptive forms of control. As Michael C. Powell and other critical scholars have noted, framing security policy around unknown unknowns can effectively remove limits on intervention: if risks cannot be named or measured, any and all measures can be justified.

Such anticipatory security logics circumvent normal democratic debate and accountability by making counter-arguments difficult or impossible. Since the threat cannot be specified, opposition to security measures can be dismissed as naive or irresponsible. This dynamic opens the door to unchecked surveillance, preemptive policing, and other forms of social control, all in the name of protecting against what cannot be known.