Page 522 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Surve llance and Pr vacy | 01

PrivaCy ProTECTion
Although there is no right to privacy as such in the U.S. Constitution, a patch-
work of privacy protection has been pieced together, largely in response to
perceived threats as they emerged. The Constitution protects citizens against “un-
reasonable search and seizure” and requires state authorities to demonstrate
probable cause for such searches. However, it has little to say about the threat
of commercial surveillance or invasive news coverage—something that was ad-
dressed by the attempt to formulate a common-law right to privacy by Samuel
Warren and Louis Brandeis in 1890. The Privacy Act of 1974, passed in response
to revelations about abuses of government surveillance activity, placed restric-
tions on the ability of the government to gather information about private citi-
zens and required a measure of government accountability, as did the subsequent
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.
With respect to commercial surveillance, there have been occasional propos-
als for an e-commerce privacy act that would regulate the use of information
gathered online. Objections regarding the cost of such regulations have side-
lined these proposals, with the result that, with the exception of certain informa-
tion, including financial and medical records, online privacy policies are largely
the result of industry self-regulation. As such, they remain subject to change and
only minimally enforced (Solove 2004). At the same time, private companies
have demonstrated that their financial interests may well trump privacy con-
cerns, as demonstrated by the admission by Internet giant Yahoo! Inc. that it had
turned over data to the Chinese government that was used to convict a Chinese
journalist of leaking state secrets.

FuTurE ProsPECTs

There is little doubt that both state and commercial imperatives will con-
tinue to encroach on personal privacy, and it seems likely that a time will
come when legislators will be forced to further clarify the limits of both types
of surveillance. Until then, some people are relying on technological solutions
such as Internet browsers that anonymize personal information and encryp-
tion technology that protects e-mail and telephone communication. Public-
interest groups such as the Center for Digital Democracy and the Electronic
Privacy Information Center attempt to counter public habituation to the
prospect of an increasingly monitored society by providing the resources and
rationale for policies that preserve citizens’ control over their personal infor-
mation. At stake is the preservation of a core value of democratic society—one
whose protection may well have to be bolstered by a multifaceted critique of
surveillance not just as an unwanted intrusion but as a form of coercive con-
trol that can be used for purposes of social sorting and economic exploitation
(Gandy 2001).
see also Advertising and Persuasion; Anonymous Sources, Leaks, and National
Security; Blogosphere; Communication Rights in a Global Context; Google
Book Search; Government Censorship and Freedom of Speech; Media Reform;