Addressing the Harm of Total Surveillance: A Reply to Professor Neil Richards

Authors

Danielle K. Citron, Boston University School of LawFollow
David Gray, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of LawFollow

Author granted license

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2013

ISSN

0017-811X

Publisher

Harvard Law Review Association

Language

en-US

Abstract

In his insightful article, "The Dangers of Surveillance," 126 Harvard Law Review 1934 (2013), Neil Richards offers a framework for evaluating the implications of government surveillance programs that is centered on protecting "intellectual privacy." Although we share his interest in recognizing and protecting privacy as a condition of personal and intellectual development, we worry in this essay that, as an organizing principle for policy, "intellectual privacy" is too narrow and politically fraught. Drawing on other work; we, therefore, recommend that judges, legislators, and executives focus, instead, on limiting the potential of surveillance technologies to effect programs of broad and indiscriminate surveillance.

Recommended Citation

Danielle K. Citron & David Gray, Addressing the Harm of Total Surveillance: A Reply to Professor Neil Richards , in 126 Harvard Law Review Forum 262 (2013).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/626