The Electronic Privacy Papers, co-edited with david-banisar and published by Wiley in 1997, is a documentary collection rather than a sustained argument — a compilation of primary source documents on the privacy and surveillance debates of the 1990s. It is a product of the height of the Crypto Wars, appearing three years after applied-cryptography and in the midst of the Clipper Chip and key escrow policy battles.
The Documentary Context
The book assembles documents from the ongoing political and legal battles over electronic surveillance and privacy: government policy statements, court rulings, technical reports, legislative proposals, and advocacy materials from organizations including the electronic-frontier-foundation. In 1997, much of this material was not centrally accessible; the internet was young, and the documents that shaped the Crypto Wars debate were scattered across government archives, legal filings, and advocacy organization publications.
The Electronic Privacy Papers served as a reference volume for the participants in these debates — privacy advocates, cryptographers, civil liberties lawyers, and congressional staff who needed access to the primary sources of the policy fight. It represents Schneier's engagement with the political dimension of the Crypto Wars at a moment when he was already the author of applied-cryptography and a recognized technical authority.
The Banisar Collaboration
david-banisar brought the policy and legal expertise that Schneier's technical background did not cover. Banisar was a privacy researcher associated with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which was among the leading organizations documenting government surveillance capabilities and advocating for digital privacy rights. The collaboration reflects the cross-disciplinary character of the Crypto Wars coalition, which united cryptographers, civil libertarians, and policy researchers.
Position in the Arc
The Electronic Privacy Papers is a transitional work in Schneier's biography — neither purely technical (like applied-cryptography and the algorithm papers) nor the broad security analysis that began with secrets-and-lies. It demonstrates that Schneier was engaged with the political and policy dimensions of cryptography and surveillance before his explicit pivot to security-as-societal-concern. The concerns about government surveillance and privacy rights that define data-and-goliath and click-here-to-kill-everybody have roots in this earlier documentary engagement.