(from the cover) The chilling truth about the state, surveillance, and personal freedom.

This book looks at the current state of privacy in America, which has been steadily eroded by the threat of terrorism and the climate of fear encouraged by the state. It is not a pretty picture.

The carrying of a national ID card, implanted with an RFID chip that could record a person’s movements, and which may have to be produced on request of any representative of the state, is not some vague possibility; in May 2008, it will become a reality. The average shopper is more than willing to give up their personal information to retailer’s databases, some of which are more comprehensive than those held by governments, all in exchange for a discount of a few percent. Have you ever heard of ECHELON? It has certainly heard of you. It is a worldwide electronic monitoring system that aims to check all phone calls, faxes, telexes and emails between Europe, America and the Middle East, supposedly for possible terrorist activity.

If there is such a thing as The Database that contains all information on the average American, it is probably the one held by Atlanta-based ChoicePoint Corporation. They get their information from many different sources, and sell it to many different types of clients. If the information on a person’s report is faulty, and there is a good chance that something on the report is wrong, oh well. ChoicePoint does not consider itself subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), which gives Americans a chance to fix faulty information. America is not the only country that has sophisticated spy satellites in orbit, able to take very detailed pictures of practically anything. A new industry has emerged around home-based surveillance, like nanny-cam’s that work over the Internet, and systems to monitor and record everything your kids do online.

What can be done? The most that can be done by the average person is to keep any more privacy from disappearing; that which is already gone is gone, it is not coming back. The book contains a list, with web addresses, of American and British groups working on the privacy front.

This book is better than excellent. It is more than a little spooky, it is easy to read, and is highly recommended, even for those who know their way around the worlds of privacy and surveillance. ( )

America is not the only country where the threat of terrorism, and the subsequent encouraging of that fear by the State, has led to the steady erosion of civil liberties for the average individual. This book explores the situation in Britain, said to be the most watched society on Earth.

No one knows just how many closed circuit TV cameras are working in Britain at any given moment; estimates range from 2 to 3 million. The average person could find themselves on a CCTV screen up to 300 times a day. No longer do bored security guards have to sit in front of rows of TV screens. New software allows the system to distinguish between normal and abnormal behavior. Such abnormal behavior is automatically flagged and displayed on the one TV screen for the guard to analyze.

The retailers of this world are building up a more comprehensive portrait of an individual’s purchases and buying habits, with that person’s willing consent. It is done through recording credit card transactions and the use of store discount cards (Is a discount of a few percent on your purchase really worth giving all of your personal information to some retailer’s database?). What the retailers don’t know about a person, the credit reporting agencies do know. Their information comes from a seemingly infinite array of sources, and accuracy of the information is not guaranteed.

Echelon is a global electronic interception system that aims to capture every phone call, email, fax and telex communication between America, Europe and the Middle East. It is run by the National Security Agency, with help from its British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand counterparts. A major listening station is at a place called Menwith Hill in Yorkshire. Without the absolutely highest security clearance, don’t even bother trying to get in. Members of the European and British do not have such clearance. France is building its own smaller version of Echelon, using current satellite technology.

This is a fascinating, and pretty spooky, book. There is a list of groups in the back of the book working on various aspects of the privacy issue. About all a person can do is to keep any more civil liberties from disappearing in the name of security (those liberties that are gone are not coming back anytime soon). This book is recommended for everyone; those who know their way around this issue, and those who know nothing about this issue. ( )