Macek’s op-ed receives wide syndication

Steve Macek, North Central College associate professor of speech communication and coordinator of urban and suburban studies, authored an opinion piece, titled “Let’s not sacrifice our privacy on the altar of cyber security,” that has been picked up by various news outlets, from The Naperville Sun and Columbus Dispatch, to outlets in San Diego, Brooklyn, Texas, Kentucky and more. The piece was syndicated by the American Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that works to encourage more citizen debate on important societal issues.

First published in May, his op-ed focuses on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. The act aims to make it easier for the government and online businesses to exchange information about computer and network security risks so they can better respond to hackers, viruses and digital espionage but, in so doing, potentially infringes Internet users’ privacy rights. Click here to read the piece.

If and when the U.S. Senate begins working on its own cyber-security bill, Macek plans to write a follow-up piece.

Macek has been a member of North Central’s faculty since 2002. He received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.