Frequently Asked Questions

I wrote The Privacy Pirates as a pithy exposé on the privacy debates that rage in the U.S. today. The main character, fourteen-year-old Alice, and her family confront many of the privacy challenges that Americans face today. 

You’ve already taken the first step by reading about the issues here. There are many sources of information out there about American privacy besides my work. Many non-profits—like the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP)—are at the forefront of the debates. You can also follow the chatter in the daily news on authoritative sources (not social media!) about privacy issues in the U.S. and abroad. 

Follow the privacy debates and get involved. Many states now have laws that protect specific aspects of their residents’ privacy. Unfortunately, these individual state laws provide a patchwork of sometimes-conflicting privacy protections that are challenging for businesses to adhere to. Fortunately, these state laws help establish precedents that could shape federal privacy law in the future. Contact your state and federal legislators with your input on privacy laws.

Yes and no. I was a citizen and patriot long before I became a government employee. I grew up on Capitol Hill. My mom worked as a Congressional staffer and my dad worked for the executive branch. I followed in the family business and went to work for the government, serving for 30 years. My time at the National Security Agency allowed me to see the privacy debate from inside the government. Today, I remain a patriotic citizen who believes in privacy rights for all Americans.

I am a private person. The only social media that I participate in is LinkedIn. I participate in LinkedIn because it’s a way my former government colleagues can find me and because it gives me a way to cultivate new business relationships.

Privacy is essential to our democracy. If privacy were dead, our democracy could no longer exist. Our Founding Fathers designed the U.S. Bill of Rights to prevent government overreach by preserving our individual rights, including privacy rights. A country without privacy is no democracy.

Many of them reflexively say that. However, we all have private information about ourselves we don’t want to share with the world. Every time a young person tells me privacy doesn’t exist, I ask them to unlock their smart phone and let me scroll through their “private” messages.

Not yet. The Privacy Pirates—Meta, Google, X, etc.—want you to believe that privacy is dead. They also want you to think that their services are free to you; in fact, they’re commoditizing your private information to sell advertising and make money. That’s not OK with me and it shouldn’t be OK with you.