Dragnet Nation cover

Dragnet Nation

by Julia Angwin

Online ads from websites you've visited... smartphones and cars transmitting your location... data-gathering surveillance operations across the Internet and on your phone lines. You are being watched.... Angwin offers a revelatory and unsettling look at how the government, private companies, and even criminals use technology to indiscriminately sweep up vast amounts of our personal data. She argues that the greatest long-term danger is that we start to internalize the surveillance and censor our words and thoughts, until we lose our freedom. Appalled at such a prospect, Angwin conducts a series of experiments to try to protect herself.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?