BOSTON, MA – Personal privacy is a concept that has always been curiously entwined with both adult entertainment and also with the Internet, two forces that, on the surface, seem to be more about the public than the private. What we choose to watch and read and write can say a lot about what motivates us as human beings – but those same choices, when exposed to the random judgment of uninformed peers, can leave us vulnerable to cruel misjudgments and unjust social consequences.The importance of a basic right to privacy, then, is crucial to the functioning of a healthy community – and that’s a message that is being championed by author and constitutional scholar Frederick Lane, who next month will unveil his latest book: American Privacy: The 400-Year-History of Our Most Contested Right.
American Privacy will be introduced by author Lane at Boston’s historic Old State House on November 4th. On the schedule will be a panel discussion on the topic of privacy, moderated by Lane himself, and featuring a number of scholars from American universities. More specifically, the panel will discuss the “relationship between general writs of assistance and current domestic surveillance programs.”
Scheduled to speak is Prof. John Bell, who specializes in Revolutionary history, Prof. John McEtterik, a law professor from Suffolk University, and Kurt Opsahl, who is a staff attorney for the Electronic Freedom Foundation.
Lane, who has appeared on popular programs such as “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” “Nightline” and “60 Minutes,” told YNOT that all Americans should understand the role of privacy in their nation’s history.
“I wrote American Privacy,” Lane said, “to underscore the fact that the history of America IS the history of the right to privacy. Although the Framers of the Constitution did not use the word ‘privacy’ itself, they were clearly aware of the various ways that an overbearing government could restrict personal liberty through various privacy invasions. The Bill of Rights was adopted specifically to limit the ability of the new federal government to do the types of things that the British Crown had been doing.”
“Adult webmasters will find this book interesting because it underscores just how fragile free speech and privacy are, even in a constitutional democracy like ours. This book will help webmasters understand how valuable the right to privacy is to both them and their customers, and how seriously it is threatened. It will also encourage adult webmasters to think carefully about their own privacy practices.”
American Privacy is Lane’s fifth book, and will be available from Beacon Press in early November. It joins previous works by Lane that include The Court and the Cross: The Religious Right’s Crusade to Reshape the Supreme Court (Beacon Press 2008); The Decency Wars: The Campaign to Cleanse American Culture (Prometheus Books 2006); The Naked Employee: How Technology Is Compromising Workplace Privacy (Amacom 2003); and Obscene Profits: The Entrepreneurs of Privacy in the Cyber Age (Routledge 2000).
