Overview

Everyone of us is under the omniscient magnifying glass of the government and corporate spies. . . . How do we respond to this smog of surveillance? Start by reading Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance by Heidi Boghosian --Bill Moyers With ex-CIA staffer Edward Snowden's leaks about National Security Agency surveillance in the headlines, Heidi Boghosian's Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance feels especially timely. Boghosian reveals how the government acquires information from telecommunications companies and other organizations to create databases about 'persons of interest.' -- Publishers Weekly Heidi Boghosian's Spying on Democracy is the answer to the question, 'if you're not doing anything wrong, why should you care if someone's watching you?' --Michael German, Senior Policy Counsel, ACLU and former FBI agent Until the watershed leak of top-secret documents by Edward Snowden to the Guardian UK and the Washington Post, most Americans did not realize the extent to which our government is actively acquiring personal information from telecommunications companies and other corporations. As made startlingly clear, the National Security Agency (NSA) has collected information on every phone call Americans have made over the past seven years. In that same time, the NSA and the FBI have gained the ability to access emails, photos, audio and video chats, and additional content from Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, YouTube, Skype, Apple, and others, allegedly in order to track foreign targets. In Spying on Democracy, National Lawyers Guild Executive Director Heidi Boghosian documents the disturbing increase in surveillance of ordinary citizens and the danger it poses to our privacy, our civil liberties, and to the future of democracy itself. Boghosian reveals how technology is being used to categorize and monitor people based on their associations, their movements, their purchases, and their perceived political beliefs. She shows how corporations and government intelligence agencies mine data from sources as diverse as surveillance cameras and unmanned drones to iris scans and medical records, while combing websites, email, phone records and social media for resale to third parties, including U.S. intelligence agencies. The ACLU's Michael German says of the examples shown in Boghosian's book, this unrestrained spying is inevitably used to suppress the most essential tools of democracy: the press, political activists, civil rights advocates and conscientious insiders who blow the whistle on corporate malfeasance and government abuse. Boghosian adds, If the trend is permitted to continue, we will soon live in a society where nothing is confidential, no information is really secure, and our civil liberties are under constant surveillance and control. Spying on Democracy is a timely, invaluable, and accessible primer for anyone concerned with protecting privacy, freedom, and the U.S. Constitution. Heidi Boghosian is the Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild. She co-hosts Law and Disorder, broadcast on WBAI-FM in New York and over forty stations nationwide. She is based in New York City.

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9781322542096

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Reviews

Reading this book, one realizes that the US government has initiated a double standard in its attempts to define democracy through the spying policy. Instead of creating national safety by means of mass surveillance, the constant monitoring of people while they shop, ride in elevators, tour museums, stand in line at banks, use ATMs or merely walk down street has the opposite effect. --Donny Syofyan, The Jakarta Post Heidi Boghosian is a brave and patriotic individual in the same manner as Edward Snowden. If the efforts of these patriots go unheeded we are in for a sorry ride to the end of freedom of speech and expression. Buy the book. Inform yourself. And remember, everyone is always watching you. --Emanuele Corso, Grassroots Press In a dozen short, punchy, and very readable chapters, Boghosian paints a picture of an increasingly integrated, government-corporate surveillance hydra. . . . Boghosian combines an activist's commitment and first-person experiences--along with an extensive knowledge of court decisions, government reports, whistleblower revelations, and media accounts--to tell her compelling story. --David Rosen, The Brooklyn Rail If the Edward Snowden and NSA spying incidents peaked your interest in surveillance, Spying on Democracy by Heidi Boghosian is sure to quench your thirst. Within these pages, you'll discover a whole new world of surveillance you never even knew existed. -- Jennifer Melville, San Francisco Book Review It's nearly impossible to name a more timely book than Heidi Boghosian's Spying on Democracy . . . --Lou Fancher, Vallejo Times Herald Heidi Boghosian's Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance is a timely, controversial, and engaging account of government and corporate surveillance of daily life. . . . Ms. Boghosian is a gifted writer. -- Jeffrey D. Simon, The New York Journal of Books Spying on Democracy is an excellent

Author Information

Heidi Boghosian is the Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild and oversees the legal defense of protesters and individuals targeted by the government. She co-hosts the program Law and Disorder based out of Pacifica radio network's WBAI, New York, and is broadcast to more than 25 states on over 42 stations. Selected writings by Boghosian include Punishing Protest (National Lawyers Guild 2007), Applying Restraints to Private Police (Missouri Law Review 2005), and The Assault on Free Speech, Public Assembly, and Dissent (North River Press 2004). Her books reviews have appeared in The Federal Lawyer and the New York Law Journal.

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