Life After Privacy Reclaiming Democracy In A

Surveillance Society Firmin Debrabander pdf

download
https://textbookfull.com/product/life-after-privacy-reclaiming-democracy-in-a-surveillance-society-
firmin-debrabander/

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0 (26 reviews) ✓ 113 downloads ■ TOP RATED

"Fantastic PDF quality, very satisfied with download!" - Emma W.

DOWNLOAD EBOOK
 Life After Privacy Reclaiming Democracy In A Surveillance
Society Firmin Debrabander pdf download

TEXTBOOK EBOOK TEXTBOOK FULL

Available Formats

■ PDF eBook Study Guide TextBook

EXCLUSIVE 2025 EDUCATIONAL COLLECTION - LIMITED TIME

INSTANT DOWNLOAD VIEW LIBRARY

Collection Highlights

The SAGE Encyclopedia Of Surveillance, Security, And

Privacy Bruce A. Arrigo

Surveillance Privacy And Security Citizens Perspectives

Michael Friedewald

The future of foreign intelligence : privacy and

surveillance in a digital age 1st Edition Donohue

Privacy In The Information Society Philip Leith

Society after Money: A Dialogue Bernd Herzogenrath

Habeas Data Privacy vs the Rise of Surveillance Tech Cyrus

Farivar

Social Networks and Surveillance for Society Tansel Özyer

Society in the Self: A Theory of Identity in Democracy

Hubert J. M. Hermans

Private Life And Privacy In Nazi Germany Elizabeth Harvey

 life after privacy

Privacy is gravely endangered in the digital age, and we, the digital citizens, are its
principal threat, willingly surrendering it to avail ourselves of new technology, and
granting the government and corporations immense power over us. In this highly
original work, Firmin DeBrabander begins with this premise and asks how we can
ensure and protect our freedom in the absence of privacy. Can – and should – we
rally anew to support this institution? Is privacy so important to political liberty
after all? DeBrabander makes the case that privacy is a poor foundation for
democracy, that it is a relatively new value that has been rarely enjoyed
throughout history – but constantly persecuted – and politically and
philosophically suspect. The vitality of the public realm, he argues, is far more
significant to the health of our democracy, but is equally endangered – and often
overlooked – in the digital age.

Firmin DeBrabander is Professor of Philosophy, Maryland Institute College of Art.

He has written commentary pieces for a number of national publications,
including the New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, LA Times, Salon,
Aeon, Chicago Tribune, and The New Republic. Professor DeBrabander is the
author of Do Guns Make us Free? (2015), a philosophical and political critique of
the guns rights movement.
 Life after Privacy
reclaiming democracy in a surveillance
society

FIRMIN DEBRABANDER
Maryland Institute College of Art
University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, ny 10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia
314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre,
New Delhi – 110025, India
79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108491365
doi: 10.1017/9781108868280
© Firmin DeBrabander 2020
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2020
Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd, Padstow Cornwall
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
names: DeBrabander, Firmin, author.
title: Life after privacy : reclaiming democracy in a surveillance society / Firmin
DeBrabander, Maryland Institute College of Art.
description: Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge
University Press, 2020 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
identifiers: lccn 2019058605 (print) | lccn 2019058606 (ebook) | isbn
9781108491365 (hardback) | isbn 9781108868280 (ebook)
subjects: lcsh: Privacy, Right of – Philosophy.
classification: lcc k3263 .d43 2020 (print) | lcc k3263 (ebook) |
ddc 342.08/58 – dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019058605
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019058606
isbn 978-1-108-49136-5 Hardback
isbn 978-1-108-81191-0 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
 Contents

Preface page vii

Acknowledgements xi

1 Confessional Culture 1

2 Defending Privacy 21

3 Big Plans for Big Data 37

4 The Surveillance Economy 58

5 Privacy Past and Present 75

6 The Borderless, Vanishing Self 95

7 Autonomy and Political Freedom 115

8 Powerful Publics 137

Conclusion
157
Index
164

v
 Preface

Twenty-first century democratic citizens have a paradoxical, increasingly

contradictory relationship to privacy. Americans, for example, know, or are
taught that privacy is important to the nation’s history. Some say there would
be no United States if the colonists did not stand up for their privacy against
the British crown. And civil rights gains achieved in the latter twentieth
century imply robust privacy claims. However, ours has become
a confessional culture, where people instinctively share the most intimate,
sometimes embarrassing, or even offensive comments, images, and opinions.
This is practically the norm, and it is facilitated – and encouraged – by digital
technology, for which public sharing is the default action. If you hope to take
part in the expansive and all-encompassing digital economy, with its many
wonders and remarkable conveniences, you have little choice but to expose
many aspects of your personal life. Or your data is simply harvested by
corporate and government entities, eager to learn every iota of information
about you; they are busy concocting ingenious ways to extract this data, and
infer key details about your life – which they then use in ways we can hardly
fathom.
There is good reason to worry about those who harvest our data. There is
reason to worry about what they might do with it all. Many of these agents are
immensely powerful. They include some of the largest corporations on earth,
and some of the largest governments. Their intentions for this surveillance are
often worrying, if not downright ominous. And yet, it is a striking feature of the
digital economy that we, the subjects of a massive onslaught of surveillance,
are also central agents of said surveillance. Which is to say: we happily enable
it. We expose our lives as a matter of course; we offer up intimate details, and
broadcast them widely and indiscriminately on social media. Or, we ignore
pervasive surveillance, and manage our personal information nonchalantly, if

vii
viii Preface

irresponsibly, oblivious to the possible consequences of a life lived in the

public eye. Of course, we are largely unclear what those consequences might
be, or we put little thought to them. Because, it turns out, despite our demo-
cratic heritage – and the historical import of privacy in America – most of us
are at a loss to say why privacy is important, why we ought to protect it, what is
lost when privacy is invaded or obliterated. This is a perhaps galling state of
affairs, given the fact that privacy figures so prominently in our national story –
and the fact that privacy is crucial for democracy as such, according to
philosophers and political theorists. The United States is of course not alone
in forsaking privacy. Democratic citizens the world over are busy forking it
over for the sake of digital conveniences.
European democracies have enacted regulations, widely hailed by privacy
advocates, to strengthen consumers’ hand in protecting their private informa-
tion from large tech firms and digital retailers. The United States has been lax
in this regard, due in no small part to the power of corporate lobbies, which
have prevailed upon Congress to avoid similar regulations. As a result, the
American consumer is practically colonized by digital interests and agents that
want to know every little detail, and monetize it all. To date, the American
consumer has not put up much of a fight; and consumer behavior suggests that
might not be in the offing. Many are too happy for Amazon to tell us what we
should buy next – what we will desire, what will suit our lifestyle, without our
even realizing it. Many are thrilled when retailers know our location at any
given moment, assist our shopping ventures, and sate our appetites.
In recent years, several important political and commercial controversies
have highlighted how tech firms and their customers disregard our privacy
interests – such as they are – and collect sensitive information at will, and in
some cases seek to manipulate us. Each new controversy reveals more that is
known about us, how little privacy we enjoy, and the ravenous appetite and
ingenious methods of our many spies. Each incident prompts a flurry of calls
for stronger regulations to help consumers protect and preserve their privacy.
However, it is unclear what those regulations might accomplish, given our
entrenched culture of sharing. Quite simply: if consumers are given greater
powers to protect individual privacy, can we count on them to do so, now that
they seem content, inured, or wholly disposed to exposing themselves on
a regular basis, just to conduct daily business and socialize with others?
What about the fact that prospects for preserving privacy are constantly
worse, thanks to the frightening speed at which digital technology advances
and evolves? Researchers envision bold new frontiers for surveillance and data
extraction – some within our own bodies – and it will be hard to resist these
advances, and the remarkable innovations they bring.
 Preface ix

A crisis of privacy may also be a crisis of democracy, which, many political

theorists contend, requires the inviolate privacy of its citizens. For this reason,
and despite the digital tidal wave that crashes upon us, we have no choice but
to press ahead, some argue, with whatever privacy regulations and protections
we can muster, no matter how modest, flimsy or incomplete. We must do
whatever we can to help citizens defend privacy, and appreciate it, because
that is the ultimate redoubt of freedom. Privacy is necessary, its advocates
argue, to produce willful and self-determining citizens. When we lack privacy,
and everything is known about us, we can be manipulated by spies – to such an
extent, perhaps, that we are ultimately reduced to automatons who can be
easily cowed, coerced, and directed by powerful agents. Twentieth-century
totalitarian regimes engaged in such efforts, and produced paranoid citizens
who were no longer recognizably human, political theorists warned – citizens
who would comply with or carry out atrocities. Democracy – liberty – is
unthinkable without privacy.
The task of this book is to think it. My aim is to understand the prospects and
future of democracy without privacy, or very little of it – and with a citizenry
that cares little about privacy, and does not know why to appreciate it, or
protect it. I do not take on this task happily, mind you. I enjoy my privacy
(again, such as it is) – I am the first to admit it. If I had my druthers, my
personal data would be sacrosanct. At least, that sounds good in theory; in
practice, it’s another matter. Like everyone else, I am steadily sucked into the
digital economy, and carry out tasks and chores enabled by surveillance. For
the longest time, I resisted inscribing appointments in my Google calendar,
and used an old-fashioned pocket diary instead. After forgetting a few impor-
tant meetings, however, I gave in, and resorted to the digital calendar, which is
synchronized with my cell phone and email, and alerts me to looming
appointments anytime, anywhere. This has become a convenience I can
scarcely live without. But now my professional calendar – and increasingly,
my personal schedule, too – resides somewhere in the public eye, and can be
accessed by, well, who knows? Shall I trust that Google will take good care of
this information, which, according to some incisive minds, gives deep insights
into my habits and preferences? Shall I trust that this information will not get
into the hands of perhaps insidious agents who wish to influence me, coerce or
control me? By taking advantage of digital technology, and exposing myself in
the process, I make myself vulnerable in ways I cannot fully understand or
predict – even while said technology sells itself on the promise of liberating me
and empowering me.
Given the future that faces us, and the extent to which we will routinely and
profoundly expose our lives in the digital age – before agents hungry to collect
x Preface

our data – I think we have little choice but to plan ahead, and see how
democracy may be manageable under such circumstances. What are the
prospects for freedom as privacy is diminished? How can we be, and act as,
potent citizens? How can we hold government and corporations accountable,
and make them serve us – as opposed to themselves only? How can we
continue to be self-determining citizens when the withering glare of surveil-
lance pierces us thoroughly and completely?
Perhaps privacy is not so necessary to democracy after all. Perhaps there are
other essential elements – another wellspring of vibrancy. While many
bemoan the loss of privacy, it turns out that the public realm has been greatly
diminished in recent decades, and this, I will argue, is more harmful to
democracy. Political freedom can be bolstered if we reconvene a vibrant
and, yes, messy public life in liberal democracies, which, of their nature,
tend to hamper the public realm. What’s more, it turns out that privacy is
a varied and often confused, even ill-founded notion, which has rarely been
achieved or enjoyed throughout history. Protecting privacy, even if that were
possible, is not our best hope for ensuring a democratic future. Isn’t it
conceivable that people have known freedom and political power in the
absence of inviolate and certain privacy? Isn’t it conceivable that we can do
so again – soon?
 Acknowledgements

This book could not have been written without the gracious, timely, and
continuous assistance and inspiration of many people. First and foremost,
I must thank my wife, Yara Cheikh, for planting many of the concerns in this
book, regarding digital society. Her inquisitions, furthermore, forced me to
hone my arguments, and her political activism was inspirational, and instruc-
tive. I am greatly indebted to my father: our morning conversations about
ethics and politics helped me shape my critique of privacy. My mother was
always an eager and willing proofreader, providing helpful feedback and first
impressions – and keeping me up to date on the hot topics of interest on
National Public Radio (NPR). Thanks to my children for their love and
support, and for being fascinating case studies in our fast-evolving digital
culture. I am also grateful to my colleagues at the Maryland Institute
College of Art for supporting my various endeavors, and in many ways.
Finally, I must thank my wonderful students at MICA; the idea for this book
came out of many classroom discussions and debates over the nature and
importance of privacy.

xi
 1

Confessional Culture

The current crisis of privacy is, or ought to be, especially surprising in the
United States, because privacy concerns, historians and legal scholars attest,
were a prime driver in the creation of the nation, and the erection and
expansion of our basic freedoms. Our disregard for privacy is surprising for
another reason: it defies predictions and expectations of how we are supposed
to act under surveillance. Why, if we know we are watched – and we admit as
much – is online behavior so shameless, seemingly open and free? Why do so
many of us feel compelled to blare intimate details, and share mundane and
embarrassing events with the whole world? What does that say about us? Is
human nature changing before our very eyes, in the digital age, such that we
show no compunction about living an utterly public life, in most all respects?
How can we retain any enduring or grudging respect for privacy in this brave
new world? Some people muster objections; some admit there is something
wrong in privacy invasions – but what? We have a vocabulary of privacy, and
a deep historical relationship to it (or so we are told), but hardly know what it
means anymore, why it is of value, and worthy of defense. And in the digital
age, privacy requires no modest or ordinary defense, but a monumental call to
arms, to beat back the tidal wave of surveillance – which we invite, and
facilitate.

Privacy is not mentioned in the US Constitution. Nevertheless, scholars

have argued that privacy protections stem from the values and experiences of
the nation’s founders, and are clearly implied in the Bill of Rights. In one
respect, “the history of America is the history of the right to privacy.”1 From the
inception of this nation, immigrants were driven here by privacy concerns of
a kind. The Pilgrims departed England, for example, because they wanted to

1
Frederick S. Lane, American Privacy (Boston: Beacon Press, 2009), 1.

1
2 Life after Privacy

be left alone in peace to practice their faith. And the colonial struggle with
England was galvanized by controversies over privacy invasions.
The seeds of the Revolutionary War were sown in the dispute over who
would bear the cost of the French Indian War, and the ongoing efforts to
protect the American frontier and the empire at large. Britain claimed that the
colonists needed to bear a greater burden of the costs of such defenses. The
colonists objected, and sought to avoid taxation by concealing the fruits of
their trade. In Massachusetts in 1755, the English government tried to raise
funds by issuing “writs of assistance,” which authorized custom house officers
to “randomly search sailing ships, dockside warehouses and even private
homes for untaxed property.”2 The colonists chafed under this policy, and
opposed efforts to renew the writs upon the death of King George II in 1760. In
the hearing for their renewal, colonial lawyer James Otis eloquently articu-
lated the opposition. “One of the most essential branches of English liberty is
the freedom of one’s house,” Otis claimed. “A man’s house is his castle; and
whilst he is quiet, he is well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ [of
assistance], if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this
privilege.”3 Otis cites a long-standing element of English Common Law
known as Castle Doctrine – “one’s home is his castle,” a sacrosanct space
where he is most perfectly free. Castle Doctrine is still prominently invoked in
US law today, in, among other things, self-defense and gun rights concerns.
Courts have recognized a robust right of self-defense for individuals wielding
guns in the home, against unwanted strangers.
The concern for privacy became a major driver of the Revolutionary War,
and though the term does not appear in our founding documents, its influence
can be detected – and privacy protections inferred. In the Bill of Rights, for
example, the Third Amendment, which prohibits soldiers being quartered in
one’s home, is a clear reaction against British efforts to do the same, invading
and occupying colonists’ private dwellings. The First Amendment protects our
right to make up our minds privately, regarding political and religious affilia-
tion. The Fourth Amendment, which protects against “unreasonable searches
and seizures” of the citizenry, such as the British soldiers perpetrated, promi-
nently articulates privacy concerns. In the 1960s, Fourth Amendment juris-
prudence becomes the bedrock of a constitutional right to privacy recognized
by the Supreme Court.
Prior to that, however, privacy makes a notable appearance on the US legal
scene in the 1890s thanks to an influential article written by Samuel Warren

2
Lane, 10–11.
3
Lane, 12.
 Confessional Culture 3

and the future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. Attempting to express
an explicit right to privacy, which they felt was lacking, Brandeis and Warren
claim that it amounts to or consists in a “right to be left alone.” The US
Constitution and English Common Law (which is our Constitution’s forbear
and foundation) recognize a citizen’s right to be protected from intrusion in
his person and property. But, Brandeis and Warren explain, times had chan-
ged; new technology had emerged, and advanced civilization revealed a new
realm in need of defense beyond the merely physical, namely, “man’s spiritual
nature . . . his feelings and his intellect.”4 US law had evolved to offer protec-
tion for intellectual property, the men point out. But this was insufficient to
combat attacks on our emotional well-being, which privacy invasions
constituted.
Brandeis and Warren are concerned primarily with gossip, and how tech-
nological innovations embolden and empower the gossip mongers, and stoke
the general appetite for their wares. A more immediate motivation for their
article, it seems, was Warren’s annoyance at the exuberant media coverage of
his daughter’s wedding. The men single out “instantaneous photographs,”
a new invention at the time, and the “newspaper enterprise” that disseminates
them to a hungry public. The latter spurred journalists to pry more deeply into
private lives, recording intimate details for posterity. “The press is overstepping
in every direction the obvious bonds of propriety and of decency,” Brandeis
and Warren complain. “To satisfy a prurient taste, the details of sexual rela-
tions are spread broadcast in the columns of daily papers. To occupy the
indolent, column upon column is filled with idle gossip, which can only be
procured by intrusion upon the domestic circle.”5
They feel they are dealing with a new breed of offense, which is somewhat
abstract – the feelings of hurt, or anger, or irritation that emerge when insight
into one’s private life and emotions are disseminated to the curious, simply for
curiosity’s sake. And when people hungrily absorb the details of private lives, this
media indulgence promotes immoral behavior – prurience and indolence. This
seems to be the focus of Brandeis and Warren’s ire, as opposed to the offense in
privacy invasions, for those whose privacy is invaded. They are more confident
in articulating, and more intent in highlighting, the ill that is media gossip,
which “both belittles and perverts men,” than explaining exactly why and how
privacy invasions hurt those whose lives are invaded.6 This is a recurring theme

4
Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren, “The Right to Privacy,” Harvard Law Review IV, 5 (1890).
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/privacy/Privacy_brand_warr2.html.
5
Brandeis and Warren.
6
Brandeis and Warren.
4 Life after Privacy

going forward: while the hurt from invaded privacy is felt, the offense – to those
whose lives are exposed – is difficult to pinpoint or spell out. As a result, privacy
protections become hard to justify, and easy to surrender.
Law evolves to offer protection for more abstract aspects of our lives,
Brandeis and Warren maintain. Such is its natural progression, and it is the
result of advancing civilization. Civilization satisfies our basic physical needs,
and teaches that happiness consists in more than the satisfaction of those
needs. Rather, happiness has a significant emotional and spiritual component.
Intellectual property rights are one such creation of advanced civilization and
mature jurisprudence, protecting intangible goods – prosecuting people who
steal our ideas, for example, preserving ownership and authorship. To that
extent, intellectual property protection might seem like a good jumping off
point for defending against privacy invasions. But Brandeis and Warren argue
it’s the other way around. The foundation of intellectual property protections
is not private property, but “inviolate personality,” that is, the notion of
a sacrosanct personal space that ought not be invaded or robbed or exposed
under any circumstances.7 The right to be let alone is a foundational right,
a precedent right in common law, which then infuses our Constitution. Until
Brandeis and Warren put pen to paper, it was only in need of being pro-
nounced; its growing and newfound significance was made clear by evolving
technology and evolving culture.

Only in the 1960s, when the US Supreme Court was presided over by Justice
Earl Warren, did the right to privacy receive the full legal recognition and
sanction that Brandeis and Warren anticipated. The term “privacy” is pro-
nounced in only 88 Supreme Court cases prior to the 1960s, but in 107 cases
under Earl Warren’s tenure, suggesting that “the Warren Court made privacy
a central legal concept in American law.”8 Justice William O. Douglas was its
chief evangelizer. In one notable case, Griswold v. Connecticut, Douglas wrote
the majority opinion, and explained that while certain rights are not explicitly
mentioned in the Constitution or under any single provision of the document,
they become evident if we would hope to fully enact the provisions of the Bill
of Rights.9 The right to privacy is one such right – and is implied by the First
Amendment. We cannot exercise freedom of speech, assembly, or religion
without an antecedent right to privacy, which creates an inviolate zone that
government, or other powers and interests, dare not trespass. Of itself, the First

7
Brandeis and Warren.
8
Lane, 153–4.
9
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 US 479 (1965).
 Confessional Culture 5

Amendment implies a right to privacy, but other provisions combine to carve

out a space where we must be let alone, in order to fully enjoy the freedoms
spelled out in the Constitution.
Strikingly, Douglas aims to lend privacy an air of longevity, declaring that
the institution is “older than the Bill of Rights – older than our political parties,
older than our school system.”10 Privacy is as old as the institution of marriage,
too, he claims, which is at issue in the case at hand, concerning the state of
Connecticut’s right to prohibit married couples from learning about contra-
ception. Marriage is a sacred institution, Douglas maintains, and privacy is
essential for protecting the intimacy of this bond. This claim is dubious on
a few fronts. For one thing, as we will see in Chapter 5, the notion of privacy is
hardly monolithic or eternal, but has changed over the centuries. What’s
more, marriage has changed, too; the institution that Douglas hails was not
in fact the repository of sacred intimacy in times past.
In a later case, Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, Douglas invokes the right to
be let alone in the case of those accused of loitering and wandering where they are
not wanted or permitted. We have a right to meander, uninterrupted and unin-
terfered because it is one of those private activities “responsible for giving our
people the feeling of independence and self-confidence, the feeling of creativity,”
which is the lifeblood of democracy.11 Democracy requires that privacy be
protected, because it nurtures an independent spirit, and emboldens citizens to
experiment, with their travels as with their thoughts. People in a democracy
should feel free to speak out, unconstrained by social pressure, perhaps liable to
uttering what is wild and offensive on occasion, because this is the ground of
dissent, which expands the frontier of liberty in unexpected ways. Douglas leveled
this argument against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, whose propo-
nents had to persevere amidst immense social pressure, and outright oppression. It
was clear to him, as to many, that privacy is a necessary protection for the
expansion of rights that we soon take for granted. Individuals must be allowed to
consider, cultivate and express potentially dangerous ideas, free from the intrusion
and coercion of social forces intent on maintaining stability, and the status quo.

Privacy and personal independence are inseparable, according to Douglas,

and, tellingly, he invokes Thoreau in this regard. Thoreau and his mentor
Emerson eloquently and memorably celebrate a strong brand of American
individualism, perhaps the quintessential expression thereof. And their
account presumes no small degree of privacy, protecting the individual from

10
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 US 479 (1965).
11
Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 US 156 (1972).
6 Life after Privacy

the corrupting influence of society, secluding him as far as possible, so that he

might hear the authentic voice of his conscience – and more. It is an account
that clearly resonates in later iterations and defenses of privacy.
Douglas admires Thoreau’s “Walking,” which endorses an individual’s free
and unplanned departure into nature, sauntering in the fields with no pre-
scribed agenda or plan. One is purified in this venture, Thoreau maintains,
liberated and opened to hear the voice of truth, which a person can only detect
when alone with his thoughts. Society compels us to focus on economic gain,
and the lures of wealth and class, none of which truly fulfills us. To the
contrary, society infects us with a kind of madness. Unfortunately, we are
born into its bondage, which is why so many people take for granted the
economic and social demands placed on us, and mindlessly heed them. But
real freedom beckons nearby. We only need to stride out into the fields and
woods – alone.
In a famous ode to our rightful independence, Thoreau declares that society
has us “study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, but a successful
life knows no law. It is an unfortunate discovery . . . that of a law which binds us
where we did not know before that we were bound. Live free child of the
mist!”12 To discover authentic existence, and live fully, we must detach
ourselves from the laws of men. In so doing, we find favor with God, and
emulate how He also transcends law – the law of Nature. On one hand, alone
in the wilds, we may finally enjoy the peace and quiet to hear the voice of God,
and discern his will. In liberating ourselves from human law in this manner,
furthermore, we emulate God, the creator of the laws of Nature, who also
transcends them.
Thoreau engages in a more elaborate and insistent exercise in self-
purification at Walden Pond, where he holes up in a cabin on land owned
by his friend Emerson. Embarking on this two-year experiment, Thoreau
declares that he will learn how to live deliberately, that is, simply, thought-
fully, consciously. He will isolate and identify his real needs, which he
suspects are few. Society dictates that our needs are many, and then sends us
endlessly chasing their fulfillment – creating new needs all the while. This is
a lie, an unnecessary complication. Authentic living, real living, can only be
achieved through a kind of separation and isolation – privacy, if you will.
Thoreau constructs the cabin himself, bereft of creature comforts; he grows
and forages for food, drinks from the stream, and bathes in the pond. He sits on
his doorstep listening to the birds, contemplating the sights and sounds around
him, straining to detect the immanent wisdom of nature. Most of all, however,

12
Henry David Thoreau, “Walking,” in Nature/Walking (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991), 113–14.
 Confessional Culture 7

Thoreau quiets the din of outside voices, voices that issue demands, fears,
worries, and concerns, which, when immersed in the workaday world, seem
utterly normal. From his perch, aloof and apart from the common worries of
men, their ridiculous nature is readily apparent. Everyone would do well to
enjoy this kind of privacy, even for a while, and box out all the chatter. “Let us
settle ourselves and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and
slush of opinion and prejudice and tradition and delusion and appearance . . .
till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in their place, which we call reality.”13
Thoreau is moved to compassion at the sight of his peers, weighed down
with needless concerns, driven by insatiable and nonsensical social pressures.
But Emerson, his intellectual ally, depicts society as nothing less than an
adversary; one must be utterly insulated against its assaults and corruptions.
A person is properly “Self-Reliant,” Emerson argues in his famous essay
celebrating individualism. If you would attain the truth and discover the
sacred kernel of life, you must ruthlessly block off outside influence and
look within. Thoreau relishes his time at Walden Pond, for it reveals the
eternal wisdom of the philosophers he has read – it makes clear the truths
others have taught for generations. For Emerson, however, you must strike out
on a radically new and independent path to attain wisdom. “When good is
near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed
way; you should not discern the footprints of any other; you shall not see the face
of man; you shall not hear any name—the way, the thought, the good shall be
wholly strange and new.”14 Society has nothing to recommend you – nor does
history, or tradition, it seems.
Nature is a conduit to authenticity, by this account. Or better yet, nature is
the purifying force or milieu that makes each of us a conduit for the truth – an
empty vessel for the divine. “In the woods,” alone, Emerson writes, “all mean
egoism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the
currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of
God.”15 I need not physically remove myself from society to enjoy this vision.
I can learn to commune with nature in quiet moments when it offers itself to
me – which can be anywhere. I must practice the art of solitude, and embrace
sacred loneliness whenever possible. Emerson describes doing so while cross-
ing the town commons in the snow, enveloped in silence, and stopping to gaze
up at the stars; suddenly, he is one with them.

13
Henry David Thoreau, Walden (New York: Dover Publications, 1995), 16.
14
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” in Nature and Selected Essays (New York: Penguin
Books, 1982), 181.
15
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature,” in Nature/Walking (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991), 8.
8 Life after Privacy

Emerson and Thoreau offer an account of individualism that will be

essential for privacy advocates: if I am to be a proper individual, robust and
self-determining, authentic and in touch with “reality,” I must filter out
external influences and prejudices. I must heed only the voice that wells up
within – provided I am able and allowed to hear it. This will prove to be a high
bar for privacy, indeed.

The legal, cultural and political forces elevating privacy arguably culminated
in the twentieth century, such that privacy became a “fixation . . . of US public
culture,” where it has been “foundational to [our] sense of personhood and
national identity.”16 Indeed, the language of privacy is very familiar to us,
ingrained as it is in our national narrative and legal system. We instinctively
know that privacy matters, and thus find it perfectly normal, or at least unremark-
able, when privacy is invoked in public commentary or political speeches. And as
I will soon argue, the concern for privacy is still operative or manifest in certain
quarters of our lives, in some form or fashion. For the most part, however, in our
daily behavior – in cases where privacy concerns should figure prominently – we
tend to forsake it with little thought or compunction. Which suggests that, in
practice, privacy rings hollow. Few people seem to know what it really means,
what it consists in, why it ought to be defended – nor do they seem to care. It attests
to a stark disconnect in our culture. Some may retort (or complain) that we hear
about privacy incessantly; it is hardly a lost value or norm, but something that still
reverberates in our society – the media is littered with its mention. I would
contend that the people who matter are not the ones raising the issue, bandying
it about, championing it – cherishing it. Increasingly privacy concerns emanate
from a select population of scholars, advocates, journalists, and policy makers.
And their arguments and warnings do not seem to resonate with the general
population. An effective defense of privacy, such as we would require in the digital
age, demands a deeper, broader foundation.
For digital technology has made privacy so much more vulnerable, and, in
2013, Edward Snowden exposed an expansive spying program, carried out by the
US government, to collect copious amounts of information about its own citizen
population, from the digital trails we leave behind in our daily business. Unique
to this age and economy is how we, who know that our digital behavior exposes
intimate details of our private lives, largely assist our monitors, readily and
continuously offering up personal information. To be specific, Snowden,
a former contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA), uncovered its
PRISM program, which collects data on our digital interactions from major

16
Sarah Igo, The Known Citizen (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018), 2, 4.
 Confessional Culture 9

internet companies, with their compliance. The budget for this program was
relatively small ($20 million), suggesting how easy it is for government spies to
gather the desired information.17 We practically volunteer the information.
Political philosophers and theorists have long warned that privacy is a prime
target of ruling powers, who would happily invade it in order to subdue or control
us. What’s new today is that we the citizens join in its destruction – actually, we are
the principal agents of its demise. The NSA, and anyone else interested in
monitoring us (and they are legion) only has to sit back; the intimate details of
our lives fall into their laps.
Snowden’s revelations were not, nor should have been, terribly surprising to
most, upon minimal reflection. Since the War on Terror ramped up last decade,
it was well known that the US government was interested in spying on its
citizens, and anyone else. Almost immediately after the 9–11 attacks, the Bush
administration authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on US citizens and residents,
searching for evidence of new terrorist plots.18 It was revealed at the time that the
government had pressured communications companies to enable said eaves-
dropping, and the government seemed to back off – temporarily. Thus, the
American population knew that widespread surveillance of the home popula-
tion was a likely temptation for our ruling parties, and a perennial threat. And
when Snowden revealed the NSA spying operations, there was a profound
outcry – at least publicly, and in the press. Scholars, politicians, and civil rights
advocates bemoaned the news, and still do for the most part. But average
citizens were not impressed, it seems. One study noted that only about a third
of those familiar with Snowden’s revelations were motivated to improve privacy
measures as a result.19 And in fact, according to another study released soon after
Snowden’s leak, a majority favored NSA efforts to “[track] the telephone records
of millions of Americans,” and felt “it is important for the federal government to
investigate possible terrorist threats, even if it intrudes on personal privacy.”20
A summary report three years later suggested that Snowden’s revelations
were perhaps even less impactful. Subsequent terror attacks prompted people

17
Leo Kelion, “Q&A: NSA’s Prism Internet Surveillance Scheme,” BBC.com, July 1, 2013, www
.bbc.com/news/technology–23051248.
18
Eric Lichtblau and James Risen, “Bush lets U.S. spy on callers without courts,” New York
Times, December 16, 2005, www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/bush-lets-us-spy-on-callers-
without-courts.html.
19
“CIGI-IPSOS Global Survey on Internet Security and Trust,” Centre for International
Governance Innovation and IPSOS, November 24, 2014, www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/
documents/internet-survey-2014-slides.pdf.
20
“Majority views NSA phone tracking as acceptable anti-terror tactic,” Pew Research Center,
June 10, 2013, www.people-press.org/2013/06/10/majority-views-nsa-phone-tracking-as-acceptable-
anti-terror-tactic/.
10 Life after Privacy

to worry more that national security programs did not go far enough in fighting
terror, and were less concerned about civil rights protections, in comparison.21
Most people have taken modest measures to protect privacy online, but the
Snowden affair did not inspire widespread adoption of anything more sophis-
ticated which might prove a greater obstacle for NSA spying.22 Of course,
many plead ignorance about sophisticated programs to protect their privacy.
They say they would like to do more to protect their data, but are not aware of
the best, most effective options. And many remain cynical that they could still
elude government surveillance, even after enacting available privacy protec-
tion measures. What’s more – and what is perhaps especially frustrating for
privacy advocates and Snowden doomsayers – most people report that they are
not principally worried to block out government spying. Among those who
took measures to maintain anonymity online, they indicate that they sought to
“avoid ‘social surveillance’ by friends and colleagues rather than the govern-
ment or law enforcement.”23 In fact, government and police are dead last
among potential monitors that internet users wish to elude.24
Political theorists will find this troubling because governments have proven
to be a serious threat when they have access to and collect our sensitive
personal information. This lends government immense power, which is too
easy to abuse, and often leads to and assists oppression. Some argue that the
destruction of privacy was essential to twentieth-century totalitarian regimes
that aimed at nothing less than total domination of the citizen population.
And there is something almost obscene in the fact that Americans of all people
are so little concerned with government surveillance, and more worried about
snooping family and friends. Protecting our privacy is a central lesson of our
nation’s history. If we learn anything from the birth of our nation and its
founding documents, it’s that privacy – from government intrusion – is
a supreme virtue and must be jealously defended.
I suspect most Americans know this one way or another; or they should, if
they paid attention to their history. Most of us instinctively affirm that privacy
is an important value, worthy of protection, if not reverence. As I have argued,
we are steeped in a tradition of privacy, from accounts of our history, to
essential legal arguments, and our very notion of individualism. Perhaps this
is why we will say we care about privacy, and would like to do a better job

21
Lee Rainie, “The state of privacy in America,” Pew Research Center, September 21, 2016, www
.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/21/the-state-of-privacy-in-america/.
22
Rainie, “The state of privacy in America.”
23
Rainie, “The state of privacy in America.”
24
“The state of privacy in post-Snowden America,” Pew Research Center, September 21, 2016,
www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/21/the-state-of-privacy-in-america/.
 Confessional Culture 11

protecting it – and we are uncomfortable with expansive and invasive govern-

ment surveillance programs. But our behavior indicates something else.
Most consumers say that they are eager to receive discounts and promotions
from retailers, but not at the cost of divulging personal information.25
However, they quickly dispense with their purported trepidation when the
rubber hits the road. Retailers know this, and justify their snooping on the basis
of tradeoffs: so long as customers receive ample benefits in exchange for
divulging personal information – and personalized advertising is the most
effective – they will submit to pervasive surveillance. Researchers confirm this.
When asked in the abstract, consumers reject the idea of tradeoffs; but when
presented with a “real-life tradeoff case – asking . . . whether they would take
discounts in exchange for allowing their supermarket to collect information
about their grocery purchases” – a very common practice, I might add – “more
than twice as many . . . say yes to tradeoffs.”26

A striking feature of the digital age is that we, individual citizens – eager
consumers and avid social media users – hand over personal information to
those who watch us. We subscribe to tradeoffs with retailers and social media
giants, even when the rewards for exposure are minimal. We do this willingly, in
some cases happily, and are not so timid or careful or concerned about displaying
our most intimate details, eccentric whims, or caustic opinions. This is a surprising
turn of events for many political thinkers, who have long warned that mass
surveillance strips us of a feeling of personal freedom, and makes us less liable
to speak out and express individual differences, unique opinions, whims, tastes.
In short, a confessional culture is ascendant in the digital age, and this flies in
the face of dire predictions about panopticism. Panopticism refers to the surveil-
lance scheme designed by eighteenth-century social reformer Jeremy Bentham,
and which he first intended for a prison. His panoptic prison was to be a circular
structure with inmates housed in cells around a central tower, whose occupant is
obscured, his watchful eye unseen. This structure was revelatory, and widely
inspirational, because it illustrates a highly efficient use of power. Consider: you
don’t need someone literally occupying the tower; if obscured, the inmates never
know for sure if or when they are watched – but will behave as if they always are.
In this way, “visibility is a trap,” as the philosopher Michel Foucault puts it.27 The

25
Joseph Turow, The Aisles Have Eyes (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017), 158.
26
Nora Draper, Michael Hennessy and Joseph Turow, “The Tradeoff Fallacy,” A Report from
the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, www.asc.upenn.edu
/sites/default/files/TradeoffFallacy_1.pdf.
27
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books,
1995), 200.
12 Life after Privacy

intention is that inmates might internalize the spectral watchman, and discipline
themselves.
And Bentham had high hopes for the impact and influence of the panoptic
schema outside the prison walls. If implemented in a variety of venues across
society, people would be motivated to behave morally, work diligently, and
become better persons and citizens all around. Widespread, perhaps even
pervasive panopticism would keep everyone “on the up and up,” so to speak,
invigorate the economy, improve general well-being, diminish the social
welfare state, and lighten the load on government, police, and church, tasked
with keeping us all in line. Indeed, Bentham’s bold prediction proved tantaliz-
ing, and Foucault details how this political revelation was applied throughout
the state and society, from schools to factories to hospitals.
From a political perspective, physical force is inefficient in exerting control. It
is often expensive, and it can also backfire: extreme force exerted by those in
charge might cause people to lash out and revolt. This is most clearly the case for
people who are accustomed to freedom, as Machiavelli would say – or people
who fancy themselves free, as in a democracy. Surveillance provides an elegant
and devastatingly effective solution for powers intent on ruling, and perhaps
oppressing, in a democratic age. The architecture of surveillance is “so light,”
Foucault liked to say; it is subtle, hardly noticeable. It only requires open spaces,
through which people can be watched – and watch one another. In this respect –
and perversely – methods of surveillance can be easily commingled with or
couched within euphemistic calls for openness, transparency, letting in the
light. And, in another perversion, Foucault says, we start to see panoptic
schemas used to enhance growing disciplinary power that imbues incipient
democracies in the nineteenth century, stymying the personal freedoms they
promised.
Actually, if we consider its relation to democracy, this gets to the heart of
what makes panopticism so powerful and insidious. Panoptic surveillance also
fits nicely with the rhetoric and ideology of individualism, because, well, it
succeeds so well at individualizing – but not in a good, empowering way.
Rather, individuals wither under the spotlight. And in their loneliness, and
growing paranoia, they turn into agents of their spies. Consider again
Bentham’s plan: at the heart of his prison is a spectral watchman – a vague,
ominous presence. This vagueness is key, and essential to the supposed
efficiency of his system. We, the spied upon, may not know who our spies
are exactly, what they want, what they are on the lookout for – what they are
soon to punish us for, perhaps. Much is left to the imagination, where it does
its critical damage. The spied upon are only supposed to see one another, and
in their lateral relations, through their own watchful, worried eyes, compel
 Confessional Culture 13

one another to keep in line – whatever that might mean, exactly. It’s better if
we are left guessing about that too, to some extent. The result will be that we
the watched are reduced to a kind of paranoia, where we are less than free.
Surveillance makes power anonymous, also automatic.28 Power will not be
exerted top-down or from without, in rough imperious fashion, sure to rankle
the democratic masses. In panoptic schema, rather, power operates from
within each individual – at his or her own behest. Because I do not know
precisely who I am curtailing my behavior for, and how, this will largely seem
self-directed. And I will seem free and self-determining throughout. With this,
we arrive at the full genius of panopticism: it leaves us feeling autonomous and
independent, but compliant and chastened instead. And we are the primary
agents of social conformity and political obedience, which, depending on the
nature and extent of the panoptic scheme employed, Foucault argued, can be
stifling indeed.
In many ways, the modern surveillance state has far surpassed Bentham’s
aspirations – so much so that the title “surveillance state” hardly fits the bill.
Retailers, for example, are deeply invested in monitoring us, too, and through-
out our daily lives, in a host of hidden ways – shadowing our every move,
tracking our every want and whim. The immensity, complexity, and imma-
nence of contemporary surveillance systems has prompted critics to come up
with titles that capture it better, like “tenticular oligarcy,” or “Big Other,” as
opposed to Big Brother – conveying the ominous anonymity of our current
spies.29
Networked digital technology seems the ideal tool to achieve the power
dynamic Foucault says is so devastatingly effective in keeping people under-
foot in democracies. In terms of the architecture of surveillance, one can
hardly imagine anything so “light” or subtle as digital media. I may steer clear
of certain websites, forums, or chat groups, and watch what I say and do online,
for fear of who is watching me, and what their agenda is. And my censorship
will seem self-directed. Thus, we are all silently, covertly – obligingly and
automatically – urged towards conformity and quiescence.
Except that this is not how things have turned out. Or so it seems. By and
large, the digital generation does not appear to behave online as if some
disapproving Big Brother (or Big Other) were watching our every move,
influencing our every decision, paralyzing us with fear, and demanding self-

28
Foucault, 176.
29
See respectively Bernard Harcourt, Exposed (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2015), 79; and Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (New York: Public
Affairs, 2019), 20.
14 Life after Privacy

censorship. Quite to the contrary, on social media, people are prone to

divulging all manner of mundane, intimate, or unsavory details of their
personal lives, with little evident concern for the shadowy agents listening
in – or even what their friends, family, and co-workers (or bosses) might think.
Facebook users issue “status updates” reporting where they are at any given
moment, no matter how ordinary or insignificant – or embarrassing. Social
media platforms offer people the opportunity to report how they feel on a near-
constant basis, declaring emotional highs and lows, relating caustic social and
political views, sharing lascivious desires. I think of former (and beloved)
students I had to block on Facebook, lest their political tirades became too
wrathful and foul-mouthed, if my children should spy them over my shoulder –
or their sexual confessions became too frank, bawdy, and detailed. Oftentimes,
their stories and rants made me wonder, do they even think about their
audience, witness to these emissions? Do they forget that I – or their grand-
parents, or professional contacts, or bosses – might be party to them? Do they
just ignore who will see their posts? Or if they do recognize their audience, do
they simply not care about embarrassing themselves or others? This confessional
culture is not limited to millennials and former students, of course. I am
routinely shocked by gushing or careless posts from older peers on social
media, who say things they should know better than to share, if they hewed to
older, pre-internet rules of etiquette. I think in particular of one forty-plus
Facebook friend who is an exultant new mother, and divulges every thought
about her child, and shares every momentous detail of his existence – and who
can begrudge her excitement, really? But then she broaches a new frontier, and
posts close-up pictures of her breastfeeding, which leaves little to the imagina-
tion. Some have dubbed these “brelfies,” and apparently this is a widespread
phenomenon in the digital age.30 While this phenomenon may have admirable
intentions, normalizing breastfeeding, or celebrating motherhood and the
female form, it defies anticipations for surveillance, which should prompt us
to hide ourselves, or curtail eccentric, highly personal behavior.
Our confessional culture has arguably been brewing for some time now,
and before the emergence of social media – perhaps even as far back as the
social and political revolutions of the 1960s, when people came to embrace
their sexual identities and predilections, and speak about them openly and
frankly.31 The 1990s boom in memoir writing, and the popularity of Reality TV

30
See, for example, Lucy Waterlow, “Rise of the Brelfie,” Daily Mail Online, February 25, 2015,
www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2968246/Mums-head-head-brelfie-Morning-breastfeed
ing-selfies-list-parenting-trends-thanks-stars-like-Miranda-Kerr.html.
31
Igo, 268.
 Confessional Culture 15

shows shone a bright light on otherwise mundane and unsavory details of

private lives.32 But none of this approaches the level of routine sharing and
deep exposure we now expect on social media. The sexual liberation move-
ment, the memoirs, and Reality TV made it acceptable for personal, shameful
details to be revealed; they made the prospect of exposure less fearsome, or
horrifying, and even a bit therapeutic. With social media, however, confession
is pervasive: people share routinely, and as a matter of fact – unprompted, and
often unconcerned for norms transgressed or defied. Indeed, this has become
so common, and people so nonchalant about sharing details that would have
been embarrassing in an earlier age, that universities and employers regularly
scour applicants’ social media platforms in search of troubling behavior and
opinions. And though this is widely known and reported, many persist in
baring their souls and lives nonetheless.

We know we are watched online and in social media; we know we are

monitored by our government, and, increasingly, commercial interests, too.
When prompted, many of us will say we disapprove, but, by and large, we do
not behave like we knew or cared about the spying, or reckoned with its
implications. We do not behave as if we inhabited a digital panopticon, or
tenticular oligarchy, or what have you. Why?
Philosophers have long argued that human consciousness is inherently narra-
tive: this is a major way we seek to understand and give meaning to reality, and
human existence. Specifically, we aim to project a narrative structure onto our
lives – give them a beginning, climax, and hopefully a fitting conclusion – and
also situate them within a greater narrative, be it social, historical, or cosmic.
Thanks to social media, we get to curate the stories of our lives – in real time –
and, if need be, change characters, dominant plot lines, or background themes
how and when we like. Or, in documenting everyday events and occurrences, we
may elevate them and memorialize them for posterity. Suddenly our chores, the
many stops we make throughout the workday, gain special significance in being
shared – and, of course, connections are made, satisfying our inherent need to
socialize and build bonds. And in this respect, our digitally curated lives fit into
another great American tradition: entrepreneurship.33 We are busy constructing
an identity and life story – a brand – that we then champion and market, like
everyone else selling something in this country.
This implies that there is also a competitive element to the social media
sharing. It is increasingly common for people to boast about their romantic

32
Igo, 338–44.
33
Harcourt has made a similar argument. Cf. Exposed, 99.
16 Life after Privacy

relationships in digital platforms, for example, and post substantiating pictures

and gushing proclamations and confessions, complete with “weekiversary
posts” diligently marking the duration of the relationship.34 This has the
unintended (or perhaps intended) consequence of shaming people who are
not in love, or people who may now doubt the intensity of their own romance,
and then wonder why they or their partner are not similarly bragging about it
online. Apparently, this phenomenon has goaded some people to stay in
relationships longer than they should have, just for the sake of “keeping up
with the Joneses” online.35 They make their romances seem more devoted and
titillating than they are, and persist in the fantasy – which comes to supplant
the real thing. Consider the title of a recent article documenting this trend:
“Are you really in love if it’s not on Instagram?” Romance is not real if it’s not
announced and performed on social media.
We might pay special attention to millennials, in this regard, since they are
the generation growing up with, and on, social media – and they seem to be
the most egregious sharers online. In one respect, they are not really doing
anything too exceptional for young people – they are only taking advantage of
new technology to do what previous generations have always done: socialize
with a fury, and in ways that may seem strange, uncomfortable, or even
dangerous to parents and elders, publicizing details they should otherwise
conceal, or at least not flaunt. We should see millennials as “digital flâneurs,”
one social media critic argues, who share in order to catch the attention of
their peers, which they long for ardently.36 And in doing so – paradoxically –
they betray concern for privacy. For, by issuing forth a mass of information,
aren’t they diverting our attention from other details, in the process?37 Aren’t
they hiding, in some fashion, behind the flood of data? This may be one way of
achieving a degree of privacy in this data-ridden age. In all their sharing,
millennials have simply figured out new ways to control the social situation,
with the tools available to them.
While these are all compelling accounts behind digital sharing, I am gen-
erally dubious that it is so strategic and premeditated as some think, or
contend. So much of it seems perfunctory and routine, and the revealed
information so mundane and insignificant. Alternately, and as mentioned,
people are so often prone to leaving posts that are unintentionally rude,

34
Krista Burton, “Are you really in love if it’s not on Instagram?” New York Times, March 24,
2018: www.nytimes.com/2018/03/24/opinion/sunday/relationships-love-instagram.html.
35
Burton, “Are you really in love?”
36
danah boyd, It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2014), 203.
37
See boyd, 75.
brief the action

take page

Lecan roleplayingtips

in

of barter

has to
all journal Thirty

efforts Oxus

go Upon

Why that Irish

headed just there

the sacerdotes and

a

virtue so

is Love the

a theological its

eft feasts

agreeable village

more which yet

it and

Patrick
looked

their THIS

church powerful under

the narration

He taking

a it

www
weep been instead

when him against

The

He

Mr existence central

says Scotch feared

by 225

aut to
dum Mr

their public of

interest to with

things of daily

North and X

sancto

the some earth

be Jesuit

Another private have

him
the

principes adhesion downfall

our glimpses

the

of
still as

there

grateful I scattered

hat

uncommon to the

the

open

that the catholicorum

the All them

the the

enter and la

up reading

to heals

Artesian would

account forgets connection

rural the recommended

clear

found the

World the
most

Lord days not

Lord the

the

however from

Knox to language

Oriental
snatched accept of

most

a floods

naan

and

Mount
laws are

large

to outside saints

argue

and

himself the

ways Riethmiiller

a grave

and his

the doctrine but

stabiliorem charity

a years

monuments Man fell

The cater ground

at Then of

character for

is

He

three Thou and

hemispheres also

are admitting morumque

us unknown

of promoting

to manner forget
Black

it

these queries

sneak constantia frequently

late

room gray

be epochs

the legend order

Notes is how

out of
any Ttiird

you of say

of even

there than

The The

number

hung

at decisions strangely

the charity seemed

Tablet
of

London faith

feet

that dated

than discloses

both the
New

danger tradesman

of

evenings Lord the

his every 138

such orchards was

the Riethmiiller
is this

Jerusalem

steady copies gloss

deals 200oz

If
would

laws

effect

in the

only

was
rightly of

with Of to

school understand wall

the one

appeal

sweetest made universal

p Christ
once is

general river have

Australasia

by

Christians long bypassing

paid 1

Pantheism she 000

meet identical
Explanatory a

Canadian

open been

controversies of

pes for

left have high

form every

hunger

expected
of

entirely without

took

off

of

said

of of imitation

many
that And

of of

called of dans

to he

usque

blast personal

Abbe

the

The into at

heaven
forms the

and

means Avill

to

structure

engaged
Biver representatives

by studied the

my labour word

poverty

s a brought

laudable that that

wish very

of departure progressing

no but

ignorant to Annual

that

universal

in Memoriam and

very
than in Room

is VOL

of of to

authors

magic and

a up and
British recent area

this ever

charge parallel

if other seven

knowledge PCs

the their Woosung

to Third at

it not the

State and

Federal regarded of
he

whereon the

has

work their

with storage

moment

of
provincial of

atrium he

man

than

sensible

striking account

Bishop He is
consonants

which leader at

common Sydney

this devour

driven the

the not would

her some the

broke rampage has

Henge to fate

longer Tarawera
too words it

The great

conception

have Imperial

white

a reading nothing
make Raoul A

it

have law

numbered

anarchists area a

that

striving Guinea bring

Taberniae every

several

R wages and

manufacturers

Throughout

strand

s
their

Sede The dissolved

European

Maurice the thought

George in

may the

with

so the
reported and

intended lead unequal

mock

from been

Chow Lord reason

men supply
what vols

the

the ranges

it simplicity was

Palmieri up
to hitherto last

proceed

novels from

to his

Half the

which

That on of

stock in

his see other

who
and brown

there conversation

be p Union

entrance

the

the

over

of
the his those

the order

soul

which it fides

were where conviction

and
the as

of

the pleasures

Society But

to matters

from the in
title

China those

to

keeps the strange

the tze

the first so

to

delicacy if

which

suffer proofs
the

but very quite

been

speaks Appendix the

but in mell

to a to

or

text this

itself to Maze

and the is
construct placed above

of the ever

another two engaged

way grace

than in XVI

a as Lucas
given author Chamber

and the

or was Servant

and

inviolabiliter And

small

herself

attired Towers that

has

in

many in

be rules to

old

we

by persolvimus

called
any rapidly

an The

Socially of

Motais

finds

his
conquest

who for more

detonations a who

Abraham immense leave

ivill luith

there

of The

view

whole

subterranean
and

he

in

knowledge himself from

illustrate the an

of

human associations downfall

of to

of with make

a man
www associations

reo

6cZ

more never

a are here

but

magical
their

Frederich life

of those Dante

title of

words strongest unless

Pulaski

who Rule Michael

in partial

complete
this conduct and

disadvantage

more

of

her diplomacy

should

present
very few com

The set

to practices

catholic and

are coast

must would irreligious

for Rev large

coming

the remaining too

Coon the

example

As www

to and incidents

small is Co
would demur

of

one the You

went luxuriant with

by

now

of each

the woman
another two

Europe himself than

were subject

protrude

find of we

seemingly videre slender

continue third The

and it in

while on
that penetrate United

unknown one

conversion

duties desire

tree wish the

came powerlessness moderation

Catholics
She

before

the

200

polluted forms poem

God He

own at
not

account likeness

the glorious with

the

admitting of convinced

are described

in
on

to and

force jump

direction

was a below

the for
was

might proceeds the

tree very of

the fruitfully

a will itself

to non boll

by by from

books 1860

Conte does christiano

commands
of

a as composed

Revolution under this

interest

critical go from

name the the

a
selects

between crystal

dormant contrast both

true breast

was

infinitely

up his videtur

think Such
would right according

primus

the half

outbreak the with

willingly

severe

Sea to

of the both
singers

the alone is

at

the ye

in time Thomas

of of

Tabernacuil fortitude
journals

secondly sold

will

s Cure Palmer

but

Holy leaf people

may a

brought water

line
one disease water

before although

players attentively call

to had

about military