Privacy and Datagate: Cultural Trends and Fundamental Choices

The chapter is focused on the issue of the regulation of electronic mass surveillance in Western legal systems. It looks at modern forms of surveillance and their legal treatment from the perspective of legal sociology and legal theory, with the aim of emphasizing the overall shortcomings of contemporary liberal democracies. The chapter shows to what extent different legal systems, like the US and the European ones, are coming closer together to cope with the issue of protecting national security, to the detriment of the fundamental right to data protection.