The Transparent Society, and Other Articles about Security and Privacy

I'd been writing about the issues of transparency, security and privacy for several years before the publication of The Transparent Society. I've posted a description of the book and some net-accessible articles, interviews, and essays on the subject.

In these essays (and in all my writings) I emphasize openness as a good general policy for the era ahead, when a myriad pitfalls and unexpected dangers may loom suddenly out of the future. Above all, openness is freedom's best defense.

The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?

I have a limited number of hardcover copies of The Transparent Society available for sale for $35. The trade paperback is currently available in bookstores. A few other rare editions are also available. See my new Brin's Offers page for more information.

Our society has one great knack above all others -- one that no other ever managed -- that of holding the mighty accountable. Although elites of all kinds still have many advantages over commonfolk, never before have citizens been so empowered. And history shows that this didn't happen by blinding the mighty -- a futile endeavor that has never worked. It happened by insisting that everybody get to see. By citizens demanding the power to know.

I go into this theme at many levels. The most extensive -- resulting in the most exposure and my becoming "Mr. Openness" -- was my nonfiction book The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Freedom and Privacy?

The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? was published in May '98 by Perseus Press (formerly Addison Wesley). This large nonfiction work concerns threats to privacy and openness in the information age. It won the Obeler Freedom of Speech Award from the American Library Association and was a finalist for the McGannon Public Policy Prize. I have recently spoken on this subject for meetings of the World Bank and other major institutions.

The complete Table of Contents and Chapter One are available on this site, as are a number of reviews, blurbs and commentary.

Discussing Transparency

A discussion group has been set up to exchange ideas about transparency issues.

Our Surveillance Society

See my cover story in the August 2004 Salon magazine, about new surveillance technologies and some of the stark choices we face in the years ahead. (Government Technology magazine also ran an interview with me about government accountability and the proposal to establish an Inspector General of the United States.)

"Each time the lesson is the same one: that professionals should attend to their professionalism, or else the citizens and consumers who pay their wages will find out and -- eventually -- hold them accountable."

Homeland Insecurity

See an interview about matters of openness at Global POV's "Homeland Security vs. Privacy."

"The Security community, culminating in Attorney General John Ashcroft, must recognize that we will not give them sweeping new powers of vision without demanding compensating powers of accountability and supervision. I have no objection to our guard dog seeing better -- providing common citizens get a better choke chain, to remind the creature he's a dog, not a wolf."

Watching the Watchers

ScientificAmerican.com touted my unconventional views on transparency and open-accountability in a full-page article, "Watch the Watchers" by W. Wayt Gibbs, in its April 1999 issue.

"Accountability and privacy are both relatively new inventions; villagers three centuries ago knew little of either. But of the two, accountability is much more precious, and it is hard to enforce when a large swath of public life is shrouded in secrecy."

Privacy After 9/11

A rambling and cathartic essay about the recent tragic events and the general problem of terrorism appeared on the Futurist site.

"This kind of thing will work only over the very long term, because levels of rationalization, cultural panic and hatred are too severe right now for many people to let anything humanize their enemies."

What Worked -- and What Didn't -- That Fateful Day

Carrying this theme forward is another (and more carefully written) Futurist essay pointing out that citizens themselves were the most effective elements of our civilization's defense on 9/11. The only actions that actually saved lives and thwarted terrorism on that awful day were taken amid rapid, ad hoc decisions made by private individuals, reacting with both resiliency and initiative -- our finest traits. Could this point to a trend for the 21st Century, reversing what we've seen throughout the 20th... the ever-growing dependency on professionals to protect and guide and watch over us?

"Despite the yammerings on TV, a lack of security measures did not cause this tragedy. No, the failure on 9/11 was almost entirely one of DOCTRINE -- a policy on how to deal with hijackers that was taught to pilots, flight attendants and the public for forty years."

Can We Have Privacy?

Privacy Watch, a privacy advocacy journal, did a fair and intelligent interview with me about transparency. This interview sparked an intense online discussion at Slashdot, in mid February 2002.

"What people really want is to be empowered to catch the Peeping Toms, to hold accountable any elite that might abuse power, whether corporate or governmental or individual."

Designing a New Citizen

Telephony Magazine featured a shortened version of my hotly-discussed suggestion that technology -- instead of leading us toward domination by Big Brother -- may embolden and empower a new kind of citizenship. The online edition also feature an in-depth interview.

"Consider how future Sept. 11-type events might differ if the wireless 'intelligence network' worked even faster or if cell phones had cameras that let citizens instantly transmit useful intelligence about perpetrators. Or if millions of cheap, solar-powered 'volksradio' phones using relay-style formats were to flood poor countries, helping locals discuss issues unobserved by their tyrants."

A Parable About Openness

Perhaps the best cursory look at the unusual argument I make in The Transparent Society can be found in "A Parable about Openness." A clipped section -- plus some summarized points -- is available for reading on this site.

"Very little in history -- or human nature -- prepared us for the task ahead, living in a tribe of six billion equal citizens, each guided by his or her own sovereign will, loosely administered by chiefs we elect, under just rules that we made through hard negotiation among ourselves."

I'll Show You Mine

I gave an interview to Amazon.com, titled "I'll Show You Mine if You Show Me Yours," in which I discuss The Transparent Society.

"When given a choice between privacy and accountability we always choose privacy for ourselves and accountability for everyone else. This is especially noxious when it's some all-powerful leader making the choice."

Who Doesn't Like Transparency?

A CNN interview discusses the modern threats to privacy I outline in The Transparent Society.

"Naturally, there are core groups that like uneven information flows. Whenever an industry is told to increase its openness and accountability, they tend to scream that the sky will fall."

Do Our Children Deserve Transparency?

A provocative interview I did about The Transparent Society appeared in Switch.

"But the saddest thing is how little you folks seem to hope for your children. If you feel you cannot make a better world for them, then I certainly encourage you not to have any. I suggest you try nihilism on for size. You are already halfway there."

Internet Disguises

An article about the "Unmasked Society", and one about me and my work, both appeared recently in Metroactive.

"The social downside to this constant wearing of various 'masks' -- some legal, some electronic -- to guarantee our privacy is also becoming apparent; one need only look at the Internet, where the safety of hiding behind a clever pseudonym and text-only interaction brings out a whole range of antisocial behaviors from the people Brin calls 'Net tourettes.'"