Why Privacy Matters: The Essential Lessons

*This is a DiscourseBHAM special event in partnership with Birmingham’s own Thank You Books.

A timely, no-nonsense talk from a leading privacy scholar about why privacy matters, why it’s essential for a fulfilling life, and practical ways you can protect yours—without throwing away your phone or laptop or sounding like you live in a bunker somewhere off the grid.

But isn’t privacy, like, basically dead already? Isn’t it a bit self-obsessed to think to think anyone cares that you bought a water bottle on Amazon or binged Stranger Things on Netflix? It’s not like we’re all going to just stop using devices… and if you’re not doing anything wrong then you should have nothing to hide, right?

We’ll untangle these things with clear, practical insights you can use to think and act intelligently about your privacy in the modern world.

*In partnership with Thank You Books, we’re celebrating the launch of the speaker’s new book On Privacy: 20 Lessons to Live By.

Everyone will receive:

✅ A free privacy slide for their laptop

✅ Punchy no-nonsense language to explain why your privacy matters

✅ Easy, real-world steps to better protect your data—without ditching your phone or laptop

✅ A signed copy of the book (if you want to buy one there)

Dr. Lawrence Cappello is an award-winning professor of U.S. legal & constitutional history at the University of Alabama. He is the author of None of Your Damn Business: Privacy in the United States from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age and the newly released On Privacy: Twenty Lessons to Live By. His work on the right to privacy has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Economist, The Hill, and other media outlets.