My friend Mark Shepard recommended this book about a year before I finally ran across it in a store. Based on Brin's other works, I had expected a fictional tale but Transparent Society is a non-fiction discussion of the impacts of surveillance on society. Brin's main point is that nothing will prevent increased surveillance in society so our best strategy is to have everyone under surveillance. If the police are watching us, we need to be able to watch the police as well. While I see the logic of this, I don't see it as improving society. Rather I see it as re-establishing the status quo at a different technology level. If we had widespread surveillance 150 years ago, American citizens would know that Indians were being slaughtered and the Indians would know they were dying in great numbers, but the same genocide would have occurred. Still, Brin makes some good points. Get your camera before your neighbor.