The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us To Choose Between Privacy And Freedom?

by David Brin

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738201443
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	05/07/1999
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)
Lexile:	1370L (what's this?)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

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.

Table of Contents

PART I: A NEW WORLD	1
ONE THE CHALLENGE OF AN OPEN SOCIETY	3
The End of Photography as Proof of Anything at All	27
TWO THE AGE OF KNOWLEDGE	32
Citizen Truth Squads	52
THREE PRIVACY UNDER SIEGE	54
The Accountability Matrix	85
FOUR CAN WE OWN INFORMATION?	89
An Open Society's Enemies	108
PART II: MINEFIELDS	115
FIVE HUMAN NATURE AND THE DILEMMA OF OPENNESS	117
Essences and Experiments	146
SIX LESSONS IN ACCOUNTABILITY	149
All the World Is a (Digital) Marketplace	178
SEVEN THE WAR OVER SECRECY	185
The Problem of Extortion	227
PART III: ROAD MAPS	231
EIGHT PRAGMATISM IN AN UNCERTAIN WORLD	233
ThePlausibility Matrix	271
NINE HUMILITY AND LIMITS	278
A Withering Away?	303
TEN GLOBAL TRANSPARENCY	309
A Little Loyalty	322
ELEVEN THE ROAD OF OPENNESS	325
NOTES	336
FOLLOW-UP	369
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	371
INDEX	372
ABOUT THE AUTHOR	378

What People are Saying About This

Anthony Storr

"Full of wisdom and perception."

Interviews

Before the live bn.com chat, David Brin agreed to answer some of our questions:

Q:  Your fiction seems to be deeply concerned with societies and how they survive and where their actions lead them. In many ways, The Transparent Society reflects similar concerns. What caused you to decide to present these ideas in the form of nonfiction?

A:  My formal training is as a physicist, but like many science fiction authors, I read history the most. The tragic sweep and drama of our ancestors' struggles with darkness, suspicion, and ignorance -- what could be more compelling? I never cease to be astonished at the depths humans have plumbed...and the peaks they are capable of achieving. Slowly, we are learning how to make a civilization that is not dominated by bullies, but instead helps a wide variety of creative (and normal) people to coexist and build together. The most astonishing thing of all is this: In any other era an opinionated eccentric like me would have been executed as a threat to the state. Here and now I'm paid to poke away at established opinions and to point out different points of view. That alone is enough to make me loyal to a great civilization.

Q:  Who are four or five of your favorite authors?

A:  Mary Shelley and H. G. Wells, for inventing speculative fiction. James Joyce and Shakespeare, for showing me how language can penetrate every shadow. Charles Darwin and Ben Franklin, for displaying modern minds in primitive circumstances. George Dyson and Kevin Kelley, for some ripsnorting recent nonfiction.

Q:  Many people who haven't spent much time using the Internet feel a strong distrust and wariness about it. What do you think is the source of these attitudes, in light of your book?

A:  Every new technology brings forth extreme reactions. Luddites express nostalgia -- that everything was more human in the old days. Meanwhile people I call techno-transcendentalists keep jumping on every new bandwagon saying it will transform humans into gods. We saw both kinds of prophets screaming about nuclear power, genetic engineering, and the space age. All along, one truth stands out. If everyone gets to see the new technologies and argue about them in the open, most of the worst scenarios won't happen. And some of the good will get shared. But every time technologies get exploited, either in secret or by a closed elite, the inevitable result is catastrophe.

This is the essential point of my book, that argument is good, but it's even better if we do it politely. In any event, the Internet has had one major effect -- more people are reading and writing more words than any humans in all of history. We're a talkie civilization!

Q:  As an increasingly popular means of exchanging information, and with many people crying out for censorship, the Internet it seems is being monitored now more than ever. How do you feel about the idea of policing the Internet?

A:  It sends chills up my spine. Nobody has a right to police the flow of knowledge -- except parents regarding their kids. The way for us to get rid of the horrible lies, slanders, and perversions is to do what we've always done: Identify who is spewing what, spread the word about them, and let them learn the hard way about an old-fashioned word called reputation. People will exercise a little courtesy and self-control only when others can dial up their mothers and say, "Do you see what your child is spreading on the Net?"

Q:  So, since we are talking about a transparent society in an era of gnat-sized cameras and clothes-penetrating radar -- boxers or briefs?

A:  In the short-term, lead-lined underwear! In the long term, that will be futile; the thing to make sure of is that the mighty have no more secrets than we do. At least we'll be free, and slowly...slowly...we'll learn to be polite with one another, because the alternative will just wind up hurting too often.

Editorial Reviews

08/01/2015
This philosophical treatise on the nature of privacy as a historical construct notes the increase in "smart" technologies that track our movements and illuminates the lack of access to control over our own information. (LJ 1/90)

Library Journal

Surveillance is becoming more of a way of life in the world; nannycams, mallcams, and streetcams are being installed everywhere. But what about presidentialcams, policecams, and mayorcams? David Brin's The Transparent Society argues for surveillance on both sides of the world's power balance.

Brin acknowledges that privacy, as we know it, is being slowly eaten away day by day. Entire cities are falling under the watch of surveillance cameras; "nanny monitors" that allow parents to keep an eye on the people who are watching their children are becoming more common in households with children. However, instead of calling for this surveillance to be clamped down upon, he argues for a more open society from both sides -- one where those in power would be required to adhere to the same "openness" standards as their constituents, where the police are monitored as well as monitoring.

The main reasoning behind Brin's thesis? Technology. No matter what attempts to cloak her identity a person might attempt, there's always a more precise camera, a stronger software program, a new way of decryption lurking in the shadows, ready to expose her secrets. But concentrating too much "surveillance power" in the hands of ruling powers or authority might result in abuses of that power. Allowing for a transparent web of openness, Brin argues, will instead result in a new standard of openness, one where the private matters of others can become more mundane, while their behavior is held to a higher standard of accountability.

It's a fascinating concept, one that requires society to change a fundamental way of thinking about the concept of privacy and individuality. Brin's reasoning is particularly intriguing given some of the realities of today's society, where the more lurid private affairs of public figures can become endlessly rehashed front-page fodder; his concept of allowing access to everyone's day-to-day affairs could cause one to foresee a future in which gossip isn't the prized commodity it is now, where society would adhere to an "open standard" of behavior -- after all, Big Brother might not be watching, but Tall Neighbor might very well be.

bncom

The cameras are coming.

Back when soldiers in red coats were a threat to liberty, American colonists reached for their muskets. But as postage-stamp-size video surveillance cameras multiply, its no longer clear how to preserve freedom.

Space physicist and science-fiction novelist David Brin says we need to stop worrying and learn to love the camera. Already more than 300,000 cameras monitor trouble spots in the United Kingdom alone. Brin even posits the imminent arrival of remote-controlled spy drones the size of insects.

Civil liberties groups want to fight privacy invasion with legislation and encryption. Ultimately, Brin argues, why fight for privacy when you cant win? The key is more cameras, not fewer. Let every self-righteous crank have access to the same images of his fellow citizens that the police have. In Brins scenario, we will become each others Truman Show.

Brin is a sharp social observer, and his chatty style serves his optimism well. At times he tries to cover too much ground, but his provocative thesis offers a possible answer to an eternal question: Who will guard the guards? Maybe we all will.

Self-described crackpot and prolific science-fiction writer Brin (Infinity's Shore, 1996, etc.) ponders the technological threats to and possibilities for freedom in the not-too-distant future. Privacy is assailed from all sides today. Electronic surveillance becomes more widespread even as it becomes less intrusive. Data on many aspects of our lives are gathered, bought, and sold. We are enmeshed in a web of electronic noise, a cyberworld of gossiping and snooping. Clearly, say those who would protect our privacy, regulation of such surveillance is necessary. Brin argues just the opposite: Rather than vainly attempting to save privacy, we should strive to create a society that is ever more transparent, ever more exposed. Technology, no matter how we may try to regulate it, will find ever more sophisticated and subtle ways to snoop. And the regulators will have to be regulated by another layer of government watchdogs. So, says Brin, let openness rule. Make bosses as accountable as employees, have government be watched by its citizens as much as it watches. Much as we feel a sense of privacy in the openness of a restaurant, so might a transparent society provide a sense, and the reality, of privacy much better than one in which surveillance is hidden but nevertheless there. Much depends on how humans decide to behave, and while Brin is hardly naive about human nature, he sees that in a society already reasonably tolerant we might reach a point when the private matters of everyone are both readily accessible and simply uninteresting. Brin's writing is eclectic, wandering, and fun. Some of what he says is, well, crackpot. But Brin is also no anarchistic dreamer, no "cypherpunk," as he puts it. The transparent, unregulated future of freedom is only a possibility, a result of long processes of experimentation and gained wisdom.

Kirkus Reviews