Windows Into the Soul: Surveillance and Society in an Age of High Technology - Hardcover

"Marx's approach to his subject is exhaustive and can feel exhausting. However, one use for these materials is immediately apparent: as aids to teaching. For a class on surveillance studies, it is hard to imagine any more generously gathered--and easily excerpted--pr cis of the kinds of questions that can, do, or might arise about surveillance."--Jeffrey Clapp "Law and Literature " "There are two phrases which I think well represent both the book and the field of surveillance itself. The first is that 'surveillance is neither good nor bad, but context and comportment make it so'. The second is that 'modern democratic society is a farrago in a cauldron of conundrums accompanied by myths shielding harsher realities'. I most definitely recommend this book to academics, security practitioners and those interested in surveillance and security." --LSE Review of Books "Courteney J. O'Connor "

We live in an age saturated with surveillance. Our personal and public lives are increasingly on display for governments, merchants, employers, hackers--and the merely curious--to see. In Windows into the Soul, Gary T. Marx, a central figure in the rapidly expanding field of surveillance studies, argues that surveillance itself is neither good nor bad, but that context and comportment make it so. In this landmark book, Marx sums up a lifetime of work on issues of surveillance and social control by disentangling and parsing the empirical richness of watching and being watched. Using fictional narratives as well as the findings of social science, Marx draws on decades of studies of covert policing, computer profiling, location and work monitoring, drug testing, caller identification, and much more, Marx gives us a conceptual language to understand the new realities and his work clearly emphasizes the paradoxes, trade-offs, and confusion enveloping the field. Windows into the Soul shows how surveillance can penetrate our social and personal lives in profound, and sometimes harrowing, ways. Ultimately, Marx argues, recognizing complexity and asking the right questions is essential to bringing light and accountability to the darker, more iniquitous corners of our emerging surveillance society. For more information, please see www.garymarx.net.