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Privacy law scholarship often focuses on domain-specific federal privacy laws and state efforts to broaden them. This Article provides the first comprehensive analysis of privacy regulation at the local level (which it dubs "privacy localism"), using recently enacted privacy laws in Seattle and New York City as principal examples. Further, this Article attributes the rise of privacy localism to a combination of federal and state legislative failures and three emerging urban trends: the role of local police in federal counterterrorism efforts; smart city and open data initiatives; and demands for local police reform in the wake of widely reported abusive police practices. Both Seattle and New York City have enacted or proposed (1) a local surveillance ordinance regulating the purchase and use of surveillance equipment and technology by city departments, including the police, and (2) a law regulating city departments' collection, use, disclosure, and retention of personal data. In adopting these local laws, both cities have sought to fill two significant gaps in federal and state privacy laws: the public surveillance gap, which refers to the weak constitutional and statutory protections against government surveillance in public places, and the fair information practices gap, which refers to the inapplicability of the federal and state privacy laws to government records held by local government agencies. Filling these gaps is a significant accomplishment and one that exhibits all of the values typically associated with federalism such as diversity, participation, experimentation, responsiveness, and accountability. This Article distinguishes federalism and localism and shows why privacy localism should prevail against the threat of federal and—more importantly—state preemption. This Article concludes by suggesting that privacy localism has the potential to help shape emerging privacy norms for an increasingly urban future, inspire more robust regulation at the federal and state levels, and inject more democratic ...

This Article proposes that tax is a fertile field in which privacy scholars should be working. The privacy burdens of taxpayers have gone unnoticed by privacy scholars. To the extent that privacy scholars are concerned about the dignity of individuals and ensuring that they have "freedom from scrutiny" and "breathing-room" for self-development, the threat to dignity, freedom, and breathing-room endured by Rhiannon O'Donnabhain, Lynnette Harris, Katia Popov, Melvin Nickerson, Ramsay and Elizabeth Farah, and other taxpayers deserves scrutiny. To the extent that privacy scholars worry about the peril to a free society, creeping totalitarianism, and undesirable shifts of power that collection of information by government agencies can bring, the IRS's gathering of information should be no less worrisome than that of other agencies, such as the NSA or FBI. This Article also proposes that privacy is a societal value that tax scholars should work to incorporate into their research. While unrecognized until now, privacy values are comparable to the values of efficiency, equity, and administrability that tax scholars have long heralded as the markers of a sound tax system. Tax scholars should measure the negative impact of specific tax provisions on privacy, weigh the impact against any benefits achieved, and propose ways to reduce the impact without undermining the benefits. Tax scholars should also consider ways in which fundamental reforms could better protect privacy without compromising—or perhaps even better, achieving—the central goals of a sound tax system. For instance, a reform increasing the standard deduction and personal exemption amounts while decreasing the number of specialized deductions and credits might mitigate privacy concerns while also reducing administrative costs. Moreover, a more radical change in the tax base itself—perhaps a move from an income to a value-added or other consumption tax could, as a matter of the base's own logic, require minimal personal information while also enhancing tax ...

Anxiety about surveillance and data mining has led many to embrace implausibly expansive and rigid conceptions of privacy. The premises of some current privacy arguments do not fit well with the broader political commitments of those who make them. In particular, liberals seem to have lost touch with the reservations about privacy expressed in the social criticism of some decades ago. They seem unable to imagine that preoccupation with privacy might amount to a "pursuit of loneliness" or how "eyes on the street" might have reassuring connotations. Without denying the importance of the effort to define and secure privacy values, I want to catalogue and push back against some key rhetorical tropes that distort current discussion and practice. One problem is that privacy defenses often imply a degree of pessimism about the state that is inconsistent with the strong general public regulatory and social-welfare role that many defenders favor. Another is a sentimental disposition toward past convention that obscures the potential contributions of new technologies to both order and justice. And a third is a narrow conception of personality that exalts extreme individual control over information at the expense of sharing and sociability.

This book explores the Janus-faced features of privacy, and looks at their implications for the control of personal information, for sexual and reproductive freedom, and for democratic politics. It asks what, if anything, is wrong with asking women to get licenses in order to have children, given that pregnancy and childbirth can seriously damage your health. It considers whether employers should be able to monitor the friendships and financial affairs of employees, and whether we are entitled to know whenever someone rich, famous or powerful has cancer, or an adulterous affair. It considers whether we are entitled to privacy in public and, if so, what this might mean for the use of CCTV cameras, the treatment of the homeless and the provision of public facilities such as parks, libraries and lavatories. Above all, the book seeks to understand whether and, if so, why privacy is valuable in a democratic society, and what implications privacy has for the ways we see and treat each other. The ideas about privacy we have inherited from the past are marked by beliefs about what is desirable, realistic and possible which predate democratic government and, in some cases, predate constitutional government as well. Hence, this book argues, although privacy is an important democratic value, we can only realise that value if we use democratic ideas about the freedom, equality, security and rights of individuals to guide our understanding of privacy. -- Book Cover.

THIS ESSAY CONSIDERS THE CLINTON SEX SCANDAL AS THE LAST IN A SERIES OF EVENTS THAT ERODED PRIVACY AND ITS PROTECTION IN THE UNITED STATES. IT IS AN "EPISODE IN THE DESTRUCTION OF PRIVACY THAT HAS BECOME THE TOTALITARIAN DEMOCRATIC PROJECT OF OUR TIME." IT EXPLORES THE ROLES THAT LAWYERS, FEMINISTS, THE MEDIA, AND THE OFFICE OF THE INDEPENDENT COUNSEL HAVE PLAYED IN THIS DESTRUCTION OF PRIVACY.

During the preceding four decades, the "private" lives of politicians have been subjected to an increasing degree of public scrutiny; so much so that it might be argued that those pursuing or occupying elected office – especially senior positions (e.g., Cabinet ministers) – are often denied a degree of privacy commensurate with adequately respecting and protecting human dignity. In this essay I argue that, while politicians should not be expected to forsake all hope of privacy, the voluntary character of, and responsibilities attached to, elected political office, coupled with citizens' democratic right to choose their political representatives freely, renders it ethically legitimate for the "public" and many of the "private" elements of politicians' lives to receive a degree of public scrutiny that greatly exceeds that experienced by their fellow citizens.

In the United States, many low-income citizens are being held to a harsher standard than wealthier citizens — these low-income citizens are being asked to relinquish their privacy in order to obtain the public assistance they need, whereas wealthier individuals are not subjected to similar levels of public scrutiny for government benefits that they claim. Giving up privacy can have devastating effects on individuals' lives — they may suffer various dignitary harms, may experience repressed abilities to express themselves, and may even be coerced into important life decisions by the government. This situation presents a unique problem to the neediest in our society: they can either give up their privacy in order to receive benefits they are otherwise eligible for, or they can retain their private lives and suffer an economic burden in the amount of the foregone benefits. This choice may not seem outrageous to many in the United States, but it presents a serious issue for our society. Under the current system of public benefits administration, we ask a vulnerable segment of our citizenry to surrender significantly more information about themselves to their communities and to the government than we ask of any other segment, and it is not clear that valid justifications for this system exist. Many have researched the effects of various procedural requirements for receiving various forms of public assistance. This Article follows that research and contrasts the economic effects of those requirements on eligible individuals who forego their benefits with the privacy harms created by those requirements for those who submit to them. Government actors must consider this balance to ensure that the burden we put on those receiving public assistance is fair and efficient. By considering that balance differently — through the lens of taxation — this Article hopes to shed light on a disturbing situation and to help frame the discussion for potential reform.

While other books in the field focus on specific aspects of privacy or how to avoid invasions, David H. Holtzman--a master technologist, internet pioneer, security analyst, and former military codebreaker--presents a comprehensive insider's expos? of the world of invasive technology, who's using it, and how our privacy is at risk. Holtzman starts out by categorizing privacy violations into "The 7 Sins Against Privacy" and then goes on to explain in compelling and easy to understand language exactly how privacy is being eroded in every aspect of our lives.Holtzman vividly reveals actual invasio