Installing software, apps, and games often requires granting permissions that allow access to personal data. Yet our day-to-day lives involve transactions that reveal sensitive information without expressed consent, or even our knowledge that this data is collected. Beyond corporate and domestic surveillance, governments engage in outright espionage, which is much more difficult to track or scrutinize. The relationship between spying, surveillance for public safety and the right to privacy is a tenuous balancing act. How do governments, corporations, and individuals collect information? How do they use that data? This cutting-edge set explores the technology behind espionage and surveillance, issues of legality, and what is gained and lost when we trade privacy for information. Features include: Mini-biographies, fact-filled sidebars, and cool photographs create a fun learning experience. Provides comprehensive further research sources and bibliographies.

The Patriot Act, which was passed shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, has allowed the government to monitor communication by phone, email, or social media, to access credit and bank reports, or to track activity on the internet. This book examines the new methods used by the government to spy on citizens, the reasons it became necessary, and the tradeoffs between increased safety and a loss of privacy, and the moral arguments for and against these tradeoffs.

The new ways governments, law enforcement agencies, and businesses can keep tabs on people is jaw dropping. This book examines the many new methods of data collection, the rationale behind developing them, the pros and cons of developing these new technologies, and the difficulties of restricting the use of these technologies before laws can be passed to protect citizens from abuses. This technology is getting more sophisticated as well as more common, leaving us to wonder if it really is a progressive development.

Our constitution guarantees the right against unreasonable search and seizure, but where does the line get drawn in these days of high-tech surveillance? This book not only looks at the new methods for spying on citizens, but on the technological shortfalls that allow hackers to gain private information. It also presents the pros and cons between government security and government intrusion. How do we strike a balance between protecting citizens and giving up our freedoms? The legal and moral questions are evolving.

Edward Snowden worked as a subcontractor for the National Security Agency collecting information culled by domestic surveillance programs. Disturbed by the spying on US citizens, he fled to China and leaked classified documents that were published in newspapers. Living now in Russia and the subject of a 2016 film titled Snowden, he has been charged with violations of the Espionage Act. This book examines the ways the NSA spied on citizens, the moral arguments for doing so, and presents arguments about why Snowden is a hero and a traitor.

An accessible guide that breaks down the complex issues around mass surveillance and data privacy and explores the negative consequences it can have on individual citizens and their communities. No one is exempt from data mining: by owning a smartphone, or using social media or a credit card, we hand over private data to corporations and the government. We need to understand how surveillance and data collection operates in order to regain control over our digital freedoms—and our lives. Attorney and data privacy expert Heidi Boghosian unpacks widespread myths around the seemingly innocuous nature of surveillance, sets the record straight about what government agencies and corporations do with our personal data, and offers solutions to take back our information. “I Have Nothing to Hide” is both a necessary mass surveillance overview and a reference book. It addresses the misconceptions around tradeoffs between privacy and security, citizen spying, and the ability to design products with privacy protections. Boghosian breaks down misinformation surrounding 21 core myths about data privacy, including: • “Surveillance makes the nation safer.” • “No one wants to spy on kids.” • “Police don’t monitor social media.” • “Metadata doesn’t reveal much about me.” • “Congress and the courts protect us from surveillance.” • “There’s nothing I can do to stop surveillance.” By dispelling myths related to surveillance, this book helps readers better understand what data is being collected, who is gathering it, how they’re doing it, and why it matters.

Safeguarding Our Privacy and Our Values in an Age of Mass Surveillance America’s mass surveillance programs, once secret, can no longer be ignored. While Edward Snowden began the process in 2013 with his leaks of top secret documents, the Obama administration’s own reforms have also helped bring the National Security Agency and its programs of signals intelligence collection out of the shadows. The real question is: What should we do about mass surveillance? Timothy Edgar, a long-time civil liberties activist who worked inside the intelligence community for six years during the Bush and Obama administrations, believes that the NSA’s programs are profound threat to the privacy of everyone in the world. At the same time, he argues that mass surveillance programs can be made consistent with democratic values, if we make the hard choices needed to bring transparency, accountability, privacy, and human rights protections into complex programs of intelligence collection. Although the NSA and other agencies already comply with rules intended to prevent them from spying on Americans, Edgar argues that the rules—most of which date from the 1970s—are inadequate for this century. Reforms adopted during the Obama administration are a good first step but, in his view, do not go nearly far enough. Edgar argues that our communications today—and the national security threats we face—are both global and digital. In the twenty first century, the only way to protect our privacy as Americans is to do a better job of protecting everyone’s privacy. Beyond Surveillance: Privacy, Mass Surveillance, and the Struggle to Reform the NSA explains both why and how we can do this, without sacrificing the vital intelligence capabilities we need to keep ourselves and our allies safe. If we do, we set a positive example for other nations that must confront challenges like terrorism while preserving human rights. The United States already leads the world in mass surveillance. It can lead the world in mass surveillance reform.