Of Snoops and Snooping

The Computer and Invasion of Privacy, reprint of Congressional hearings. Arno, $4.95. The Electronic Invasion, by Robert M. Brown. Rider, $3.95 The Intruders, by Sen. Edward V. Long. Praeger, $5.95 The Naked Society, by Vance Packard. McKay, $5.95

THE LAST TWO BOOKS have of course already been reviewed in these pages, Long on May 2nd of this year and Packard on June 2nd of 1964. I have tossed them in simply to make the point that quite a literature is popping up on the question of personal privacy—or perhaps I should say the questions involved in the concept of privacy. In the good old days it was indeed simpler. Privacy boiled down to three individual rights: the right to be left alone in one’s home, the right to one’s own body, the right to refuse public display. Thus the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search, the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment, and the immemorial proscription of peeping toms. A quick trip through Robert Brown’s book illustrates how the environment has changed. An electronics expert and also a private investigator, Brown has written a nontechnical, richly illustrated catalogue of hundreds of devices to snoop, detect snoops, confuse snoops, and override the anti-snoops. No doubt the anti-anti-countersnoop is coming soon. You and I, talking on a busy sidewalk, can be “overheard” a half-mile away. Is our conversation in a public place “private”? Is the snooper eavesdropping? Should there be a law to punish the act of eavesdropping or to punish the publisher of information gained through eavesdropping or to punish the sale of such equipment or to punish the manufacturer of it? Should the law be federal or state? When is evidence gained by eavesdropping admissible in court? When should eavesdropping be permitted or authorized? Who should issue the permission—the executive branch or the judiciary or the legislative?

WR

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William F. Rickenbacker

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The Computer and Invasion of Privacy, reprint of Congressional hearings. Arno, $4.95. The Electronic Invasion, by Robert M. Brown. Rider, $3.95 The Intruders, by Sen. Edward V. Long. Praeger, $5.95 The Naked Society, by Vance Packard. McKay, $5.95

THE LAST TWO BOOKS have of course already been reviewed in these pages, Long on May 2nd of this year and Packard on June 2nd of 1964. I have tossed them in simply to make the point that quite a literature is popping up on the question of personal privacy—or perhaps I should say the questions involved in the concept of privacy. In the good old days it was indeed simpler. Privacy boiled down to three individual rights: the right to be left alone in one’s home, the right to one’s own body, the right to refuse public display. Thus the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search, the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment, and the immemorial proscription of peeping toms. A quick trip through Robert Brown’s book illustrates how the environment has changed. An electronics expert and also a private investigator, Brown has written a nontechnical, richly illustrated catalogue of hundreds of devices to snoop, detect snoops, confuse snoops, and override the anti-snoops. No doubt the anti-anti-countersnoop is coming soon. You and I, talking on a busy sidewalk, can be “overheard” a half-mile away. Is our conversation in a public place “private”? Is the snooper eavesdropping? Should there be a law to punish the act of eavesdropping or to punish the publisher of information gained through eavesdropping or to punish the sale of such equipment or to punish the manufacturer of it? Should the law be federal or state? When is evidence gained by eavesdropping admissible in court? When should eavesdropping be permitted or authorized? Who should issue the permission—the executive branch or the judiciary or the legislative?