The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us To Choose Between Privacy And Freedom?

Published in 1999, David Brin's The Transparent Society is an intelligent and prescient book that considers how we should respond to modern threats to privacy and freedom. Brin begins by noting that the use of surveillance cameras, commercial databases and internet-tracking technologies are proliferating to the point that significant parts of our lives can now be monitored. The understandable response by many is to ban or restrict these new practices, but Brin persuasively argues that this won't work: the tools already exist, and the wealthy and powerful will continue to find ways to make use of them. Instead, he believes we should push for "reciprocal transparency" where the public is able to monitor governments and larger private entities, and any information-sharing is done in an open and transparent way. While Brin doesn't fully consider how these tools could potentially be used by individual citizens against one another, it's nonetheless a practical solution that has much merit.