ABSTRACT
European observers of American mores have often commented upon the narrow scope of privacy, if not the total lack of a sense of privacy, on the part of the common man in the United States. American students of continental European societies are surprised by the reluctance of private individuals to “reveal” the kind of information which their counterparts in the United States would cheerfully broadcast in the interest of good public relations. The activities of government, especially of administration, are secret to a greater extent than in the United States, where the President's departmental secretaries operate, comparatively viewed, in the glare of publicity. These differences can be illustrated by way of a few German-American comparisons. The British government knows less about its citizens than the German government about its. In the course of the modernization of England, the scope of privacy was gradually expanded, as an unintended consequence of the formulation, deliberation, and resolution of a whole series of issues.
