Under the guidance of editors Aspray and Doty, a team of expert contributors takes an interdisciplinary stance on privacy in America. Although focusing on America, the international reader can still learn much from the issues that are addressed, especially if such discussion is supplemented by another recent Scarecrow Press publication, Privacy: Defending an Illusion (Dowding, 2011). In the introduction of Privacy in America the editors note that “Privacy is an especially rich and complex concept that merits study from a wide number of academic perspectives”.
Privacy in America includes an introduction and ten chapters presented in three parts. Part 1 on law and policy is treated in four chapters. The first covers the role of privacy in public life and addresses the concepts of “deprived”, “protected” and “empowered”. The second deals with privacy torts and unreliable remedies for LGBT plaintiffs; Chapter 3, with identity rights and privacy; and Chapter 4, with privacy-invasive technologies and their origins. The three chapters in Part 2 (on information technology) cover the privacy impact of deep packet inspection, future biometric systems and privacy, and the emerging privacy and security concerns for digital wallet deployment. Part 3 covers perspectives such as information studies, history and sociology. It includes three chapters on privacy, reading and trying out identity with specific reference to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and technological determinism, as well as privacy in the time of the American War in Vietnam. A final chapter addresses rules about personal information.
The chapters are all well-written, thought-provoking pieces with extensive lists of references. It includes an adequate index. This work is recommended as stimulating reading for postgraduate students interested in privacy from an American perspective.
