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The New Privacy, Paul M. Schwartz, William Michael Treanor

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article reviews Overseers of the Poor: Surveillance, Resistance and the Limits of Privacy John Gilliom (2001).

In 1964, as the welfare state emerged in full force in the United States, Charles Reich published The New Property, one of the most influential articles ever to appear in a law review. Reich argued that in order to protect individual autonomy in an "age of governmental largess," a new property right in governmental benefits had to be recognized. He called this form of property the "new property." In retrospect, Reich, rather than anticipating trends, was swimming against the tide of history. …