by Charles J. Sykes ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1999
While Sykes's reach is wider than it is deep, he poses the questions that we must address if we are to prevent a continued...
In a famous phrase, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once observed that, at least with respect to the government, the right to privacy gave citizens "the right to be let alone." That right is being eroded, says journalist Sykes (Dumbing Down Our Kids, 1995, etc.).
According to Sykes, the Information Age has placed privacy, which has always been precarious, in further jeopardy by making the most intimate information available in a couple of keystrokes. While in the past privacy has been most at risk from governmental intrusion, this is no longer the case. Sykes catalogues ways that commercial applications, which track everything from consumer preferences to medical histories, have begun to erode the private sphere. Many of these collection efforts have good intentions, such as promoting public health or collecting unpaid child support. Once these databases have been compiled, however, they are subject to unintended uses and abuses. For instance, genetic testing conducted to help at-risk individuals avoid medical complications can just as easily be used by insurers to exclude high-risk applicants from coverage. What do Americans think about all of this? The answer seems to be, not much. Sykes is clearly frustrated by our lack of alarm in the face of a problem that has dire implications for individual autonomy. He suggests that our apathy stems from a combination of forces, ranging from our talk-show "tell-all" mentality to our sense that technology has become so ubiquitous that struggling against it is futile. What can we do? Sykes sensibly acknowledges that attempts to carve out legislative protections for individual privacy are unlikely to succeed. Rather, he recommends that we take a modest first step: begin by placing a higher premium on our own privacy.
While Sykes's reach is wider than it is deep, he poses the questions that we must address if we are to prevent a continued erosion of personal privacy.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-312-20350-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1999
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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