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Considering the ongoing effort to get to the bottom of the Bush Administration's illegal spying on Americans, this book (from 2006) provides an excellent, well-researched introduction to the increasing surveillance that the government -- primarily through private corporations -- is conducting on American citizens, which means us.

And since the information is coming through "outsourced" profiteering companies, it means that that data collected on our private lives is in the hands of both private companies AND the government. Are you starting to feel like your privacy has been invaded?

You should.

And some of these same corporations, such as ChoicePoint, have been used by the Republicans to help suppress voting, as ChoicePoint did in Florida in 2000 through its infamous "Felons Voter Purge."

In short, modern advances in surveillance have allowed the people with the data to control the nation. That is why the Bush Administration is so fiercely trying to -- even in mid-2007 -- increase its "Big Brother" powers.

Booklist:

"In this era obsessed with terrorism, an explosion in surveillance and related activities has resulted in the creation of a security industrial complex. O'Harrow outlines changes in data collection as a result of evolving technology originally designed for marketing that has now been adopted by our government for homeland security and the war on terrorism. O'Harrow critiques the merger between public and private interest in high-tech intelligence systems in ways that trample our traditional values of privacy and civil liberties. He implicates all of us--not just the usual suspects--in the erosion of privacy when we use cell phones and cars that allow our locations to be tracked or when we use credit cards and produce profiles that can be linked and made widely available. The result is vulnerability to identity theft or invasion of privacy on a level of which most citizens are unaware. O'Harrow argues for greater balance between--and awareness of--our national security needs and the greatest risks to our privacy as citizens."