Little Knowledge: Privacy, Security, and Public Information after September 11
Peter M. Shane (Editor), Peter M. Shane, Richard C. LeoneBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
The papers contained in this volume originally were written for presentation at a conference titled "Security, Technology, and Privacy: Shaping a 21st Century Public Information Policy." The conference, which was cosponsored by Carnegie Mellon University's H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, the Georgetown University Law Center, and The Century Foundation and funded by The Carnegie Corporation of New York, addressed the challenging issues relating to privacy, technology, and security in a post -- September 11 world, with the intent of laying the initial groundwork for building a consensus around a new set of principles to govern public information policy in the twenty-first century.Synopsis
With the growth of the World Wide Web and the signing of the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments in the mid-1990s, technology promised empowerment and freedom. The web held the potential to create an informed and engaged citizenry by providing the American voter access to a virtually unlimited world of data.
After the September 11 attacks, however, the accessibility of computer networks has come to be viewed as a vulnerability instead of an asset. The freedom offered by technology has increasingly been replaced with secrecy in the name of security. But this equation of secrecy with security threatens not only our liberty but our safety, as an ill-informed public has little faith in its leadership and is poorly equipped to evaluate its vulnerabilities.
A Little Knowledge describes how the current administration s campaign for unprecedented secrecy has affected the functioning of our democracy and recommends six critical tenets for framing a new, more open national policy on technology and public information. The book argues that citizens must assert the value of openness in formulating new and more productive approaches toward reconciling the imperatives of security and freedom.
Author Description:
Richard C. Leone is president of The Century Foundation and coeditor of The War on Our Freedoms: Civil Liberties in an Age of Terrorism (Public Affairs, 2003).
Peter M. Shane is the Joseph S. Platt Porter, Wright, Morris, and Arthur Professor of Law at the Ohio State University and founding director of the Institute for the Study of Information Technology and Society at the H. J. Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University.
John Podesta is president and CEO of the Center for American Progress and served as chief of staff to President Clinton.