NO PLACE TO HIDE: A Guide to Bugs, Wire Taps, Surveillance and Other Privacy Invasions

by Alan & Ron Fry LeMond ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 1975

In an unappealingly chatty style, LeMond and Fry churn out detail after detail -- a book to be skimmed rather than read, but still valuable. Alas, it isn't very cogently argued or very elegantly put together, but the importance of the subject outweighs some glaring faults. Of course there are already numerous books on government and other snooping, which is getting to be this season's publishing standby like weight loss; jumping on the bandwagon, LeMond and Fry play the subject for chills and succeed in spite of themselves. There are lurid lists of bugging devices produced by outfits like Sirchie Fingerprint Laboratories of Maryland, descriptions of methods for recruiting and supervising informers, accounts of conditioning techniques now being designed to alter the actual functioning of the brain through drugs and electronic devices. But the most substantial part of the book is the study of surveillance and dossier compilation in the prosaic form of credit and insurance-eligibility investigation; much of this work is handed over to independent investigation bureaus which practice an informal quota system whereby a certain percentage of applications must be rejected on any pretext. Misleading or downright false information is thus deliberately introduced into the permanent computerized records of innocent people. The authors also document the cavalier attitude of various government agencies (notably the FBI) about releasing their own records to such private ""investigators"" (and vice versa). In its broad outlines very little of this material will be new to the battle-hardened contemporary citizen, but the details collected by LeMond and Fry are still worth raising a hackle over.

Pub Date: March 17, 1975

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1975

Categories: NONFICTION