Although privacy remains enshrined as a legal and ethical right, most consumers have gladly traded it for “digital convenience” and the giddy sense of self-importance that comes with Facebook exposure. In Life After Privacy, Maryland Institute College of Art philosophy professor Firmin Debrander worries about what the embrace of corporate and governmental surveillance means for democracy. He concludes that the problem might be lack of public spaces (virtual or real) where people can be confronted with difference. Life After Privacy was finished before the current upheavals in the streets; it remains unclear whether Americans will remain “marooned in digital bubbles” without a common language of shared values.
