Amazon.com description: Product Description: From computer networks to supermarket checkout scanners, it is easier and easier for governments, employers, advertisers, and individuals to gather detailed and sophisticated information about each of us. In this collection, the authors question the impact of these new technologies of surveillance on our privacy and our culture. Although surveillance - literally some people "watching over" others - is as old as social relationships themselves, with the advent of the computer age this phenomenon has acquired new and distinctive meanings. Technological advances have made it possible for surveillance to become increasingly global and integrated - both commercial and government-related personal data flows more frequently across national boundaries, and the flow between private and public sectors has increased as well. Addressing issues of the global integration of surveillance, social control, new information technologies, privacy violation and protection, and workplace surveillance, the contributors to this work grapple with the ramifications of these concerns for society today.