by Jeff Kosseff (Author)
In The United States of Anonymous, Jeff
Kosseff explores how the right to anonymity has shaped American values,
politics, business, security, and discourse, particularly as technology
has enabled people to separate their identities from their
communications.
Legal and political debates surrounding
online privacy often focus on the Fourth Amendment's protection against
unreasonable searches and seizures, overlooking the history and future
of an equally powerful privacy right: the First Amendment's protection
of anonymity. The United States of Anonymous features extensive and
engaging interviews with people involved in the highest profile
anonymity cases, as well as with those who have benefited from, and been
harmed by, anonymous communications. Through these interviews, Kosseff
explores how courts have protected anonymity for decades and, likewise,
how law and technology have allowed individuals to control how much, if
any, identifying information is associated with their communications.
From blocking laws that prevent Ku Klux Klan members from wearing masks
to restraining Alabama officials from forcing the NAACP to disclose its
membership lists, and to refusing companies' requests to unmask online
critics, courts have recognized that anonymity is a vital part of our
free speech protections.
The United States of Anonymous weighs
the tradeoffs between the right to hide identity and the harms of
anonymity, concluding that we must maintain a strong, if not absolute,
right to anonymous speech.
