The War on Privacy (book review)

This is the first of occasional reviews of books and Web content addressing the privacy discussion.

The War on Privacy. by Jacqueline Klosek

This late 2007 book addresses the misconception that assaults on privacy come only from the industrial/corporate side. Jacqueline Klosek’s “The War On Privacy” (published by Praeger Books) looks at the practices by government to target and collect personal information in the cause of the war on terrorism.

A central thesis of the book is that companies find themselves now caught between the government’s goal of increased surveillance and their customers’ concerns over invasion of privacy.

Regrettably, while that thesis is central to the big picture, Klosek wanders off topic for a broad and discursive view of privacy in a variety of countries and cultures. This is interesting, but not the discussion the book’s blurbs and title lead us to expect.