Privacy : a manifesto / Wolfgang Sofsky ; translated by Steven Rendall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sofsky, Wolfgang.

Standardized Title:

Verteidigung des Privaten. English

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Privacy.

Physical Description:

140 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2008]

Summary:

What ever happened to privacy? The simple right to be left alone? Surveillance cameras track our movements. Governments monitor our phone calls, emails, and Internet habits. Insurance companies know what drugs we take. Banks and credit agencies keep tabs on our smallest purchases. And new technologies-which gather, store, and share information as never before-have made all of this possible.

But, as the acclaimed social thinker Wolfgang Sofsky shows in this brief and powerful defense of privacy, neither technology nor fears of terrorism deserve all the blame. Rather, through indifference and the desire for attention, we have been accomplices in the loss of our privacy. When we aren't resigning ourselves to privacy's disappearance as the inevitable price of living in a new age, we are eagerly embracing opportunities to divulge personal information to people we know-and, increasingly, to people we don't.

Dramatically demonstrating how much privacy we have already surrendered, Sofsky describes a day in the life of an average modern citizen-in other words, a person under almost constant scrutiny. He also briefly traces the changing status of privacy from ancient Rome to today, explains how liberty and freedom of thought depend on privacy, and points to some of the places where privacy is under greatest threat, from health to personal space.

Privacy is a timely and compelling reminder of just how important privacy is-and just how devastating its loss would be.

Contents:

Traces

Power and privacy

Retrospectives

Freedom and privacy

Territories of the self

Secrets of the body

Private spaces

Property

Information

Freedom of thought.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [131]-140).

Translated from the German.

ISBN:

9780691136721

0691136726

OCLC:

227205853