Nobody's Business: Paradoxes of Privacy

In assessing why many today take public action to defend their privacy, Brill ( Dimensions of Tolerance ) faults the Reagan-era trends curtailing civil liberties. Issues most bitterly contested are women's rights to abortion, gay lifestyles and the elderly's option to terminate their lives--but, as the author points out, technology is increasingly a factor, influencing, for better or worse, the health, business and cultural lives of all social and economic groups. Also instrumental is the media, notably in the case of AIDS. Above all, Brill argues in her skillful treatment, positions on these controversial matters should not be the criteria for electing public officials and appointing justices. (Nov.)