Capello investigates why we've been so blithe about giving up our
privacy and all the opportunities we've had along the way to rein it
in.
Every day, Americans surrender their private information to entities
claiming to have their best interests in mind. This trade-off has long
been taken for granted, but the extent of its nefariousness has recently
become much clearer. As None of Your Damn Business reveals, the
problem is not so much that data will be used in ways we don't want, but
rather how willing we have been to have our information used, abused,
and sold right back to us. In this startling book, Lawrence Cappello
targets moments from the past 130 years of US history when privacy was
central to battles over journalistic freedom, national security,
surveillance, big data, and reproductive rights. As he makes dismayingly
clear, Americans have had numerous opportunities to protect the public
good while simultaneously safeguarding our information, and we've
squandered them every time. None of Your Damn Business is a rich and
provocative survey of an alarming topic that grows only more relevant
with each fresh outrage of trust betrayed.