"I Have Nothing to Hide": And 20 Other Myths About Surveillance and Privacy

by Heidi Boghosian Narrated by Charles Hubble

Overview

An accessible guide that breaks down the complex issues around mass surveillance and data privacy and explores the negative consequences it can have on individual citizens and their communities.

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, including:

   ¿ "Surveillance makes the nation safer."
   ¿ "No one wants to spy on kids."
   ¿ "Police don't monitor social media."
   ¿ "Metadata doesn't reveal much about me."
   ¿ "Congress and the courts protect us from surveillance."
   ¿ "There's nothing I can do to stop surveillance."

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.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

05/03/2021

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)

From the Publisher

This book does an excellent job at exposing privacy myths…very highly recommended.”
—2600: The Hacker Quarterly

“‘I Have Nothing to Hide’ is a sweeping, yet direct and admirably up-to-date book on one of the most important topics of our time, and Boghosian’s effort to keep these pivotal matters on the national agenda is a praiseworthy, if all-too-often unappreciated, task . . . . Boghosian’s work is a clear call to re-embrace our privacy and value its place both in our lives as individuals and in a free society.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books

“Brings the big data problem down to earth with practical talk and anecdotes for citizens and policymakers.”
—FTCWatch

“Blatant misinformation can be easy to spot and debunk. What Heidi Boghosian dispels here are more insidious and more important: the core myths regarding data and privacy that quietly coalesce into conventional wisdoms. By unpacking the most pervasive and pernicious misconceptions, Boghosian leaves readers better informed about the modern surveillance state and better equipped to do something about it.”
—Nathan Fuller, director, Courage Foundation

“The first time I opened this book, I audibly squealed in delight. The persistent privacy myths that Boghosian exposes are the torment of every privacy advocate’s existence. She eviscerates each one with style. Melding important tech and policy history with personal stories and current events, this book is for anyone who wants to lay to rest the most persistent and damaging myth: that we should give up on our privacy altogether.”
—Alison Macrina, director, Library Freedom Project

“Heidi Boghosian’s book clearly and concisely tears down the lies we tell ourselves when it comes to the dark underbelly of technology as it relates to surveillance. Privacy is a right, and we need leaders like Heidi to tell us how to defend it from entities that purport to protect and serve us.”
—Rachel A. Pickens, executive director, National Police Accountability Project

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177381602
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	07/13/2021
Series:	Myths Made in America , #8
Edition description:	Unabridged

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