Spying on Democracy (eBook)

Government Surveillance, Corporate Power and Public Resistance

Heidi Boghosian (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2013
352 Seiten
City Lights Publishers (Verlag)
978-0-87286-603-4 (ISBN)

Infos

Spying on US citizens is rising as corporations make big bucks selling info about our private lives to the government.

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Until the watershed leak of top-secret documents by Edward Snowden to the Guardian UK and the Washington Post, most Americans did not realize the extent to which our government is actively acquiring personal information from telecommunications companies and other corporations. As made startlingly clear, the National Security Agency (NSA) has collected information on every phone call Americans have made over the past seven years. In that same time, the NSA and the FBI have gained the ability to access emails, photos, audio and video chats, and additional content from Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, YouTube, Skype, Apple, and others, allegedly in order to track foreign targets.In Spying on Democracy, Heidi Boghosian documents the disturbing increase in surveillance of ordinary citizens and the danger it poses to our privacy, our civil liberties, and to the future of democracy itself. Boghosian reveals how technology is being used to categorize and monitor people based on their associations, their movements, their purchases, and their perceived political beliefs. She shows how corporations and government intelligence agencies mine data from sources as diverse as surveillance cameras and unmanned drones to iris scans and medical records, while combing websites, email, phone records and social media for resale to third parties, including U.S. intelligence agencies.The ACLU's Michael German says of the examples shown in Boghosian's book, "e;this unrestrained spying is inevitably used to suppress the most essential tools of democracy: the press, political activists, civil rights advocates and conscientious insiders who blow the whistle on corporate malfeasance and government abuse."e; Boghosian adds, If the trend is permitted to continue, we will soon live in a society where nothing is confidential, no information is really secure, and our civil liberties are under constant surveillance and control. Spying on Democracy is a timely, invaluable, and accessible primer for anyone concerned with protecting privacy, freedom, and the U.S. Constitution."e;Everyone of us is under the omniscient magnifying glass of the government and corporate spies. . . . How do we respond to this smog of surveillance? Start by reading Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance by Heidi Boghosian"e; Bill Moyers"e;With ex-CIA staffer Edward Snowdens leaks about National Security Agency surveillance in the headlines, Heidi Boghosians Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance feels especially timely. Boghosian reveals how the government acquires information from telecommunications companies and other organizations to create databases about 'persons of interest.' Publishers Weekly"e;Heidi Boghosian's Spying on Democracy is the answer to the question, 'if you're not doing anything wrong, why should you care if someone's watching you?'"e; Michael German, Senior Policy Counsel, ACLU and former FBI agentHeidi Boghosian, a lawyer, is the executive director of the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and co-hosts the weekly civil liberties radio program, "e;Law and Disorder,"e; which airs on Pacifica's WBAI in New York and on over 50 national affiliate stations around the country. She has published numerous articles and reports on policing, protest, and the First Amendment, including The Policing of Political Speech (National Lawyers Guild 2010), Applying Restraints to Private Police (Missouri Law Review 2005), and The Assault on Free Speech, Public Assembly, and Dissent (North River Press 2004). Her book reviews have been published in The Federal Lawyer and the New York Law Journal. She is formerly the Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive Bar Association established in 1937.She received her JD from Temple Law School where she was editor-in-chief of the Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review. She also holds an MS from Boston University College of Communication and a BA from Brown University.

Autor

lt;p>Heidi Boghosian is the Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild and oversees the legal defense of protesters and individuals targeted by the government. She co-hosts the program "Law and Disorder" based out of Pacifica radio network’s WBAI, New York, and is broadcast to more than 25 states on over 42 stations. Selected writings by Boghosian include Punishing Protest (National Lawyers Guild 2007), Applying Restraints to Private Police (Missouri Law Review 2005) and The Assault on Free Speech, Public Assembly, and Dissent (North River Press 2004). Her books reviews have appeared in The Federal Lawyer and the New York Law Journal.

Inhalt

CONTENTS

Introduction:
Personal data is the post-9/11 commodity

1Trafficking Imagination in the Streets

2A Nation Spies on Its Own

3The Business of Spying

4Privatizing the Police

5Listening in on Lawyers

6Spychips

7Censoring Cyberspace

8Tools to Chill Free Speech

9The Cost of Suppressing Dissent

10The Surveillance Camera Players

About the Author

Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 22.7.2013
• Reihe/Serie: City Lights Open Media
• Vorwort: Lewis Lapham
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Recht / Steuern ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Europäische / Internationale Politik
• Themenwelt: Technik ► Nachrichtentechnik
• Schlagworte: connections between government and telecommunications companies • Edward Snowden's document leak • National Security Agency • persons of interest • privacy and democracy • suppression of democracy • surveillance of U.S. citizens
• ISBN-10: 0-87286-603-3 / 0872866033
• ISBN-13: 978-0-87286-603-4 / 9780872866034