Aryana Libris

Author : Henderson Harry
Title : Privacy in the information age Revised edition In one volume, all the essentials tools : overview of the topic, chronology of important events, glossary of terms, biographical listing, complete index, plus a fully annotated bibliography
Year : 1999

Link download : Henderson_Harry_-_Privacy_in_the_information_age.zip

Introduction to privacy in the informationage. Privacy, like most abstractions, can mean different things to different people. It can mean seclusion—a place where one need not fear prying eyes. But it can also mean the ability to control access to our personal information. Robert Ellis Smith, editor of Privacy Journal, combines the two definitions, speaking of “the desire by each of us for physical space where we can be free of interruption, intrusion, embarrassment, or accountability and the attempt to control the time and manner of disclosures of personal information about ourselves.”1 In 1928 Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis saw privacy as woven into the very fabric of our national life: The makers of our Constitution . . . sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred as against the Government, the right to be left alone—the most comprehensive of the rights of man and the right most valued by civilized men.2 However, it must be noted that Justice Brandeis was expressing the minority opinion of a Supreme Court whose literalistic interpretation of the Fourth Amendment had found nothing unconstitutional about the police tapping a phone line without a warrant. When the Court revisited the issue in Katz v. United States, almost 40 years had passed—years that had seen the anticommunist crusade of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the gathering of dossiers on thousands of Americans by FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, and the establishment of an elaborate national security apparatus. In a world of hidden microphones and radio transmitters, the Court now declared that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy at home and with regard to certain activities. Most Americans agree with this principle, at least in broad terms. For example, we expect that a letter will get to its destination without being opened and read. Likewise, no one should be able to listen in secretly on our phone calls without a court order. And if the police suspect someone has committed a crime, they must go to a judge and obtain a warrant before searching her home. ...