Wilkes sued the king's minions for trespassing and breaking into his house, and opening his desk drawers. He won 1,000 pounds, a tremendous amount in its day. The colonists from John Adams to John Hancock cited this case as an emblem of the sanctity of private diaries. So, in the book, I set out to understand how it was possible that this ancient constitutional protection for private papers had been eroded in the late 20th century to the point where Monica Lewinsky and Sen. Bob Packwood were unable to conceal their private diaries from over-reaching subpoenas. After telling that story, I branched out and became interested not only in the ways law has eroded traditional protections for privacy, but also in the ways the changes in culture and technology have eroded it as well.
Information is power.
We're told that every day. And so it is. But information is not knowledge. Very few people know us in all of our complicated and often contradictory dimensions. My close friends know me.