| Abstract: | Deciding on who should know about Americans' private telephone conversations and other forms of telecommunicating has always been an issue fraught with, on the one hand, fear of intrusive government or corporate agents and, on the other, a desire for government and corporations to control crime and vend services respectively. This article looks at how legal and legislative compromises have been reached in order to address differing goals, and what forms future privacy issues may take. The discussion focuses first on the political origins of the USA's current laws governing privacy and the telephone, then on novel privacy issues arising out of new telecommunications technologies. |
