Security and Privacy in the Digital Era

"The state, that must eradicate all feelings of insecurity, even potential ones, has been caught in a spiral of exception, suspicion and oppression that may lead to a complete disappearance of liberties."

—Mireille Delmas Marty, Libertés et sûreté dans un monde dangereux, 2010

This book will examine the security/freedom duo in space and time with regards to electronic communications and technologies used in social control. It will follow a diachronic path from the relative balance between philosophy and human rights, very dear to Western civilization (at the end of the 20th Century), to the current situation, where there seems to be less freedom in terms of security to the point that some scholars have wondered whether privacy should be redefined in this era. The actors involved (the Western states, digital firms, human rights organizations etc.) have seen their roles impact the legal and political science fields.