Infocrime

Book excerpt: It has often been said that information is power. This is more true in the information age than ever. The book profiles the tools used by criminal law to protect confidential information. It deals with the essence of information, the varieties of confidential information, and the basic models for its protection within the context of the Internet and social networks. Eli Lederman examines the key prohibitions against collecting protected information, and against using, disclosing, and disseminating it without authorization. The investigation cuts across a broad subject matter to discuss and analyze key topics such as trespassing and peeping, the human body as a source of information, computer trespassing, tracking and collecting personal information in the public space, surveillance, privileged communications, espionage and state secrets, trade secrets, personal information held by others, and profiling and sexting. Infocrime will appeal to graduate and undergraduate scholars and academics in the legal arena, in law schools and schools of communication, and to practicing lawyers with an interest in legal theory and a concern for the protection of the personal realm in a world of increasingly invasive technologies.