Taking Privacy Seriously

Other books remind us of what we already know-that privacy is under great pressure. James Rule provides a step-by-step planto create a significantly more private and authentically democratic world. Taking Privacy Seriouslyoffers both a concise, hard-hitting assessment of the origins of today's privacy-eroding practices and a roadmap for creating robust new individual rights over our personal data. Ruleproposes elevenkeyreformsin the control and use of personal information, all aimed at redressing the balance of power between ordinary citizens and data-hungry corporate and government institutions. What a privacy-deprived America needsmost is not less technology, Rule argues, butprofound political realignment.His elevenproposed reforms range from launching a major public-works investment consisting of a series of websites publicly documenting the personal data uses of nearly all government and private institutions; to instating a right for any citizen to withdraw from any personal data system not required by law; to creating a universalproperty right over commercial exploitation of data on oneself-so that no company or other organization could profit from use or sale of such data without permission. Succinct and compelling,Taking Privacy Seriouslyexplains how we can refashion informationtechnologies so that they serve human needs, not the other way around.