The Age of Surveillance: The Aims and Methods of America's Political Intelligence System

New York: Knopf, 1980. First Edition. Hardcover. fair/fair. 25 cm, 554 pages appendices, notes, former owner's embossed seal cut from title page/verso, marginal line in ink noted on one page only. From Wikipedia: "Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people for the purpose of influencing, managing, directing, or protecting them. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, or interception of electronically transmitted information (such as Internet traffic or phone calls); and it can include simple, relatively no- or low-technology methods such as human intelligence agents and postal interception. Surveillance is used by governments for intelligence gathering, the prevention of crime, the protection of a process, person, group or object, or for the investigation of crime. It is also used by criminal organizations to plan and commit crimes such as robbery and kidnapping, and by businesses to gather intelligence. Surveillance is often a violation of privacy, and is opposed by various civil liberties groups and activists. Many nations have laws which restrict domestic government and private use of surveillance, usually limiting it to circumstances where public safety is at risk. Frank J. Donner was a civil liberties lawyer who was an expert on the use of government surveillance and informers to discourage political dissent. Mr. Donner was director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Project on Political Surveillance since 1980. He also worked with the Center for Constitutional Rights, argued cases before the Supreme Court and wrote books on the House Committee on Un-American Activities and Federal and local surveillance and suppression. Attack on Surveillance Abuses. In 1980, a book by Mr. Donner called "The Age of Surveillance" was published by Knopf. It called for curbs on surveillance abuses by the Federal Government and cited Government attempts to silence political activities and organizations outside the mainstream of American attitudes.