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1972 Alito Princeton Privacy Report

In 1971, current Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, then a college student at Princeton University, participated in an extensive review of privacy challenges facing the United States. The report outlined four key areas of inquiry: Federal Government Surveillance, State & Local Gathering Data-Gathering Activities, Private Data-Gathering Activities, and the Regulation of Stored Data. As conference chair, Samuel Alito was responsible for the development of the project, the research, and the remarkable summary that accompanies the final report. EPIC obtained a complete copy of the conference report from the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton University and has made it available online at the EPIC Web site. We thank the staff of the Mudd Library for their cooperation in this project.


The Boundaries of Privacy in American Society

Table of Contents

All entries below link to PDF files. They will open in a new window.

  1. Statement of the Problem and Biographical Guide
  2. Report of the Chairman - Samuel Alito
  3. Minority Report - Kevin Burns
  4. Outlines of Topics
  5. Reports of the Commissioners
    Commission I - Federal Government Surveillance - Stephen Pavsner
    Commission II - State & Local Gathering Data-Gathering Activities - John Latella
    Commission III - Private Data-Gathering Activities - Charles Howard
    Commission IV - The Regulation of Stored Data - Clyde Rankin
  6. Papers of Commission I:
    1. Federal Agencies Involved in Domestic Surveillance - Steven L. Glauberman
    2. The Scope of Surveillance Activity - Eric H. Vinson
    3. The Balance Between the Individual's Needs for Privacy and the Government's Needs for Information: The Moral and Legal Perspective - Marilyn Green
    4. The Psychological Impact of Privacy Invasions Upon the Individual - Richard W. Nenno
  7. Papers of Commission II:
    1. State Laws Concerning Electronic Surveillance - Alex Hartnett
  8. Papers of Commission III:
    1. The Consumer Reporting Industry and the Invasion of Privacy - Betsy Freeman
    2. The Communications Industries and the Invasion of Privacy - J. Michael Theodore
    3. Physical and Psychological Surveillance in the Private Sector - Robert A. Wolf
  9. Papers of Commission IV:
    1. Technology and the Control of Stored Data - Robert M. Capuano
    2. Federal Storage of Personal Information - Mark W. Stevens
    3. Non-Federal Data Storage and Retrieval and the Right of Privacy - James K. Burns

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