OpSherlock: Privacy, Surveillance, and Anonymous in Elementary

Questions of privacy have always been focal issues in the detective genre, and have been problematised in crime fiction and film in several ways: in its most evident form, we can find (threats to) privacy as a motivation for crimes even in the earliest of Sherlock Holmes stories; the investigation process itself challenges and overwrites the everyday rules of privacy; and when the Great Detective is finally introduced into the process, he brings about a new set of practices and rules regarding privacy. Although the original Sherlock Holmes stories often address the issue both on the level of the plot and in the method of the detective, the discrepancies around privacy have become all the more visible in the most recent television adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, such as in Elementary and Sherlock. This development is at least partly due to the technological advances introduced in the past few decades, which made constant surveillance both in public and in private, not only possible but often unavoidable, but, on the other hand, recent historical events ? specifically 9/11 and its repercussions ? have apparently necessitated these measures as well. Apart from the official privacy measures and concerns, online initiatives, such as the hacktivist group Anonymous, and its spin-off endeavours, LulzSec and AntiSec have highlighted the severity of the situation concerning online privacy, or lack thereof. In my paper I would like to examine that corner of popular culture where Sherlock Holmes meets Anonymous, that is, the reflections of privacy issues and practices, and the emergence of hacker culture in the recent CBS series, Elementary.