Dave Davie sitting in for Terry Gross on FRESH AIR interviews reporter Julia Angwin, a wall street journal reporter for 13 years and author of Dragnet Nation. Angwin is also a writer for the independent news organization ProPublica and the interview focuses on her views about the security of the internet, and the oppressive methods used to monitor her data surveillance in a society where indiscriminate data gathering has become the norm.
The interview begins with an introduction on Agwin’s recent decision to purchase a prepaid phone in order to protect her privacy. She describes the steps she took in order to remain anonymous such as, going to an anonymous store far from her house in Midtown Manhattan, paying with cash, and declining to enter her personal information in exchange for a discount. However, she regrets not wearing a baseball, and ends up feeling like a criminal carrying contraband. The interview progresses to its …show more content…
Angwin reveals her love for technology and the need to mitigate the risk involved. She describes the information she received from Google which gives her a clue on how easily her mind can wander off from a project. She also talks about the data obtained by big brokers such as Lexis Nexis and Axiom, and how difficult it was to compile a list of nearly 200 brokers. The data collected included precise things such as her previous addresses, college dorm room number, and imprecise and inaccurate things such as being a single mother with no college education. The data could be gotten from yellow pages, white pages, government directories, property records, subscribed magazines/newspapers, and post office (change of address). These little bits of information are getting more precise because they are used online to make a personal