Privacy and Positive Intellectual Freedom

Rubel, Alan

doi:10.1111/josp.12069

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 6 publications

(7 reference statements)

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“…Reviewing the work of major legal scholars on privacy and intellectual freedom, Rubel finds that there are two main arguments for intellectual freedom: democratic self-governance and diversity of thought [ 21 ]. It is aligned with a particularly American conception of privacy as an individual right of liberty aimed at a particular kind of political participation (an idea that, arguably, finds its fullest expression in Richards’ scholarship on intellectual privacy [ 19 ], [ 22 ]).…”

Section: (The Challenge Of) Defining Privacy In Librariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, it remains unclear that privacy and intellectual freedom serve to extend such tolerance, in part, these authors argue, because the bundle of rights associated with privacy and intellectual freedom is unevenly distributed. As Rubel explains, “intellectual freedom is at least partly a function of the quality of persons’ agency with respect to intellectual endeavors” [ 21 ]. It must be noted that many of the norms surrounding library privacy and intellectual freedom primarily developed in an analog world.…”

Section: (The Challenge Of) Defining Privacy In Librariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rubel, explaining how lack of privacy can chill intellectual habits, notes that “based on the practices of a library and the dynamics of one’s hometown, one might suspect that community members will learn of his reading choices. […they] might self-censor, or steer his choice of materials to things he wants others to believe he reads” [ 21 ]. Given the cis heteronormativity in American culture generally, there has never been a time when engaging with queer materials was not associated with some degree of risk.…”

Section: Queering Privacymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Queer Privacy Protection: Challenges and the Fight within Libraries

Hofman

Villagran

2023

Int J Semiot Law

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The COVID-19 pandemic has forced libraries to shift their service-delivery model online, infiltrating countless interactions–from storytime to reference questions to social groups–into digital mediation, typically by third-party platforms outside the library’s control, generating mineable, persistent digital traces. One community particularly vulnerable to the impacts of surveillance is the queer community, where an outing, at least in the United States, imposes a potential loss of housing and employment and may subject the outed person to violence. Libraries–particularly public and school libraries–have once again become sites of conflict and resistance, with queer people and materials increasingly coming under attack both physically and legally. A primary shield by which libraries try to protect their patrons from such attacks is “privacy.” Librarians, as professionals, proclaim a commitment to privacy embedded in such documents as the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institution’s Statement on Privacy in the Library Environment. However, these ideals exist in broader systems–including legal and cultural structures–which constrain and complicate abstract commitments to privacy. This article examines the challenges of queer digital privacy within libraries in the United States, focusing on the polysemous, boundary-crossing nature of queerness, the digital and the material, privacy, and libraries (as both concepts and institutions). In particular, this article demonstrates how binary-bound, individual-rights-oriented legal approaches to privacy have arisen, and been mediated, by cis-heteronormative patriarchal values and how the sociotechnical materialities in which they occurred (such as paper-based recordkeeping) are fundamentally incompatible with queer privacy needs.

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Section: (The Challenge Of) Defining Privacy In Librariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: (The Challenge Of) Defining Privacy In Librariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Queering Privacymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Queer Privacy Protection: Challenges and the Fight within Libraries

Hofman

Villagran

2023

Int J Semiot Law

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“…Classically, see Mill (1989) on education as a positive liberty. More recently, see Rubel (2014) on intellectual freedom, surveillance, and privacy as a positive liberty.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Surveillance, freedom and the republic

Hoye

Monaghan

2015

European Journal of Political Theory

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Arbitrary state and corporate powers are helping to turn the Internet into a global surveillance dragnet. Responses to this novel form of power have been tepid and ineffective. Liberal critiques of surveillance are constrained by their focus on privacy, security and the underlying presupposition that freedom consists only of freedom from interference. By contrast, (post)Foucauldian critiques rejecting liberalism have been well rewarded analytically, but have proven incapable of addressing normative questions regarding the relationship between surveillance and freedom. Quite apart from these debates, neorepublicans have excavated a third concept of freedom, understood as non-domination. Could neorepublicanism overcome the limitations of liberal and (post)Foucauldian critiques of surveillance? We argue, positively, that neorepublicanism can accommodate much of the (post)Foucauldian analyses while also incorporating a normative critique of surveillance vis-à-vis freedom. We further argue, negatively, that surveillance power has outstripped the capacities of traditional republican institutional responses to domination. We conclude by considering ways in which neorepublicanism can be recalibrated to address the novelty of surveillance power while adhering to the ideal of non-domination. Two ways of addressing the problem are proposed: an offensive, dedicated surveillance antipower and a defensive republican amplification of privacy.

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