Privacy In Peril: How We Are Sacrificing A Fundamental Right In Exchange For Security And Convenience

Description

This book offers a probing account of the erosion of privacy in American society, which shows that we are often unwitting, if willing, accomplices, providing personal data in exchange for security or convenience. The book reveals that in today's “information society,” the personal data that we make available to virtually any organization for virtually any purpose is apt to surface elsewhere, applied to utterly different purposes. The mass collection and processing of personal information produces such tremendous efficiencies that both the public and private sector feel justified in pushing as far as they can into our private lives. There is no easy cure. Indeed, there are many cases where privacy invasion is both hurtful to the individual and indispensable to an organization's quest for efficiency. As long as we willingly accept the pursuit of profit, or the reduction of crime, or cutting government costs as sufficient reason for intensified scrutiny over our lives, then privacy will remain endangered.