American Privacy

By Frederick S. Lane
Beacon Press, $29.95, 282 pages

Frederick S. Lane’s new history, American Privacy, chronicles the long history of American colonists and the American citizen’s quest to not only maintain their privacy but to define it in an ever-changing world, beginning with the original stirrings for privacy that brought Puritans and other religious groups to North America, through the Intolerable Acts that helped spur the American Revolution, the Alien and Sedition Acts, Wiretapping in all its various forms from telegraph to cell phones, ending with how we today are attempting to define and protect our privacy in a internet connected world.   Lane patiently and thoroughly narrates the development of personal privacy as an idea in the States and how it’s been challenged again and again, not only by Government, but corporations, criminals, and even us.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this saga is how the definition of “privacy” has  expanded and retracted through a complex system of intellectual thought, philosophical discussion, the changing culture of America and legal decisions.  From its humble beginnings as the right of citizens to not have their houses, papers, and persons searched without warrant, to the complex laws and regulations that we have today, Lane’s book lays out what our privacy is and how easily it can be compromised from all sides.

Reviewed by Jonathon Howard