For all the passion that surrounds discussions about privacy, and the recent attention devoted to electronic privacy, surprisingly little consensus exists about what privacy means, what values are served - or compromised - by extending further legal protection to privacy, what values are affected by existing and proposed measures designed to protect privacy, and what principles should undergird a sensitive balancing of those values.

This book outlines the complexity of the issues and the stakes in the national debate over the privacy of personal information, and identifies likely ramifications.

A legal history of the First Amendment examines how it pertains to the Internet and minors and discusses the legal ramifications of limiting access in libraries.

American consumers have become accustomed to obtaining instant credit. The process requires that credit bureaus have easy access to sensitive financial information about individuals, compiled largely without their consent. This report examines the debate surrounding the role of the states in regulating these credit bureaus, especially in light of expiring amendments to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which have allowed bureaus to continue these practices, exempting them from state laws that might obstruct them. How this controversy is resolved will have an important bearing on credit markets and financial privacy in the future. The authors make the case for continued federal preemption of the states in this area. Without it, the authors argue, the consumer credit system has developed in the United States would be put in jeopardy.

This is a book about media law, not a book about the First Amendment. Media law has many sources other than the First Amendment. The law of defamation & invasion of privacy is largely state common law. A reporter's privilege to refuse to disclose confidences is controlled in many states by statutes. Open-meetings & open-records statutes determine the outcome of most controversies over press access to government information. Broadcast regulation is largely accomplished by federal statutes & Federal Communications Commission regulations. Mass Media Law, Sixth Edition explores these sources in a thought-provoking manner that will add to class discussion.