“Angwin elegantly chronicles this tragedy of the digital commons at the level of policy and our individual civil liberties. . . .Dragnet Nation really kicks in—and becomes a blast to read—when she fights back. As she transforms herself into the invisible woman online, the book becomes by turns spy novel, a how-to guide, and a rumination on the politics of software. . . . If enough people follow Angwin’s lead, new networks of computer users might manage to open up ever larger holes in the dragnet world.”
-Clive Thompson, Bookforum (read full review here)
“A deeply researched book that is completely of the moment. Dragnet Nation moves right to the top of the list of books we should all read about privacy.”
-Andrew Leonard, Salon.com (read full review here)
“Angwin builds a compelling case that, even for the broader public, the post-9/11 acceptance of foregoing privacy for safety was a bad and unnecessary trade—that ‘some research suggests that collecting vast amounts of data simply can’t predict rare events like terrorism,’ but it will turn common connections into red flags.”
–Kira Goldenberg, Columbia Journalism Review (read full review here)
“Angwin’s struggle with the panoply of counter-surveillance tools—even when armed with time, some money to spare, and the help of leading data privacy experts—shows that laypeople don’t stand a fighting chance. As Angwin notes, what we will need are new laws regulating how companies can collect and use information on us.”
–Lina Khan, American Prospect (read full review here)
“A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist describes today’s world of indiscriminate surveillance and tries to evade it. Angwin (Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America, 2009), who spent years covering privacy issues for the Wall Street Journal, draws on conversations with researchers, hackers and IT experts, surveying the modern dragnet tracking made possible by massive computing power, smaller devices and cheap storage of data…. A solid work for both privacy freaks and anyone seeking tips on such matters as how to strengthen passwords (make them longer and avoid simple dictionary words).”
-Kirkus Reviews (read full review here)
“Angwin . . . releases the contemporary (and, unfortunately, nonfiction) companion book to Orwell’s 1984. Dragnet Nation examines the surveillance economy and its effect on free speech and thought, likely causing readers to rethink the next words they type into a search engine.”
-Daniel Davis-Williams, Los Angeles Magazine (read full review here)
“There is a sense of despair when it comes to privacy in the digital age. Many of us assume that so much of our electronic information is now compromised – whether by corporations or government agencies – that there is little that can be done about it. Sometimes we try to rationalise this by telling ourselves privacy may no longer matter so much. After all, an upstanding citizen should have nothing to fear from surveillance. In Dragnet Nation, Julia Angwin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at The Wall Street Journal, seeks to challenge that defeatism.”
-Maija Palmer, Financial Times (read full review here)
“Angwin points to case studies and research that show relentless surveillance is creating a culture of fear that has already begun to chill basic freedoms. . . . Angwin’s warning that ‘information is power’ resonates.”
-Jake Whitney, The Daily Beast (read full review here)
“[Dragnet Nation] is a good primer on the technologies and practices undergirding our culture of surveillance.”
-Jacob Silverman, Los Angeles Times (read full review here)
“Julia Angwin, who oversaw a pioneering series of Wall Street Journalarticles called “What They Know”, starting in 2010, exposes many of the questionable activities that erode privacy—activities that most people know nothing about.”
–The Economist (read full review here)
