Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Lyon (sociology, Queens Univ., Canada) assesses the role of computers in abetting governmental and commercial surveillance, primarily of consumer and social interests. However, he has conducted no original research. His derivative study is based on a limited reading of the secondary literature and, surprisingly, does not cite the extensive scholarly literature on governmental political surveillance (whether US, Canadian, or European). The resulting monograph unevenly covers the problem of a "surveillance society," and its analysis is muddled because it conflates surveillance with information gathering and records retrieval. For the most part Lyon summarizes the findings of other sociologists and journalists who have evaluated how computers potentially affect privacy rights, then offers his own reflections, but does not advance our understanding of an ongoing surveillance problem that predates the relatively more limited technological changes of the earlier 20th century (wiretaps, bugs, manual records systems). His efforts will not command the interest of specialists in political surveillance policy or policing, or more generally in national politics and international relations. General; lower-division undergraduate; professional/practitioners. A. Theoharis; Marquette University