"I have nothing to hide" And 20 other myths about surveillance and privacy

Heidi Boghosian

Book - 2021

No one is exempt from data mining: by owning a smartphone, or using social media or a credit card, we hand over private data to corporations and the government. We need to understand how surveillance and data collection operates in order to regain control over our digital freedoms -- and our lives. Attorney and data privacy expert Heidi Boghosian unpacks widespread myths around the seemingly innocuous nature of surveillance, sets the record straight about what government agencies and corporations do with our personal data, and offers solutions to take back our information. "I Have Nothing to Hide" is both a necessary mass surveillance overview and a reference book. It addresses the misconceptions around tradeoffs between privacy ...and security, citizen spying, and the ability to design products with privacy protections. Boghosian breaks down misinformation surrounding 21 core myths about data privacy. By dispelling myths related to surveillance, this book helps readers better understand what data is being collected, who is gathering it, how they're doing it, and why it matters. -- Provided by publisher.

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Subjects
Electronic surveillance > United States > Miscellanea.
Domestic intelligence > United States > Miscellanea.
Civil rights > United States > Miscellanea.
Privacy, Right of > United States > Miscellanea.
National security > United States > Miscellanea.
Published
Boston : Beacon Press [2021]
Language
English
Main Author
Heidi Boghosian (author)
Physical Description
233 pages ; 22 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9780807061268
  • Introduction
  • Part 1. Personal And National Security
  • MYTH 1. "Smart homes are more secure"
  • MYTH 2. "I have nothing to hide, so I have nothing to fear"
  • MYTH 3. "Encryption and anonymity tools-those are for terrorists!"
  • MYTH 4. "We should worry about government, not corporate, surveillance"
  • MYTH 5. "The USA doesn't have national ID numbers"
  • MYTH 6. "Surveillance drones are just for war"
  • MYTH 7. "Surveillance makes the nation safer"
  • Part 2. Protections And Immunities
  • MYTH 8. "No one wants to spy on kids"
  • MYTH 9. "Police don't monitor social media"
  • MYTH 10. "Biometrics technologies are foolproof"
  • MYTH 11. "Metadata doesn't reveal much about me"
  • MYTH 12. "The Constitution protects reporters and their sources"
  • MYTH 13. "The attorney-client privilege is sacrosanct"
  • MYTH 14. "They can't design devices and platforms for privacy"
  • MYTH 15. "Congress and courts protect us from surveillance"
  • Part 3. Impact On Autonomy, Community, And Society
  • MYTH 16. "Surveillance doesn't influence how I act"
  • MYTH 17. "Teenagers don't care about privacy"
  • MYTH 18. "Surveillance affects everyone equally"
  • MYTH 19. '"If You See Something, Say Something' is a civic duty"
  • MYTH 20. "Surveillance can't predict future behavior"
  • MYTH 21. "There's nothing I can do to stop surveillance"
  • Surveillance and Privacy Timeline
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Attorney Boghosian (Spying on Democracy) refutes common misconceptions that lead to public apathy about surveillance technology in this alarming yet clearheaded account. Without appropriate oversight by policymakers and independent government agencies, Boghosian argues, tech products such as Google Nest and Amazon-owned Ring can be compromised by hackers or appropriated by police and used to circumvent due process. She contends that surveillance initiatives launched as part of the "war on terror" have been "abject failures," and notes that one NSA program continues to collect metadata from hundreds of millions of phone calls annually, despite an oversight board's finding that between 2001 and 2014, such bulk collection programs failed to make a "concrete difference" in any counterterrorism investigation. Boghosian also describes how the East German secret police and today's Chinese Communist Party use surveillance technology to stifle political dissent and control citizen behavior, and notes that the U.S. National Guard has used drones to track Black Lives Matter protests. In addition to calling for Congress to update digital privacy laws, Boghosian offers advice for how individuals can "stave off the surveillance state" by using encryption technologies and switching to a search engine that "doesn't track you the way Google does." The result is an accessible and informative introduction to the issues surrounding the rise in surveillance technology. (July)

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