Privacy

Critically acclaimed author Keizer (The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want) writes elegantly about the devastating effect the electronic, post-9/11 age has had on the concept of privacy. After surveying a host of definitions of privacy, he offers his own—“I would ground privacy in a creaturely resistance to being used against one’s will”—and then catalogues the many affronts to privacy in the personal and public lives of ordinary citizens. To underscore the dangers in devaluing privacy, Keizer uses examples of both the ordinary incursions into everyday life (such as his own sense of betrayal when a friend shared his letters without his approval) and the notorious (Rutgers student Dharun Ravi’s webcam exposure of roommate Tyler Clementi’s liaison with another male student). Keizer ably describes the disturbing and ever-diminishing expectations of privacy; for example, he notes court opinions that allow the press to publish facts about anyone who, “willingly or not,” finds his or her way into a newsworthy event, and makes a cogent analysis of the threats to privacy that accompany smartphones and other digital devices. Keizer’s commentary reaches deeply into the fabric of post 9/11 America and finds a landscape that has compromised the fundamental human need for privacy, and argues passionately for the value of privacy in a democratic society Agent: Jim Rutman and Peter Matson, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Aug.)