The Cyberlaw Podcast: Privacy and the Press: Interviewing Amy Gajda

Stewart Baker
Monday, June 20, 2022, 8:01 AM

The latest epsiode of the Cyberlaw Podcast. 

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

This bonus episode of the Cyberlaw Podcast is an interview with Amy Gajda, author of “Seek and Hide: The Tangled History of the Right to Privacy.” Her book is an accessible history of the often obscure and sometimes “curlicued” interaction between the individual right to privacy and the public’s (or at least the press’s) right to know. Gajda, a former journalist, turns what could have been a dry exegesis on two centuries of legal precedent into a lively series of stories behind the case law. All the familiar legal titans of press and privacy—Louis Brandeis, Samuel Warren, Oliver Wendell Holmes—are there, but Gajda’s research shows that they weren’t always on the side they’re most famous for defending. 

This interview is just a taste of what Gajda’s book offers, but lawyers who are used to a summary of argument at the start of everything they read should listen to this episode first if they want to know up front where all the book’s stories are taking them.

Download Bonus Episode 412 (mp3). 

You can subscribe to The Cyberlaw Podcast using iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Pocket Casts, or our RSS feed. As always, The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Be sure to engage with @stewartbaker on Twitter. Send your questions, comments, and suggestions for topics or interviewees to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com. Remember: If your suggested guest appears on the show, we will send you a highly coveted Cyberlaw Podcast mug!

The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of their institutions, clients, friends, families, or pets.


Stewart A. Baker is a partner in the Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP. He returned to the firm following 3½ years at the Department of Homeland Security as its first Assistant Secretary for Policy. He earlier served as general counsel of the National Security Agency.

Subscribe to Lawfare