A sweeping story of the right to privacy as it sped along colonial postal routes, telegraph wires, and even today's fiber-optic cables, American Privacy traces the lineage of cultural norms and legal mandates that have swirled around the Fourth Amendment since its adoption. Legally, technologically, and historically grounded, Frederick Lane's book presents a vivid and penetrating exploration that, in the words of people's historian Howard Zinn, "challenges...

"The Espionage Act was passed in 1917 to prosecute spies and critics during World War I. And yet, after a century of piecemeal revisions, the Espionage Act still forms the basis of our national security architecture today - a tool that lets the government keep an untold amount of information secret, without ever justifying the need for that secrecy. In State of Silence, political historian Sam Lebovic uncovers the troubling history of the Espionage...