Why read Privacy and Freedom?

Book cover of Privacy and Freedom

Book description

"He was the most important scholar of privacy since Louis Brandeis."—Jeffrey Rosen

In defining privacy as “the claim of individuals…to determine for themselves when, how and to what extent information about them is communicated,” Alan Westin’s 1967 classic Privacy and Freedom laid the philosophical groundwork for the current debates about…

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Privacy

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Science

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Privacy and Freedom as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Patrick D. Anderson

Author

Westin’s book completely blew me away the first time I read it. I felt like I had discovered a long-lost time capsule containing everything I needed to know about the technological and social changes that created the foundations for surveillance in the United States today.

Since Edward Snowden, I tended to think about surveillance in terms of the internet and the National Security Agency. But Westin showed me that surveillance is much broader—socially and historically—than the NSA’s surveillance of the internet. Westin provided me with a template for analyzing surveillance.

Westin distinguishes physical surveillance from data surveillance, and he examines…

From Patrick's list on The best books on the history and techniques of surveillance in the United States.

Lawrence Cappello

Author

Written in the late-1960s, this is the original study of privacy by perhaps the greatest privacy scholar of the 20th century. Comprehensive and intricately detailed, Westin explores the changes and dangers facing American privacy at a crucial moment in American history. The book made such an impact when published that you can’t consider yourself a student of privacy if you haven’t read it.

From Lawrence's list on The best books about privacy and surveillance that will never grow obsolete.