Description
Database technology can be used for various ends, ranging from promotion of democracy to strengthening of nationalism to shoring up authoritarian regimes through misinformation. Its use affects ever layer of society: from individuals to households to local governments, and is a consuming issue in US government's stance on privacy, security, and technology.
Patriotic Information Systems discusses how, with its non-participatory enforcement ethos, its inherent bias against freedom of information, and its massive claims on IT budget resources, the information technology security system of the future may be even less hospitable to the democratic visions which some theorists once anticipated would be among the most important contributions of information technology to society.
Reviews and Testimonials
The chapters in Patriotic Information Systems echo the sentiment of Senator Feingold in examining many of the current attacks on core democratic ideals, including the right to privacy.
– Todd Loendorf, North Carolina University, USA
Expressing concern that the USA PATRIOT Act was 'one of the greatest assaults on personal privacy ever launched upon the citizens of our nation,' the editors present 10 papers exploring issues of information, technology, and democracy in the post 9-11 era.
– Books News Inc . (2008)
Author's/Editor's Biography
Todd Loendorf (Ed.)
Todd Loendorf is a PhD student in the School of Public and International Affairs at North Carolina State University. He holds an MBA (concentration: Information Security) from James Madison University and a BA in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His primary research interests are at the intersection of technology, security, and democracy and in the development and use of spatial techniques in social science research.
G. Garson (Ed.)
G. David Garson is a full professor of public administration at North Carolina State University, where he teaches courses on American government, research methodology, computer applications, and geographic information systems. He was the recipient of the Donald Campbell Award (1995) from the policy studies organization, American Political Science Association, for outstanding contributions to policy research methodology and of the Aaron Wildavsky Book Award (1997) from the same organization. He is the author of
Guide to Writing Quantitative Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Dekker, 2001),
Neural Network Analysis for Social Scientists (1998), and
Computer Technology and Social Issues (1995). In addition he is editor of
Social Dimensions of Information Technology (2000),
Information Technology and Computer Applications in Public Administration: Issues and Trends (1999), and the
Handbook of Public Information Systems (1999). He has also authored or edited 17 other books and authored more than 50 articles. For the last 20 years he has served as editor of the
Social Science Computer Review and is on the editorial board of four additional journals.