Accountability protects public health and safety, facilitates law enforcement, and enhances national security, but it is much more than a bureaucratic concern for corporations, public administrators, and the criminal justice system. In Why Privacy Isn't Everything, Anita L. Allen provides a highly original treatment of neglected issues affecting the intimacies of everyday life, and freshly examines how a preeminent liberal society accommodates the competing demands of vital privacy and vital accountability for personal matters. Thus, 'None of your business ' is at times the wrong thing to say, as much of what appears to be self-regarding conduct has implications for others that should have some bearing on how a person chooses to act. The book addresses such questions as, What does it mean to be accountable for conduct? For what personal matters am I accountable, and to whom? Allen concludes that the sticky webs of accountability that encase ordinary life are flexible enough to accommodate egalitarian moral, legal and social practices that are highly consistent with contemporary feminist reconstructions of liberalism.

Accountability operates implicitly in the fields of public administration and corporate governance. Accountability imperatives drive the law of tort and crime. Accountability should not and cannot be total in any domain short of dystopia. Still, in every sector of society a degree of accountability for conduct is critical. In the United States, as in other places, accountability and concerns about accountability range beyond the affairs of government and business enterprises whose stake-holders decry daft decision-making and disappointing bottom lines. Flourishing accountability practices and policies including the legal, moral, and other social norms central to this book examine and evaluate what goes on in the personal and intimate arenas. This book is about accountability in and for private life in the United States. Seemingly by definition, we are supposed to be unaccountable for what we term private life and accountable for the less precious rest of life. However, accountability for the uses of intimacy is a common imperative, expectation and deeply felt obligation in our society. As individuals, couples, families, and communities we live lives enmeshed in webs of accountability for conduct that include accountability for intimacies relating to sex, health, child rearing, finances, and other matters termed private. The aim of this book is a series of thick descriptions of the say that others have in our nominally private lives. It is nothing new to point out that government has a complex and thorough-going say. Nor is it novel to note that our employers, insurance companies, and families have a say. This book contributes a fuller sense of how, why, and to whom we are accountable for our personal lives, stressing more than others have both the varieties of accountability and the variety of people to whom we are expected to answer; its highly contextual discussions seek to illuminate accountability for private life demanded of intimacy and gender equality; family and ethno-racial community; and public trust and leadership. The picture that emerges is that of highly social actors enmeshed in flexible but sticky webs of accountability that restrain without curtailing most individual freedoms. So long as we stick without, in the main, getting stuck, we remain personally and politically free.

An expert on computer privacy and security shows how we can build privacy into the design of systems from the start. We are tethered to our devices all day, every day, leaving data trails of our searches, posts, clicks, and communications. Meanwhile, governments and businesses collect our data and use it to monitor us without our knowledge. So we have resigned ourselves to the belief that privacy is hard--choosing to believe that websites do not share our information, for example, and declaring that we have nothing to hide anyway. In this informative and illuminating book, a computer privacy and security expert argues that privacy is not that hard if we build it into the design of systems from the start. Along the way, Jaap-Henk Hoepman debunks eight persistent myths surrounding computer privacy. The website that claims it doesn't collect personal data, for example; Hoepman explains that most data is personal, capturing location, preferences, and other information. You don't have anything to hide? There's nothing wrong with wanting to keep personal information--even if it's not incriminating or embarrassing--private. Hoepman shows that just as technology can be used to invade our privacy, it can be used to protect it, when we apply privacy by design. Hoepman suggests technical fixes, discussing pseudonyms, leaky design, encryption, metadata, and the benefits of keeping your data local (on your own device only), and outlines privacy design strategies that system designers can apply now.

'Anita L. Allen breaks new ground...A stunning indictment of women's status in contemporary society, her book provides vital original scholarly research and insight.' |s-NEW DIRECTIONS FOR WOMEN

Rely on this practical, end-to-end guide on cyber safety and online security written expressly for a non-technical audience. You will have just what you need to protect yourself—step by step, without judgment, and with as little jargon as possible. Just how secure is your computer right now? You probably don't really know. Computers and the Internet have revolutionized the modern world, but if you're like most people, you have no clue how these things work and don't know the real threats. Protecting your computer is like defending a medieval castle. While moats, walls, drawbridges, and castle guards can be effective, you'd go broke trying to build something dragon-proof. This book is not about protecting yourself from a targeted attack by the NSA; it's about armoring yourself against common hackers and mass surveillance. There are dozens of no-brainer things we all should be doing to protect our computers and safeguard our data—just like wearing a seat belt, installing smoke alarms, and putting on sunscreen. Author Carey Parker has structured this book to give you maximum benefit with minimum effort. If you just want to know what to do, every chapter has a complete checklist with step-by-step instructions and pictures. The book contains more than 150 tips to make you and your family safer. It includes: Added steps for Windows 10 (Spring 2018) and Mac OS X High Sierra Expanded coverage on mobile device safety Expanded coverage on safety for kids online More than 150 tips with complete step-by-step instructions and pictures What You’ll Learn Solve your password problems once and for all Browse the web safely and with confidence Block online tracking and dangerous ads Choose the right antivirus software for you Send files and messages securely Set up secure home networking Conduct secure shopping and banking online Lock down social media accounts Create automated backups of all your devices Manage your home computers Use your smartphone and tablet safely Safeguard your kids online And more! Who This Book Is For Those who use computers and mobile devices, but don’t really know (or frankly care) how they work. This book is for people who just want to know what they need to do to protect themselves—step by step, without judgment, and with as little jargon as possible.

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.

Privacy is one of the most important concepts of our time, yet it is also one of the most elusive. As rapidly changing technology makes information increasingly available, scholars, activists, and policymakers have struggled to define privacy, with many conceding that the task is virtually impossible. In this concise and lucid book, Daniel J. Solove offers a comprehensive overview of the difficulties involved in discussions of privacy and ultimately provides a provocative resolution. He argues that no single definition can be workable, but rather that there are multiple forms of privacy, related to one another by family resemblances. His theory bridges cultural differences and addresses historical changes in views on privacy. Drawing on a broad array of interdisciplinary sources, Solove sets forth a framework for understanding privacy that provides clear, practical guidance for engaging with relevant issues. Understanding Privacy will be an essential introduction to long-standing debates and an invaluable resource for crafting laws and policies about surveillance, data mining, identity theft, state involvement in reproductive and marital decisions, and other pressing contemporary matters concerning privacy.