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The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us To Choose Between Privacy And Freedom? Paperback – May 7, 1999

by David Brin (Author)

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In New York and Baltimore, police cameras scan public areas twenty-four hours a day. Huge commercial databases track you finances and sell that information to anyone willing to pay. Host sites on the World Wide Web record every page you view, and “smart” toll roads know where you drive. Every day, new technology nibbles at our privacy.Does that make you nervous? David Brin is worried, but not just about privacy. He fears that society will overreact to these technologies by restricting the flow of information, frantically enforcing a reign of secrecy. Such measures, he warns, won't really preserve our privacy. Governments, the wealthy, criminals, and the techno-elite will still find ways to watch us. But we'll have fewer ways to watch them. We'll lose the key to a free society: accountability.The Transparent Society is a call for “reciprocal transparency.” If police cameras watch us, shouldn't we be able to watch police stations? If credit bureaus sell our data, shouldn't we know who buys it? Rather than cling to an illusion of anonymity-a historical anomaly, given our origins in close-knit villages-we should focus on guarding the most important forms of privacy and preserving mutual accountability. The biggest threat to our freedom, Brin warns, is that surveillance technology will be used by too few people, now by too many.A society of glass houses may seem too fragile. Fearing technology-aided crime, governments seek to restrict online anonymity; fearing technology-aided tyranny, citizens call for encrypting all data. Brins shows how, contrary to both approaches, windows offer us much better protection than walls; after all, the strongest deterrent against snooping has always been the fear of being spotted. Furthermore, Brin argues, Western culture now encourages eccentricity-we're programmed to rebel! That gives our society a natural protection against error and wrong-doing, like a body's immune system. But “social T-cells” need openness to spot trouble and get the word out. The Transparent Society is full of such provocative and far-reaching analysis.The inescapable rush of technology is forcing us to make new choices about how we want to live. This daring book reminds us that an open society is more robust and flexible than one where secrecy reigns. In an era of gnat-sized cameras, universal databases, and clothes-penetrating radar, it will be more vital than ever for us to be able to watch the watchers. With reciprocal transparency we can detect dangers early and expose wrong-doers. We can gauge the credibility of pundits and politicians. We can share technological advances and news. But all of these benefits depend on the free, two-way flow of information.

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Brin has a Ph.D. in physics, but is best known for his science fiction. His books include the New York Times bestseller The Uplift War, Hugo Award-winner Startide Rising, and The Postman. He lives in Encinitas, California.

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Basic Books (June 1, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780738201443
ISBN-13: 978-0738201443
ASIN: 0738201448
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 36 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #971,958 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2237 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Civil Rights & Liberties
- #6415 in Books > Science & Math > Technology
- #36813 in Books > History > World

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Bill

Very important subject you never knew mattered. Excellent analysis.

October 27, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Admitting I was already mulling the ideas in this book, when a friend told me, "There's a book you need to read." This book brought into focus for me a murky feeling that all this hype about privacy is possibly misguided and certainly unattainable. We, as a society, better come to grips that there will be no privacy for the average person. We need to take it very seriously to make transparency apply to the powerful, for they will certainly, secretly, apply transparency to the masses. I'm a 2nd amendment supporter (still am) but as of recent years I've started to debate with those in my echo chamber that freedom of information, transparency, from our powerful leaders is a more important problem in this age of big-data. If you live in China, the problem is already upon you: the government is using big data to shine the light of transparency on the masses, scoring them for loyalty and positive attitudes, dispensing good or bad careers based on your score (what you eat, where you take vacations, what you read, what you say in personal e-communications, who you associate with, medical history, etc. all adds up to a score that tells if you are a good or bad person from their selfish perspective). Big corporations in America are similar (and yes, the U.S. Govt. wants to get there, too, although they are a bit behind powers like big corporate America and the Chinese Govt., but they strive to catch up). This book doesn't try to villainize the powerful per se, rather it says they will always know things about us, which may be good, or bad, and as a free society we better enforce a reciprocal arrangement to know what they know and how and why they use our information.

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B. Stack

Brin is an exceptional futurist

December 3, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This was written more than 20 years ago. I had to reminding myself of that because he predicted the impact of niche media via the internet, mass surveillance, proliferation of massively powerful internet connected devices i.e. smart phones.

What is good is very well thought pros cons impacts of privacy,government and transparency. It really made me think about these issues deeply and consider impacts I had not.

Sadly we have already tipped the scale away from our personal freedom in favor of security without reciprocal transparency by our government. It's not too late to correct the trend. We aren't sheep yet!

2 people found this helpful3 people found this helpful

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James B. Delong

A honorable follow-on to Orwell's 1984

November 1, 1998

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

For perhaps two centuries people living in today's advanced industrial societies have had a modicum of privacy. Before two centuries ago, privacy was nearly unheard-of: you lived in a village where everyone knew everyone else and everyone else's business. Between two centuries ago and the present, people moved out of the village and out to a--relatively isolated--farm, or into a city where the sheer number of people made relative anonymity--and thus privacy--possible.
But, at least according to David Brin, the future will be different. In the future privacy as we know it today will be nearly impossible to attain.
In the future privacy will be next to nonexistent because of the explosion of audiovisual, communications, andcomputer technologies. Cheap hard disks will allow people to collect massive information about transactions: who did what. Cheap cameras will allow people to collect massive amounts of information about locations: who was where. Cheap computer power will allow the sorting and searching of massive amounts of information in search of those nuggets of data relevant to any one particular person. And cheap computers will allow anyone--or anyone with access codes--to access what will essentially become the stored life history of anyone.
From David Brin's perspective, this change is coming. The only question is who will have access to the information that will be contained in the great surveillance databases. Will the information be "secret" and "private"--in which case only governments which may turn thuggish will have access? Or will the information be "open" and "public"--in which case we will once again be back in the village, where nearly everything is done in public and everybody knows everybody else's business: truly a global village.
Brin makes a good case that the technology will bring us to one of these two outcomes. And he argues that the first outcome--in which we try to preserve our "privacy" by restricting access to the great surveillance databases--is a very dangerous outcome. It is a dangerous outcome because secret knowledge is power, and if the twentieth century has proven anything it is that governments cannot be trusted with secret knowledge. The great tyrannies of the twentieth century flourished because their surveillance gave them control and their secrecy kept enough citizens from realizing what they were up to fast enough. The advent of modern audiovisual, communications, and computing technologies greatly amplifies the power of surveillance, and greatly multiplies the danger if it is not countered by a greatly amplified power of the people to survey the government. And popular surveillance over the government carries as a side effect a potential loss of privacy. Anything that restricts popular access to information about other citizens restricts popular access to information about the government as well.
I believe that Brin's book is not necessarily an accurate forecast. The futures that he envisions will probably never come to pass. And the choice that he foresees may well never be posed in the stark form in which he poses it. Yet the book is useful: the future Brin envisions is clearly one of the possible futures that might come to pass, and the consequences of what he sees as the wrong choice in that possible future could turn the twenty-first century into an abattoir that would make the twentieth century look like a Sunday picnic.
If enough people read Brin's book, or are brushed by the currents of thought in represents, then it may turn into a self-negating prophecy: a warning of dystopia that by virtue of the horror it paints helps avoid that horror. That was the function of George Orwell's 1984.
That is an honorable role for anyone's book.

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Nick & Cindy Arnett

Provocative!

May 2, 1998

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

(Note: I read the manuscript shortly before David finished the book.) Brin takes a fresh look at privacy and freedom, arguing that strong, healthy societies depend on open debate, the power of criticism, to decide who and what is right. If you've read "Earth," you may recognize some of his ideas from its characters; after reading "Transparent Society," a re-read of "Earth" is worthwhile, as its characters practice some of what Brin preaches in the new book.
If you're interested in this argument about the role of free speech, Jonathan Rauch's "Kindly Inquisitors" tackles the same issue with a focus on institutions rather than technology.

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Wayne

A very important book

October 25, 1999

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I think this is a very important contribution to the debate over privacy, encryption, and information technology. Brin makes some very interesting points that seem obvious once you think about them but get lost in the mainstream debates. For example, if strong cryptography were the norm, who would benefit more: the private citizen who doesn't want Big Brother looking into his bedroom, or the large corporation that doesn't want the public to find out about dangerous practices they're engaged in? Also, no matter how strong cryptography is, it can't protect against hi-tech spy devices looking over your shoulder as you type, and consider who can afford to use these things? Not the average citizen who wants to spy on tobacco companies...
I hope that any time a debate arises between the government, privacy advocates, and any other interested parties, the issue of accountability and the other points that Brin brings up will now be on the table.

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