YNOT – The more connected the world becomes, the more people both give up and crave privacy. Attorney and author Frederick Lane’s book American Privacy: The 400-Year History of Our Most Contested Right, which released Jan. 4 from Beacon Press, examines the legal, cultural and technological issues surrounding the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which grants Americans certain rights to keep under wraps their most cherished details.

Previously available in hardcover and formatted for Amazon’s Kindle, American Privacy is a historical biography of the right to privacy in America. Lane describes the inception of American privacy in the Pilgrims’ struggles for religious freedom and follows the birth of a more contemporary concept through the writings of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis and his law partner Samuel D. Warren. The book describes in detail the impact new technologies — the telegraph, the postcard, the phone, the computer and most notably, the internet — have had on the right to privacy, and challenges Congress to give Americans more tools with which to control the collection and spread of their personal information.

Lane has established a Facebook page on which he posts relevant interviews and links to items about emerging privacy issues. Among the topics Lane has covered so far are whether police should be allowed to search cell phones without a warrant, whether someone should be prosecuted for hacking a spouse’s email, and whether a proposed insurance company program offering discounts in exchange for electronic monitoring of driving habits is unconscionably invasive.

American Privacy may be purchased directly from Beacon Press, on Amazon.com or at Lane’s website, FrederickLane.com.