Of Privacy And Power

How disputes over privacy and security have shaped the relationship between the European Union and the United States and what this means for the future We live in an interconnected world, where security problems like terrorism are spilling across borders, and globalized data networks and e-commerce platforms are reshaping the world economy. This means that states’ jurisdictions and rule systems clash. How have they negotiated their differences over freedom and security? Of Privacy and Power investigates how the European Union and United States, the two major regulatory systems in world politics, have regulated privacy and security, and how their agreements and disputes have reshaped the transatlantic relationship. The transatlantic struggle over freedom and security has usually been depicted as a clash between a peace-loving European Union and a belligerent United States. Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman demonstrate how this misses the point. The real dispute was between two transnational coalitions—one favoring security, the other liberty—whose struggles have reshaped the politics of surveillance, e-commerce, and privacy rights. Looking at three large security debates in the period since 9/11, involving Passenger Name Record data, the SWIFT financial messaging controversy, and Edward Snowden’s revelations, the authors examine how the powers of border-spanning coalitions have waxed and waned. Globalization has enabled new strategies of action, which security agencies, interior ministries, privacy NGOs, bureaucrats, and other actors exploit as circumstances dictate. The first serious study of how the politics of surveillance has been transformed, Of Privacy and Power offers a fresh view of the role of information and power in a world of economic interdependence.

An Economist BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR As the data economy grows in power, Carissa Véliz exposes how our privacy is eroded by big tech and governments, why that matters and what we can do about it. The moment you check your phone in the morning you are giving away your data. Before you've even switched off your alarm, a whole host of organisations have been alerted to when you woke up, where you slept, and with whom. As you check the weather, scroll through your 'suggested friends' on Facebook, you continually compromise your privacy. Without your permission, or even your awareness, tech companies are harvesting your information, your location, your likes, your habits, and sharing it amongst themselves. They're not just selling your data. They're selling the power to influence you. Even when you've explicitly asked them not to. And it's not just you. It's all your contacts too. Digital technology is stealing our personal data and with it our power to make free choices. To reclaim that power and democracy, we must protect our privacy. What can we do? So much is at stake. Our phones, our TVs, even our washing machines are spies in our own homes. We need new regulation. We need to pressure policy-makers for red lines on the data economy. And we need to stop sharing and to adopt privacy-friendly alternatives to Google, Facebook and other online platforms. Short, terrifying, practical: Privacy is Power highlights the implications of our laid-back attitude to data and sets out how we can take back control. If you liked The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, you'll love Privacy is Power because it provides a philosophical perspective on the politics of privacy, and it offers a very practical outlook, both for policymakers and ordinary citizens.

This book documents and explains the differences in the ways Americans and Europeans approach the issues of privacy and intelligence gathering.

Privacy law isn't working. Waldman's groundbreaking work explains why, showing how tech companies manipulate us, our behavior, and our law.

In the 1970s and 1980s West Germany was a pioneer in both the use of the new information technologies for population surveillance and the adoption of privacy protection legislation. During this era of cultural change and political polarization, the expansion, bureaucratization, and computerization of population surveillance disrupted the norms that had governed the exchange and use of personal information in earlier decades and gave rise to a set of distinctly postindustrial social conflicts centered on the use of personal information as a means of social governance in the welfare state. Combining vast archival research with a groundbreaking theoretical analysis, this book gives a definitive account of the politics of personal information in West Germany at the dawn of the information society.

Surveillance of citizens is a clear manifestation of government power. The act of surveillance is generally deemed acceptable in a democratic society where it is necessary to protect the interests of the nation and where the power is exercised non-arbitrarily and in accordance with the law. Surveillance and the Law analyses the core features of surveillance that create stark challenges for transparency and accountability by examining the relationship between language, power, and surveillance. It identifies a number of features of surveillance law, surveillance language, and the distribution of power that perpetuate the existing surveillance paradigm. Using case studies from the US, the UK, and Ireland, it assesses the techniques used to maintain the status quo of continued surveillance expansion. These jurisdictions are selected for their similarities, but also for their key constitutional distinctions, which influence how power is distributed and restrained in the different systems. Though the book maintains that the classic principles of transparency and accountability remain the best means available to limit the arbitrary exercise of government power, it evaluates how these principles could be better realised in order to restore power to the people and to maintain an appropriate balance between government intrusion and the right to privacy. By identifying the common tactics used in the expansion of surveillance around the globe, this book will appeal to students and scholars interested in privacy law, human rights, information technology law, and surveillance studies.

The author of Media Today offers “a trenchant, timely, and troubling account of [retailers’] data-mining, in-store tracking, and predictive analytics” (The Philadelphia Inquirer). By one expert’s prediction, within twenty years half of Americans will have body implants that tell retailers how they feel about specific products as they browse their local stores. The notion may be outlandish, but it reflects executives’ drive to understand shoppers in the aisles with the same obsessive detail that they track us online. In fact, a hidden surveillance revolution is already taking place inside brick-and-mortar stores, where Americans still do most of their buying. Drawing on his interviews with retail executives, analysis of trade publications, and experiences at insider industry meetings, advertising and digital studies expert Joseph Turow pulls back the curtain on these trends, showing how a new hyper-competitive generation of merchants—including Macy’s, Target, and Walmart—is already using data mining, in-store tracking, and predictive analytics to change the way we buy, undermine our privacy, and define our reputations. Eye-opening and timely, Turow’s book is essential reading to understand the future of shopping. “Turow shows shopping today to be an exercise in unwitting self-revelation—and not only online.”—The Wall Street Journal “Thoroughly researched and clearly presented with detailed evidence and fascinating peeks inside the retail industry. Much of this information is startling and even chilling, particularly when Turow shows how retail data-tracking can enable discrimination and societal stratification.”—Publishers Weekly “Revealing . . . Valuable reading for shoppers and retailers alike.”—Kirkus Reviews

This anthology focuses on the ethical issues surrounding information control in the broadest sense. Anglo-American institutions of intellectual property protect and restrict access to vast amounts of information. Ideas and expressions captured in music, movies, paintings, processes of manufacture, human genetic information, and the like are protected domestically and globally. The ethical issues and tensions surrounding free speech and information control intersect in at least two important respects. First, the commons of thought and expression is threatened by institutions of copyright, patent, and trade secret. While institutions of intellectual property may be necessary for innovation and social progress they may also be detrimental when used by the privileged and economically advantaged to control information access, consumption, and expression. Second, free speech concerns have been allowed to trump privacy interests in all but the most egregious of cases. At the same time, our ability to control access to information about ourselves--what some call "informational privacy"--is rapidly diminishing. Data mining and digital profiling are opening up what most would consider private domains for public consumption and manipulation. Post-9/11, issues of national security have run headlong into individual rights to privacy and free speech concerns. While constitutional guarantees against unwarranted searches and seizures have been relaxed, access to vast amounts of information held by government agencies, libraries, and other information storehouses has been restricted in the name of national security.