Browsing through the files of The Privacy Journal, you might find: A prison inmate with multiple convictions for sexual assaults operates a database with highly detailed information about children gleaned from local newspapers. An IRS employee – and Ku Klux Klan member – uses his computer access to examine a state district attorney's tax returns.
For more than 20 years, Privacy Journal publisher Robert Ellis Smith has chronicled privacy invasions. Now he's put together a book including more than 1,000 real-life cases. The accounts run the gamut from adoption to identity theft. They show conclusively that such intrusions are equally random and devastating – and make it clear that society must do more to protect its citizens.
The second volume of War Stories includes names and phone numbers of attorneys involved in many of the cases. It's powerful ammunition for grassroots activists and terrifying reading for people worried about the erosion of their civil liberties.
War Stories: Accounts of Persons Victimized by Invasions of Privacy and War Stories Volume II, by Robert Ellis Smith: US$27.50 (set). Privacy Journal: +1 (401) 274 7861.
This article originally appeared in the November issue of Wired magazine.
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