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The File: A Personal History by Timothy Garton Ash
Ash systematically describes what he finds in his file, and confronts the individuals who furnished the information to the government. He finds that the informers were often blackmailed or otherwise forced into cooperating with the police, and expresses compassion for the informers and government agents who monitored him, noting that he had not found a single "evil" person in the process of examining his file. Rather, he found that those involved were "just weak, shaped by circumstance, self-deceiving; human, all too human. Yet the sum of all their actions was a great evil." - Chris Jay Hoofnagle Price: $14.00 (Random House 1997) |
Timothy Garton Ash's "The File" is a journey into the author's
two-inch-thick Stasi intelligence file that the East German police
accumulated on him during his study as a graduate student in East
Berlin. These files were opened after German reunification, and have
caused great tension in the country as Stasi informers were shown to
have shared information on co-workers, friends, and even family
members.|
Information Privacy Law by Daniel J. Solove and Marc Rotenberg
"Information Privacy Law includes insightful analysis of all the major cases including Bartnicki v. Vopper, Watchtower Bible v. Village of Stratton, United States v. Kyllo, McVeigh v. Cohen, United States v. Kennedy, Doe v. 2TheMart, United States v. Simons, and others. "Information Privacy Law also includes explanations of key statutes and regulations such as the Freedom of Information Act, Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, European Union Data Protection Directive, Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and more." - Aspen Publishers Price: $62.00 (Aspen 2003) |
"Now this rapidly evolving area of law finally has the text it
deserves. Written by two of the field's leading figures, this book's
readings and cases cover the full range of privacy issues, from
Megan's Law to employee monitoring to genetic privacy. It also
includes the first extensive coverage of several important topics,
especially in such key areas as medical privacy and international law.|
The GigaLaw Guide to Internet Law by Doug Isenberg
Price: $17.95 (Random House 2002) |
In this comprehensive guide, Isenberg succinctly covers every aspect
of Internet law – from intellectual property, free speech, and
privacy to contract and employment law – in a concise and
non-"legalese" style. His coverage provides the reader with realistic
and business-oriented solutions to the most common problems relating
to conducting online business in America, and is especially aimed at
policy makers, researchers, company lawyers and decision-makers.
Although the book is not particularly consumer-oriented, it offers a
good outline of current privacy issues and raises the average reader's
awareness on some of today's most important privacy risks when surfing
or expressing oneself on the Internet.|
CTRL [SPACE]: Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother edited by Thomas Y. Levin, Ursula Frohne, and Peter Weibel
The book features numerous essays and artistic works by and about many diverse groups, including the Surveillance Camera Players, the New York Civil Liberties Union's "NYC Surveillance Camera Project," and noted creative personalities such as Yoko Ono and Andy Warhol. A large, elaborately designed work comprising over 650 pages of images and text, "CTRL [SPACE]" feels at home in a library full of policy books, philosophy books, art books, and/or all (or none) of the above. - Kate Rears For more perspectives on video surveillance, see the Observing Surveillance project. Price: $39.95 (MIT Press 2002) |
Video surveillance is an important topic that is currently being
explored by policymakers, civil liberties organizations, and the
public at large. However, another important group has joined the
discussion about the subject of surveillance: artists. Just as the
use of surveillance cameras in public spaces raises important policy
questions, the cameras themselves are a form of visual media, and
thus the arts community has also become involved in the debate.
"CTRL [SPACE]" uses the arts as a springboard to explore different
ideas and issues surrounding surveillance and its history, from
philosophical questions posed by Michel Foucault and Jeremy Bentham
to 21st-century America's growing obsession with "reality television."
It also serves as an exhaustive catalog for the recent art exhibition
of the same name, held from October 13, 2001 to February 24, 2002
at the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany.|
Silencing Political Dissent: How Post-September 11 Anti-Terrorism Measures Threaten Our Civil Liberties by Nancy Chang of the Center for Constitutional Rights The Enemy Within: Intelligence Gathering, Law Enforcement, and Civil Liberties in the Wake of September 11, a Century Foundation Report by Stephen Schulhofer
Silencing Political Dissent: Price: $9.95 (Seven Stories Press 2002) The Enemy Within: Price: $13.95 (Century Foundation Press 2002) |
"Silencing
Political Dissent: How Post-September 11 Anti-Terrorism Measures
Threaten Our Civil Liberties," by Nancy Chang of the Center
for Constitutional Rights, is written to encourage readers to "join
the growing movement to reclaim our civil liberties." Chang
begins by providing a quick tour of the history of political repression
in the United States. The monuments in her tour will be familiar
to many; the clear thread running through the descriptions is that,
in times of uncertainty, ugly authoritarian impulses have invariably
surfaced in American society. She asserts that the USA PATRIOT Act
undermines civil liberties in three key ways – by adopting
an overbroad definition of "domestic terrorism;" by reducing
the expectation of privacy through expanded surveillance powers;
and by eroding the due process rights of non-citizens. Chang's book
serves as a useful primer to the issues at stake in this new environment.
"The Enemy Within: Intelligence Gathering, Law Enforcement, and Civil
Liberties in the Wake of September 11," a Century Foundation Report by
Stephen Schulhofer, takes a self-consciously pragmatic view on the
same subject. Schulhofer, a criminal law professor at NYU, asks three
main questions: Are the new measures effective? Are there adequate
safeguards? And are there better, less invasive alternatives?
Schulhofer's history tour focuses on the debates around civil
liberties that have taken place in times of crisis, making the point
that criticism was not only alive and well in those times, but that
the courts at times even sided with the defenders of civil liberties.
The book's main contention is that the most significant threat to
civil liberties comes from the administration's thirst for unchecked
executive power. The manner in which the USA PATRIOT Act was rammed
through Congress vividly emphasizes his point that the administration
shows little respect for the Constitution's built-in structural
safeguards. Schulhofer concludes that the new measures have been
marked by bad compromises, September 11 opportunism, and unchecked
executive power. He argues for countering these changes through
better checks and balances, and suggests a list of policy proposals to
achieve this aim. "The Enemy Within" provides some much needed
perspective for those in the trenches as well as for newcomers. While
some of Schulhofer's proposals might be controversial, the picture of
the threat he paints is convincing and the need for action clear. As
Christopher Edley, Jr. said at the Century Foundation's book release,
the civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution should be the
floor, not the ceiling, of what our society offers.|
Trust Us, We're Experts by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
In "Trust Us, We're Experts," Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber's second book on the public relations (PR) industry, the reader is warned about the role that Miller and other experts play in the public policy process. These experts, supported by massive funding from industry, formulate clever studies that ward off regulators and legislators. In some cases, these experts even endanger the public. The authors illustrate a formula for industry advocacy. First, experts are acquired to present the appearance of neutral, third-party support. Second, industry groups grow "astroturf"—that is, fake grassroots support for their position. This usually takes the form of letters to newspapers and legislators from concerned citizens who are quietly remunerated for their support. Third, well-organized PR firms send out pre-written news stories that are republished by busy journalists, sometimes in full as original news. The authors do present solutions to lessen the impact of industry experts on public policy. One important practice, which was recently adopted by the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, is to refuse to publish any study where the sponsor has the right to pre-publication review and veto—in essence, the ability to withhold unfavorable results from public view. The authors also suggest that research from other countries be relied upon to evaluate public policy. Researchers in other countries sometimes have exposed industrial hazards decades before American experts. But, most importantly, the authors urge us to question authority. Collectively, whether the issue is privacy, pesticides, or global warming, we need to pay more attention to the man behind the curtain. - Chris Hoofnagle Price: $14.95 (Putnam 2001) |
At
a recent FTC workshop on telemarketing, Jim Miller, former FTC Chairman
and now Washington lobbyist, presented a study showing that predictive
dialers, the systems that allow telemarketers to phone many persons
at the same time, should not be eliminated because they lower costs
for consumers. Miller's report, sponsored by the "Consumer
Choice Coalition," glossed over objections to predictive dialers,
which result in hang-up calls to phone subscribers. A little digging
shows that no consumers seem to be members of the Consumer Choice
Coalition—rather, it is a "cross-industry coalition of
companies and associations."|
Ruling the Root by Milton L. Mueller
His interest is in understanding how the management of the root, which perhaps was too easily called "governance," became institutionalized. His conclusion is simple: instead of a decentralized form of governance, root management came to resemble radio frequency allocation where a scarce resource (or a perhaps more precisely, a resource made scarce) could be used to leverage other policy goals. Or to push the Internet back into one of the boxes of Ithiel Pool's famous taxonomy of communications technologies, management of the root was treated as broadcast regulation rather than print publication. Not surprisingly, a battle over the allocation of newly minted property rights followed. Mueller touches briefly on some of the privacy problems that follow from the current administration of the Internet. The WHOIS database, originally intended to allow network administrators to find and fix problems with minimal hassle, now offers one-stop shopping for spammers, criminal investigators, and copyright enforcers. Mueller offers a clear warning that the institutionalization of the root threatens to diminish the openness and decentralization of the Internet. But maybe there is another warning as well. Perhaps governance should be left to governments. At least governments that create the opportunity to vote have found it very difficult to later retract the right. - Marc Rotenberg Price: $32.95 (MIT Press 2002) |
What
has happened in the past decade that has turned Internet policy
into such unpleasant business? A good answer to this question will
be found in Milton Mueller's Ruling the Root (MIT Press 2002). Mueller
traces the early days of root management, associated with the benevolent
rule of Jon Postel, through the efforts of Ira Magaziner and the
Department of Commerce to create a non-profit corporation that would
"reflect the will of the Internet community," on to the present
day struggles where the struggles over public participation, legitimacy,
and scope threaten to pull the plug on ICANN.|
The Organization Man by William H. Whyte Jr.
Whyte writes with disdain for the organization, be it the corporation, the labor union, university, or law firm -- any entity that dictates that creativity only flows from "group think," that "belongingness" is the desire of every individual, and that science can be applied to individuals in order to create organization men. For the organization to operate, individuals must believe that they do not have control over their own lives. They must believe that burning a bridge, or engaging in some form of social deviance, will result in harm to their future. This is creating a generation of people who fear authority and have abandoned their duties as moral agents in society. Whyte argues that the individual needs to fight the organization. The individual, using education and spirit, must recognize that there are conflicts between the individual and society. Whyte died in 1999. However, his ideas from 50 years ago have clearly influenced modern rejections of work- and consumption-oriented society, such as Chuck Palahniuk's "Fight Club" (1996), Mike Judge's "Office Space" (1999), and the work of Kalle Lasn and Adbusters Magazine. - Chris Hoofnagle Price: $19.95 (University of Pennsylvania Press 2002) |
The
youth have abandoned Protestant values of individualism and competitive
struggle for a collectivist system that emphasizes survival of the
group and blunts creative spirit and ambition. So argued William
H. Whyte Jr. in "The Organization Man," a book detailing the decline
of American values for a culture of conformity. At its first printing
in 1956, the book had a profound effect. Last month, the University
of Pennsylvania Press republished the text with an afterword by
Whyte's wife.|
Fast Forward: Hollywood, the Japanese, and the VCR Wars by James Lardner
The author is an accomplished journalist who brings this drama to life in ways that a dry legal opinion could never do. The book begins in 1956 when a team of American engineers succeeded in recording a TV picture on a reel of magnetic tape. For the next two decades, a litany of companies raced to develop a home videotape machine. Ultimately, the VCR became the most successful electronic appliance since color television, and shook the foundations of American electronic companies and Hollywood content-producers to the core. After Universal sued Sony in 1976, the VCR battle became legendary, enlisting a star-studded cast (including the still-dominant force of Jack Valenti) and resounding through Congressional committees and lobbyists' offices galore, as well as the swank palaces of major media conglomerates. Despite the Supreme Court's decision that home video recording does not infringe Hollywood's copyright in TV programs, the book makes it evident that the copyright owners (called the Copyrightists by Lardner) are resolute in their sense of entitlement. This sense of entitlement is at odds with the huge revenue that the studios have earned from the VCR's popularity. The TV studios do not seem to have learned a lesson, richly told in this book, about fair use, and seem fated to repeat it in the current Personal Video Recorder case. - Megan E. Gray Price: $44.95 (Norton 1987) |
In
light of the ongoing battle in Paramount v. ReplayTV and SONICblue,
in which the TV studios have sued the manufacturer of a Personal
Video Recorder for copyright infringement, it is an apt time to
wander down memory lane with Fast Forward: Hollywood, the Japanese,
and the VCR Wars, by James Lardner. This book, published in 1987,
is a fascinating story about the rise of the VCR, and the infamous
legal fight that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court decision in
Universal v. Sony.|
Overseers of the Poor: Surveillance, Resistance, and the Limits of Privacy by John Gilliom
With increased dependence on the Social Security Number (SSN), the government has been able to engage in pervasive tracking of aid recipients. Now, with the requirement that states implement Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) by October 2002, aid recipients are issued benefits cards that facilitate government tracking of all purchases. Combined with personal interviews delving into matters such as romantic relationships, this results in a comprehensive tracking system that subjects the poor "to forms and degrees of scrutiny matched only by the likes of patients, prisoners, and soldiers." Gilliom provides firsthand accounts of the humiliation brought to bear by individuals watched by the state. Gilliom argues that traditional notions of privacy do not adequately describe the total surveillance in which the poor exist. He argues that a new language is needed to describe the system of control that surveillance systems place on society: a language that explicitly recognizes surveillance as a tool of social control. He suggests that as a solution to this humiliation, aid recipients themselves have to be involved in defining the goals and framework of the welfare system. - Chris Hoofnagle Price: $16.00 (University of Chicago Press 2001) |
Poor
people have less of everything. Less autonomy, less social mobility,
and as Professor John Gilliom of Ohio University illustrates in
his second book on surveillance, less privacy. Gilliom, in interviews
with fifty mothers on welfare from the Appalachian Ohio area, details
the surveillance programs used by the state to determine eligibility
and worthiness for aid. He surveys the history of welfare surveillance,
noting that government inquiry into recipients' lives has always
been intense, but that it has been limited by technological abilities
and the social norms of the times.|
Youth, Pornography, and the Internet Edited by Dick Thornburgh and Herbert S. Lin, National Research Council
The study, chaired by Herb Lin and former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, also raises questions about the ambiguity of terms such as "pornography" and "children," which can be subjectively applied in different ways. To solve the dilemma of conflicting definitions of "pornography," the report uses the term "inappropriate sexually explicit material." As for whether a six-year-old and a sixteen-year-old both classify as "children" when it comes to their exposure to information online, the report contests that higher education requires access to a larger amount of information, and thus children of different ages have different online needs. There is also the question of the impact of public policy on protecting children from material that is considered to be harmful. The study concludes that the most effective regulation of this material would not be to get rid of it entirely, but rather to create incentives for providers of such material to take action to ensure that minors cannot access that material. The report also mentions that a different approach would be to use public policy to promote Internet safety education and awareness for parents and children. "Youth, Pornography, and the Internet" discusses these and other issues, plus strategies, technological tools, and policy options that will help children and parents learn to make safe and appropriate decisions when it comes to their experiences online. More information on the report: http://www.epic.org/redirect/nat_acad_redirect.html Related EPIC Publication, Filters & Freedom 2.0: Free Speech Perspectives on Internet Content Controls: http://www.epic.org/bookstore/filters2.0/ Price: $39.95 (National Research Council 2002) |
On
May 2, the National Academies released this comprehensive study,
which examines different approaches to protecting underage persons
from pornography on the World Wide Web, online sexual predators,
and other material on the Internet that may be considered inappropriate.
The report notes that the Internet is a valuable educational tool,
and that certain methods of "protection" have dire consequences,
such as a severe limitation of online resources, for children and
adults alike. It attests that, despite the existence of restrictive
technologies such as filters that block certain Web sites, the most
important and effective tool for protecting children from online
threats is parental involvement and supervision.|
The First Amendment and Civil Liability by Robert M. O'Neil
O'Neil focuses on certain troubling portents for continued free expression in the U.S., lending his perspective on court cases invoking civil liability for publications like Natural Born Killers, the Hit Man manual, and the Nuremberg Files Web site. O'Neil looks at seven areas where free expression is now at risk for incurring civil liability: general libel, libel on the Internet, privacy, defective or dangerous products, incitement, advertising, news-gathering, and threats/incitement on the Internet. Exploring recent cases, O'Neil looks backward for the origin of these liability theories, evaluates the reception that such theories are currently receiving, and looks ahead to hypothetical scenarios that might result in even more serious risks to free speech. Without a crystal ball, O'Neil cannot predict the future, but his analysis helps one understand the possibilities. Price: $29.95 (Indiana University Press 2001) |
With
increasing frequency, publishers (including owners of Web sites)
are being hailed into court to answer for the content of their publications.
Plaintiffs' lawyers are meeting with more success in asserting creative
tort theories that, until just a few years ago, seemed unfathomable.
First Amendment scholar Robert O'Neil shows how these civil liability
theories are fundamentally contrary to tort theory and free speech
principles. In doing so, however, O'Neil does not simply repeat
First Amendment mantras; he maintains an academic perspective and
sympathetic posture to plaintiffs' claims, which brings this eminently
readable book even greater credibility.|
Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency - From the Cold War Through the Dawn of a New Century by James Bamford
Price: $29.95 (Doubleday Books 2001) |
The
NSA is the largest, most secretive, and most powerful intelligence
agency in the world. With a staff of 38,000 people, it dwarfs the
CIA in budget, manpower, and influence. Recent headlines have linked
it to the economic espionage throughout Europe and to the ongoing
hunt for the terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. James Bamford first
penetrated the wall of silence surrounding the NSA in 1982, with
the much-talked-about bestseller The Puzzle Palace. In Body of Secrets,
he offers shocking new details about the inner workings of the agency,
gathered through unique access to thousands of internal documents
and interviews with current and former officials.|
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.
Montag's future is not without hope. He will fare better than Orwell's Winston, Kafka's K, or the Prisoner before Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor. Still, the reconstruction of culture, literature, and history once recorded words are banished cannot be assumed. When a single person can recall only one essay of Thoreau's or a chapter from Bertrand Russell, the unique quality of information -- its ability to flow without bounds -- is effectively exterminated. In this year when many city mayors are urging residents to share the experience of reading a common book, Los Angeles Mayor Jim Hahn has asked those in L.A. to read Fahrenheit 451. And Ray Bradbury's presence last week at a new mid-Wilshire bookstore, more than fifty years after the first publication of Fahrenheit 451, is a powerful reminder of the value of the written word. - Marc Rotenberg Price: $22.00 (Simon & Schuster, 1993) |
Fahrenheit
451 presents a world where the culture of censorship has permeated
the public and the private. There is no intellectual life. There
is no political life. Words of meaning cannot be transmitted in
any physical media. The protagonist Guy Montag confronts this reality
in a series of encounters. First with a young woman who asks questions
he cannot answer. Then with an old teacher who recalls a past that
cannot be recorded. And finally with his boss, the Chief Firefighter
who can quote Pope, Milton and Shaw, and then smile as a house and
its contents are engulfed in flames.|
Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software by Sam Williams.
In the lore of American technical prowess, Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison stand as giants for their contributions to scientific invention and the American economy. But perhaps it is Richard Stallman who found in the freedom to innovate not only a path to progress, but also a political philosophy that stretches back to Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, the true American inventor. - Marc Rotenberg Price: $22.95 (O'Reilly 2002) |
Sam Williams' "Free as in Freedom" captures in substance
and form the elegance and precision of Richard Stallman's crusade
for Free Software. This is a book that moves with economy through
the life of the world's most famous hacker. The love of Chinese
food, folk dance, and clever phrases punctuate a quest driven by
an unwavering belief that computer code should not be controlled,
that innovation requires cooperation. More than any person, Stallman
came to exemplify the spirit of brilliant programmer and political
crusader. Stallman's philosophy also gave way to the General Public
License, a wonderfully subversive legal contract that prevents free
software from being bound to proprietary software.|
Privacy Defended: Protecting Yourself Online by Gary Bahadur, William Chan, and Chris Weber.
Written in a personal yet technology-savvy tone by three computer and network security experts, Privacy Defended is a great resource on how to protect yourself against threats to your privacy and security. It contains a great deal of in-depth information about laws and technology, but you don't have to be an expert in either of those fields to find this book both useful and easy to read. Price: $34.99 (Que 2002) |
Privacy Defended is a comprehensive yet highly readable book that
explains why you should care about online privacy and security in
this digital age, and teaches you step-by-step how to use various
tricks and technologies to protect your privacy. It examines legal
threats to privacy (such as people-finder Web sites, online public
records, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and the PATRIOT Act) as well
as illegal threats (such as hackers, insidious business tactics,
spyware, and identity theft), and shows you how to understand and
avoid those threats. Also contained in the book are good summaries
of the history of the right to privacy and privacy-related cases
and laws, a brief listing of privacy organizations and initiatives,
and numerous examples of privacy-enhancing tools that you can use
to protect your personal information and communications. There are
also a few chapters devoted to technical information that relates
to setting up secure networks and detecting security breaches.|
Terrorism & The Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security by James X. Dempsey and David Cole. 2nd ed.
Terrorism & the Constitution has been praised highly by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Gore Vidal, ACLU President Nadine Strossen, Arab American Institute President Dr. James Zogby, and many more. The new edition is fully revised and updated for 2002, and includes a new chapter on the response to September 11. Price: $22.05 (First Amendment Foundation 2002) |
In
Terrorism & the Constitution, authors Jim Dempsey (Deputy Director,
Center for Democracy and Technology) and David Cole (Law Professor,
Georgetown University) trace the history of abuse of civil liberties
in the name of national security, concentrating on the Federal Bureau
of Investigation and the 1996 and 2001 Antiterrorism Acts. Full
of endnotes valuable to activists and lawyers, yet written for a
general audience, Terrorism & the Constitution is a well-balanced
examination of the intersection between civil liberties and the
level of security necessary to protect our nation against terrorism.|
Web Security, Privacy & Commerce by Simson Garfinkel. 2nd ed.
Web Security, Privacy & Commerce is the definitive reference on Web security risks and technologies and methods you can use to protect your organization, your system, your network, and your privacy. Price: $44.95 (O'Reilly 2001) |
This
new, expanded edition, nearly twice the size of the first edition,
explores web security risks and how to minimize them. Aimed at web
users, administrators, and content providers, Web Security, Privacy
& Commerce covers Windows and Unix environments, Internet Explorer
and Netscape Navigator, and many other programs, products, and features:
cryptography, SSL, the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), digital
signatures, digital certificates, privacy threats such as cookies,
log files, web logs, and web bugs, hostile mobile code, and web
publishing (intellectual property, P3P, digital payments, client-side
digital signatures, code signing, PICS).|
Privacy and the Information Age by Serge Gutwirth, for the Rathenau Institute. Translated by Gus Casert.
Price: $22.95 softcover; $60.00 hardcover (Rowman & Littlefield 2002) |
Privacy
and the Information Age is an English translation, new for 2002,
of Serge Gutwirth's 1998 "Privacyvrijheid." In this book,
Gutwirth illustrates his thesis that privacy involves much more
than just the protection of personal data; it is the fundamental
safeguarding of an individual's freedom to decide whether he/she
would like that data to be known or shared. Drawing on many international
sources, Gutwirth examines challenges to privacy posed by new technologies,
ultimately arguing that privacy is central to personal freedom,
and that personal freedom is central to democracy.|
A National ID Card: A License to Live by Robert Ellis Smith
This book is also available in hard copy from Privacy Journal. Price: $18.50 (Privacy Journal 2001) |
Just
in time to illuminate a new national debate, A National ID Card:
A License to Live brings together the provocative writings of
Robert Ellis Smith, publisher of Privacy Journal newsletter,
on the serious consequences of adopting a mandatory universal identity
document. This book includes a bibliography on the subject, a list
of other nations and their ID practices, a history of IDs and Social
Security Numbers in the U.S., and a frank discussion of airport
security that distinguishes the window-dressing from the workable
solutions.|
The Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada's Anti-Terrorism Bill, ed., Ronald J. Daniels
Several of the authors point to the impact that the proposed measure would have on judicial oversight, legislative review of actions by the executive, and public access to information about the conduct of government. These proposals also threaten to change the character of democratic institutions. Other essays touch upon criminal justice, privacy, and profiling in a multi-cultural society. Concluding remarks from government officials note both the real challenges of public safety and the real concern about preserving the freedoms in the Charter. We come to the end of a difficult year. The challenges of September 11 remain within us. But "Security of Freedom" provides the best publication to date on the role of law and the importance of individual rights after September 11. This collection helps us better understand the political and legal dimensions of security and freedom, and wisely suggests that the answer is not in the proverbial balance of these two goals but in the recognition that without freedom there can be no real security. - Marc Rotenberg Price: $24.95 (University of Toronto Press 2001) |
"The
Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada's Anti-Terrorism Bill"
is based on a conference organized at the University of Toronto
in early in November, just as the Canadian government began to consider
legislative responses to the tragic events of September 11. That
conference brought together legal experts, government officials,
and community leaders to evaluate the specific provisions contained
in C-36, Canada's proposed Anti-terrorism Bill which is still pending
before the Parliament.|
The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World by Lawrence Lessig
Lessig's argument is compelling at many levels. It is as good a history of the development of Internet architecture as one is likely to find in a book without pictures. It is also an extraordinarily skillful interweaving of technical characterization and legal argument. And it is a story well told, with a fair balance of clever aside and clear purpose. - Marc Rotenberg Price: $30.00 (Random House 2001) |
"The
Future of Ideas" is a highly readable and deeply engaging sequel
to Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig's "Code and Other
Laws of Cyberspace." In this book, Lessig, who is perhaps most
famous for his brief tenure as a court-appointed "special master"
in the Microsoft antitrust trial, also sees dominant players exercising
control through the law, technical standards and political might
to resist the change that might otherwise take place. He urges the
Internet generation not to forget what made the last 10 years exciting:
an open platform that did not discriminate among applications or
content, an environment for creativity and innovation, a public
commons for an information age. In a word: the Internet. And instead
of calling for the removal of regulation to encourage freedom, he
recommends that there is a place for some regulation, if we want
to preserve liberty.|
The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal by M. Mitchell Waldrop
Well-written and researched, the Dream Machine is an exciting and intellectual story, capturing the passion of the great technological adventure that is the history of the computer and the people who made it all possible. Price: $29.95 (Viking 2001) |
The Dream Machine is the first in-depth portrait of J.C.R. Licklider
and his dream of a "human-computer symbiosis," which forever
changed the course of culture and science. This 2001 book tells
the story of technological advancement, from World War II to the
present. J.C.R. Licklider, an MIT psychologist working in the Pentagon
in the 1960s, was determined to show the world that computers did
not have to be large, frightening mainframes that processed punch
cards. Instead, he saw an exciting new device with the potential
to revolutionize our lives.|
In Code: A Mathematical Journey by Sarah Flannery with David Flannery
"In Code" has been described as a fresh, modest, and inspiring account of a mathematical education that offers many insights into cryptography. Sarah interweaves mathematical puzzles with a personal narrative, making her story intellectual, engaging, and adventurous. Price: $24.95 (Workman Publishing 2001) |
In
this remarkable book, Sarah Flannery, an Irish cryptographer, mathematician,
and teenager, writes about a ground-breaking encryption system that
she developed, called the Cayley-Purser algorithm. The system, which
is a fast and secure public-key encryption system for encoding data
on the Internet, won Sarah the Irish Young Scientist of the Year
award in 1999, when she was just 16. A security flaw has since been
identified in the system; however, this only caused Sarah to work
harder and conduct further research to try to find a patch for the
flaw.|
Online Dispute Resolution: Resolving Conflicts in Cyberspace by Ethan Katsh, Janet Rifkin
Price: $51.50 (Jossey-Bass 2001) |
An
essential tool for dispute resolution professionals as well as for
anyone considering using dispute resolution in their lives and work,
Online Dispute Resolution explains the many diverse and unique applications
of doing conflict resolution online. The expert authors examine
the tremendous growth of online dispute resolution - including its
use by eBay and other e-commerce companies - and reveal the enormous
possibilities to come, along with the many employment opportunities
for practitioners in the field. They show how the online environment
will affect the role of those who are concerned with dispute resolution
just as it has brought changes to those who practice law, sell stocks,
or run for office. For those who see the value of technology as
a critical building block in the future of dispute resolution, Online
Dispute Resolution will be an indispensable resource.|
From best-selling author and leading consumer advocate Michael Hyatt comes a startling report of how the government, industry, individuals, and interest groups have access to personal information about you. Fortunately, "Invasion of Privacy: How to Protect Yourself in the Digital Age" contains valuable information about what you can do to protect yourself. Price: $27.95 (Regnery Publishing Inc. 2001) |
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Not in Front of the Children: "Indecency", Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth by Marjorie Heins
Price: $30.00 (hardcover,
Hill & Wang 2001); |
From
Huckleberry Finn to Harry Potter, from Internet filters to the v-chip,
censorship exercised on behalf of children and adolescents is often
based on the assumption that they must be protected from "indecent"
information that might harm their development -- whether in art,
in literature, or on aWeb site. But where does this assumption come
from, and is it true? In Not in Front of the Children, Marjorie
Heins explores the fascinating history of "indecency"
laws and other restrictions aimed at protecting youth. From Plato's
argument for rigid censorship, through Victorian laws aimed at repressing
libidinous thoughts, to contemporary battles over sex education
in public schools and violence in the media, Heins guides us through
what became, and remains, an ideological minefield. 
$15.00 (|
The Internet Law and Society by Yaman Akdeniz, Clive
Walker and David Wall
Price: $24.95 (Longman 2001) |
The
advent of a global information society demands a new understanding
of the complexities of the architecture of that society and its
implications for existing social institutions such as law and government.
This authoritative and innovative book takes as its theme the Internet
within the settings of law, politics and society. It relates and
analyses their interactions and draws out the implications of "cyberspace"
for law and society. It therefore has a wider and more critical
agenda than existing, more technical expositions of computer or
Internet law. It is about the "law in action" and not
just the "law in the books." Based on original research
and experience of involvement in legal and policy processes in relation
to the Internet, the authors provide essential reading both as an
authoritative source-book and as a critical and discursive text
for anyone stufying or working wihtin the Internet's impact on law
and society.|
Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government – saving Privacy in the Digital Age by Steven Levy
Price: $24.50 (Viking 2001) |
From the author who made "hackers" a household
word, a groundbreaking book about the most hotly debated subject
of the digital age. Crypto is about privacy in the information age
and about the nerds and visionaries who, nearly twenty years ago,
predicted that the Internet's greatest virtue – free access
to information – was also its most perilous drawback: a possible
end to privacy.|
In this enlightening book, law professor Litman questions whether copyright laws really make sense for the majority of people. Should every interaction between consumers and copyright-protected works be restricted by law? Here she argues for reforms that reflect common sense and the way people behave in their daily digital interactions. Price: $25.00 ( Prometheus Books 2001) |
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Even though grade-school teachers have told us otherwise for years, you can copy other people's creative work and get away with it. How? By dipping into the public domain, where everything is free for the taking. The first book of its kind, The Public Domain is the definitive guide to the creative works that are not protected by copyright and can be copied freely or otherwise used without paying permission fees. |
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The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age by Pekka Himanen (with prologue by Linus Torvalds and epilogue by Manuel Castells)
*In the original meaning of the word, hackers are enthusiastic computer programmers who share their work with others; they are not computer criminals. Price: $24.95 (Random House 2001) |
Nearly
a century ago, Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism articulated the animating spirit of the industrial age,
the Protestant ethic. Now, Pekka Himanen - together with Linus Torvalds
and Manuel Castells - articulates how hackers* represent a new,
opposing ethos for the information age. Underlying hackers' technical
creations - such as the Internet and the personal computer, which
have become symbols of our time - are the hacker values that produced
them and that challenge us all. These values promoted passionate
and freely rhythmed work; the belief that individuals can create
great things by joining forces in imaginative ways; and the need
to maintain our existing ethical ideals, such as privacy and equality,
in our new, increasingly technologized society.|
Ben Franklin's Web Site: Privacy and Curiosity from Plymouth Rock to the Internet by Robert Ellis Smith
Price: $24.50 (Privacy Journal 2000) |
Ben Franklin's Web Site provides the
complete story of privacy in the U.S. since its beginnings. This new 407-page
book delves into the hidden niches of American history, from monitoring
during the Colonial period and the devotion of the Founders to privacy,
to the clamorous newspapers of the Nineteenth Century and the creation
of a right to privacy in 1890; then the story of wiretapping and of credit
bureaus and how Social Security numbers grew into national ID numbers,
and finally the impact of all of this on our current use of the Internet.|
Think Unix by Jon Lasser
A succinct introduction to Unix for advanced computer users that teaches the basics but also provides a framework for additional learning. Price: $29.99 (Que 2000) |
Unix has a reputation for being cryptic and difficult to learn, but it doesn't
need to be that way. Think Unix takes an analogous approach to that of
a grammar book. Rather than teaching individual words or phrases like
most books, Think Unix teaches the set of logical structures to be learned.
Myriad examples help you learn individual commands, and practice problems
at the end of difficult sections help you learn the practical side of
Unix. Strong attention is paid to learning how to read "man pages," the
standard documentation on all Unix systems, including Linux. While most
books simply tell you that man pages exist and spend some time teaching
how to use the man command, none spend any significant amount of space
teaching how to use the content of the man pages. Even if you are lost
at the Unix command prompt, you can learn subsystems that are specific
to the Unix flavor. Teaches how to use Unix effectively for everyday tasks
by teaching the design model.|
Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World by Bruce Schneier
Price: $29.99 (John Wiley & Sons 2000) |
Internationally recognized information security
expert Bruce Schneier provides a practical, straightforward guide to understanding
and achieving security throughout computer networks. Schneier uses his
extensive field experience with his own clients to dispel the myths that
can mislead you while trying to build secure systems. He also clearly
covers everything you'll need to know to protect your company's digital
information. And he shows you how to assess your business and corporate
security needs so that you can choose the right products and implement
the right processes.|
Free for All : How Linux and the Free Software Movemment Undercut the High-Tech Titans by Peter Wayner
List: $26.00 (HarperCollins 2000) |
"This is one book about the Internet and software
design that does not involve initial public stock offerings and overnight
millionaires. Wayner was a technology writer for the New York Times and
is the author of several computer programming books. He traces the history
of the free software movement founded in 1984 by former MIT programmer
Richard Stallman, who is seen as an evangelist who believes that software
and its documentation should be able to be copied freely and redistributed.
In 1991 Linus Torvalds, then a 21-year-old University of Helsinki student
and disciple of Stallman, invented Linux, a computer operating system
that never crashes, can be rewritten to accommodate various uses, and
is available free. Wayner shows how Microsoft has responded to the free
software movement and predicts that open source software will eventually
beat out proprietary software. Wayner himself is an open source proponent,
and at one point he waxes philosophical about wealth and freedom, capturing
the essence of the free software movement. " (Booklist) |
The Unwanted Gaze : The Destruction of Privacy in America by Jeffrey Rosen
List: $24.95 (Random House 2000) |
As thinking, writing, and gossip increasingly take
place in cyberspace, the part of our life that can be monitored and searched
has vastly expanded. E-mail, even after it is deleted, becomes a permanent
record that can be resurrected by employers or prosecutors at any point
in the future. On the Internet, every website we visit, every store we
browse in, every magazine we skim--and the amount of time we skim it--create
electronic footprints that can be traced back to us, revealing detailed
patterns about our tastes, preferences, and intimate thoughts. In this
pathbreaking book, Jeffrey Rosen explores the legal, technological, and
cultural changes that have undermined our ability to control how much
personal information about ourselves is communicated to others, and he
proposes ways of reconstructing some of the zones of privacy that law
and technology have been allowed to invade.|
Database Nation by Simson Garfinkel
Today's threats to privacy are more widely distributed than they were in Orwell's state, and they represent both public and private interests. Over the next fifty years, we'll see new kinds of threats to privacy that don't find their roots in totalitarianism but in capitalism, the free market, advances in technology, and the unbridled exchange of electronic information. List: $24.95 (O'Reilly and Associates 2000) |
Fifty
years ago, in "1984", George Orwell imagined a future in which privacy
was decimated by a totalitarian state that used spies, video surveillance,
historical revisionism, and control over the media to maintain its power.
Those who worry about personal privacy and identity -- especially in this
day of technologies that encroach upon these rights -- still use Orwell's
"Big Brother" language to discuss privacy issues. But the reality is that
the age of a monolithic Big Brother is over. And yet the threats are perhaps
even more likely to destroy the rights we've assumed were ours.|
Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace by Lawrence Lessig
The author of the classic paper "Reading the Constitution in Cyberspace," Lessig shows how code can make a domain, site, or network free or restrictive; how architectures influence people's behavior and the values they adopt; and how changes in code affect the pressing issues of free speech, intellectual property, and privacy in cyberspace. List: $16.00 (Basic Books 2000) |
How should we regulate cyberspace?
Can we? It's a cherished belief of techies and net denizens everywhere
that cyberspace is fundamentally, unalterably impossible to regulate.
Thus the legendary freedom of the Net. Lawrence Lessig warns that, if
we're not careful, we'll wake up one day to discover that the character
of cyberspace has changed out from under us. Commercial forces will dictate
the change, and architecture-the very structure of cyberspace itself-will
dictate the form our interactions can and cannot take.|
Compilation of State and Federal Privacy Laws by Robert Ellis Smith
The full texts of major U.S. laws - including laws on telephone solicitation, electronic surveillance, and credit bureaus - are reprinted in full in the appendix. "Recommended for all public libraries," says Library Journal List: $31.00 (Privacy Journal 2000) |
The Compilation
of State and Federal Privacy Laws is an indispensable reference book
describing and citing more than 600 laws affecting confidentiality, grouped
by state in several categories, including credit, medical, financial,
electronic surveillance, telephones, Social Security numbers, and much
more. Canada's federal and provincial laws are also described.|
The End of Privacy by Charles J. Sykes
In The End of Privacy, Charles Sykes traces the roots of privacy in our nation's founding and Constitution, and reveals its inexorable erosion in our time. From our homes and offices to the Presidency, Sykes defines what we have lost, citing example after example of citizens who have had their conversations monitored, movements surveilled, medical and financial records accessed, sexual preferences revealed, homes invaded, possessions confiscated, and even lives threatened - all in the name of some alleged higher social or governmental good. Sykes concludes by suggesting steps by which we might begin to recover the territory we've lost: our fundamental right to our own lives. List: $13.95 (St Martins Press 2000) |
As
Justice Louis Brandeis suggested more than a century ago, privacy -- the
right to be left alone -- is the most valued, if not the most celebrated
right enjoyed by Americans. But in the face of computer, video, and audio
technology, aggressive and sophisticated marketing databases, state and
federal "wars" against crime and terrorism, new laws governing personal
behavior, and an increasingly-intrusive media, all of us find our personal
space and freedom under attack. |
The Code Book : The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh
List: $14.00 (Anchor 2000) |
For millennia, secret writing was the domain
of spies, diplomats, and generals; with the advent of the Internet, it
has become the concern of the public and businesses. One cyber-libertarian
responded with the freeware encryption program Pretty Good Privacy (PGP),
and Singh similarly meets a sharpening public curiosity about how codes
work. Beginning with such simple ideas as monoalphabetic substitution,
which can protect the communications of a boy's treehouse club but not
much more, Singh underscores with stories how codemakers and codebreakers
have battled each other throughout history. A tool called frequency analysis
easily defeats the monoalphabetic cipher, and encryptors over time have
added the Vigenere square, cipher disks, one-time pads, and public-key
cryptography that underlies PGP. But each security strategy, Singh explains,
contains some vulnerability that the clever code cracker can exploit,
an opaque process the author splendidly illuminates. Instances of successful
decipherment, as of Egyptian hieroglyphics or the German Enigma cipher
system in World War II, combine with Singh's sketches of the mathematicians
who have advanced the art of secrecy, from Julius Caesar to Alan Turing
to contemporary mathematicians, resulting in a wonderfully understandable
survey. -- Booklist |
The Limits of Privacy by Amitai Etzioni
List $16.00 (Basic Books 2000) |
Communitarianism holds that a good society must
maintain a balance between individual rights and the common good. Since
the 1960s or so, concern for the common good has given way in the US to
"excessive deference to privacy." Etzioni believes its time to correct
the balance. Certainly aware of the importance of privacy, Etzioni lays
out specific criteria to be met and stringent processes to be followed
when rights are to be curtailed. There must be a real, not hypothetical,
danger to the common good. The danger must first be dealt with, without
restricting privacy rights if possible. When rights are curtailed the
action should be minimally intrusive, and undesired side effects must
be guarded against, e.g., if widespread HIV testing is found necessary,
efforts must be made to enhance the confidentiality of medical records.
Taking this framework, Etzioni examines five areas of public policy, among
them mandatory HIV testing of infants, the public listing of sex offenders
("Megan's Laws"), and medical- records privacy. Predictably, in all
but the last, where he argues that there should be more protection, he
finds a minimal diminution in individual rights justifiable. Sex offenders,
for instance, do have their rights curtailed when their presence in a
community is made public, but the benefit to the community is worth it.
These substantive chapters are intriguing, yet overall there is not much
new here. Etzioni has plowed this field often, and the basic premises
of his argument are not improved upon. Curiously, he continues to paint
privacy with broad strokes, with too little regard for the nuances of
that term. Is it hedonism he decries, or selfishness? Are demands for
rights all symptomatic of a disregard for the public good? Such issues
remain unexplored. -- Kirkus Associates|
End of Privacy: How Total Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality by Reg Whitaker
List $14.95 (New Press 2000) |
Thanks to dramatic technological advances, surveillance
monitoring can now provide nearly global coverage, exposing the everyday
lives of ordinary people--in the workplace, at school, on the Internet,
everywhere -- to serve public, private, and prurient interests. Today,
Whitaker notes, private-information brokers amass databases for an innumerable
variety of commercial purposes -- from credit reporting to mass marketing.
Vast amounts of detailed personal information, including seemingly useless
minutiae, end up in corporate hands. Orwell's monolithic Big Brother has
fragmented into a myriad of Little Brothers, which add up to a powerful
system with little or no accountability. Who, Whitaker asks, watches the
watchers? -- Amazon Review|
This enjoyable book makes the case, in so many areas of life, of the importance and value of privacy to a well lived life. Lots of real life examples. Few books address such themes so well. List $22.00 (Perseus Press 1997) |
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Alan Charles Kors ... and Harvey A. Silvergate ... deliver the unexpected. Refreshingly, they seem to believe that even if professors teach what they wish, Western civilization will survive.... The abuses they describe need fixing, and this cogent book should help -- The New York Times Book Review List $15.00 (Harper Perennial 1999) |
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A Senator and historian looks at the history of secrecy in America and weighs its costs for democratic government, national security, and agency accountability. His conclusion: more secrecy not less is the key to protecting the nation. List: $10.95 (Yale University Press 1999) |
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This sequel to the bestselling May It Please The Court focuses on sixteen key First Amendment cases illustrating the most controversial debates over issues of free speech, freedom of the press, and the right to assemble. Includes actual oral arguments made before the Supreme Court by well-known attorneys, along with transcripts placing speakers and cases in context. List $14.95 (New Press 1998) |
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Persuasion and Privacy in Cyberspace by Laura J. Gurak
List: $25.00 (Yale University Press 1997) |
What happens when the Internet is used as a forum
for public debate? Do the speed and power of computer-mediated communication
foster democratic discourse and protest? This fascinating book examines
two examples of social action on the Internet - the organized protests
against Lotus MarketPlace and the Clipper chip - in order to evaluate
the impact of the net on our social and political life.|
Technology and Privacy: The New Landscape edited by Philip E. Agre and Marc Rotenberg. With contributions by Philip E. Agre, Victoria Bellotti, Colin J. Bennett, Herbert Burkert, Simon G. Davies, David H. Flaherty, Robert Gellman, Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, David J. Phillips, and Rohan Samarajiva
List: $17.95 (MIT Press 1998) |
The erosion of privacy is of concern to all Americans.
This book provides a valuable framework for readers of many disciplines
and will clarify the issues we need to address. -- Caroline Kennedy, co-author
of The Right to Privacy|
The definitive collection of materials on the issues, players, and history of the battle for electronic privacy in the information age. Contain more than 700 pages of previously classified government documents, Congressional testimony, reports, and news items. List: $59.99 (John Wiley & Sons 1997) |
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A comprehensive, well written introduction to developing and maintaining safe web sites. Also provides excellent techical information on timely policy issues, such as privacy, cryptography, censorship technology and intellectual property. List: $34.95 (O'Reilly and Associates 1997) |
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A critical privacy survival guide for anyone who clicks on a web page, sends e-mail, posts to newsgroups, or just wonders how it is that so much personal information is available online. Software tools included. List: $29.99 (Wiley Computer 1997) |
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Digital Cash by Peter Wayner
List: $27.95 (Academic Press 1997) |
The second edition of the highly acclaimed Digital Cash is an
updated and comprehensive guide to exchanging money over the Net. The
coverage includes algorithms for producing and implementing monetary systems
like digital checks, digital coupons, digital cashier's checks, divisible
cash and anonymous digital cash, as well as a survey of the different
commercial digital cash systems available. The enclosed DOS disk contains
CGI scripts and demos of digital cash software.|
Engaging, personal, and educational. These two law school friends (one of whom happens to be the daughter of a former President) describe how the law and the legal system wrestle with the right to privacy. (Detailed review by EPIC) List: $14.00 (Vintage 1997) |
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Complex but compelling. This law school professor goes past the cliches and hype of the Internet world and asks Big Questions about where this is all heading. Some of his answers may surprise you. List: $17.00 (Harvard University Press 1997) |
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Think you're being watched? You may be right. A privacy commissioner and a futurist team up to explore current and future threats to personal privacy. List: $24.95 (McGraw-Hill 1997) |
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Idoru by William Gibson
List: $6.99 (Berkeley Publishing Group 1997) |
The author of Neuromancer and Virtual Light takes us to 21st century
Tokyo where "both the promises of technology and the disasters of cyber-industrialism
stand in stark contrast, where the haves and the have-nots find themselves
walled apart, and where information and fame are the most valuable and
dangerous currencies." |
A well researched history of the Internet, filled with stories of early network pioneers, amazing breakthroughs, and the twists and turns that brought millions to cyberspace. List: $14.00 (Touchstone 1998) |
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From the moderator of this RISKS Digest comes this compendium of the glitches, bugs, breakdowns, and other less than desired outcomes that keeps the computing world on its toes. Or at least should. List: $24.75 (ACM Press 1995) |
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From Caesar's cypher to quantum cryptography, no book covers the development of crypto as well as this information-packed reference work. The book the NSA never wanted published. List: $54.95 (John Wiley & Sons 1996) |
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A cyberpunk classic. In the near future, the online world reigns while the US has broken into franchises run by the mafia, cults and other loony groups. A hacker has to stop the ultimate killer virus. List: $12.95 (Bantam Books 2000) |
Also Recommended1984 by George Orwell The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass The Computer Privacy Handbook: A Practical Guide to E-Mail Encryption,
Data Protection, and PGP Privacy Software by Andre Bacard The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America's Most Secret Agency
by James Bamford Censored: the news that didn't make the news by Carl
Jensen The Naked Consumer: How Our Private Lives Become Public Commodities
by Erik Larsen Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment
by Anthony Lewis Our Vanishing Privacy: And What You Can Do to Protect Yours
by Robert Ellis Smith |