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Vol. 72, No. 8, August 1999 |
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Book Reviews
This Month's Featured Selections
 I
Love the Internet But I Want My Privacy, Too:
Simple Steps Anyone Can Take to Enjoy
the Net Without Worry
By Chris Peterson
(Rocklin, CA: Prima Publishing, 1998).
226 pgs. Retail $13.56.
Reviewed by JoAnn M. Hornak
Seven months ago, I purchased my first computer and started
regularly surfing the net. As a prosecutor, I frequently see
the hazards of criminals obtaining personal and financial information
about law-abiding citizens and cases of identity theft. I was
interested in learning how I could protect myself on the Internet.
I Love the Internet provides an excellent overview of
the potential dangers you and your family face when visiting
Web sites, sending email, and entering chat rooms. Complex technology
is explained with easy-to-understand analogies to the physical
world. The book also provides an extensive list of groups and
resources monitoring Internet privacy issues.
The special section on protecting children gives practical,
common-sense steps every parent should take to safeguard their
children not only from pornographers and pedophiles but from
a much more insidious and wide-spread danger - advertising.
Companies take full advantage of the unregulated Internet by
using seemingly innocent devices such as interactive games that
are cleverly disguised to provide a technique for marketing products
and gathering information about your children.
I Love the Internet makes it clear that you expose
personal information every time you log on to the Internet, at
home and at work. Fortunately, there are concrete steps we can
take to protect our privacy such as purchasing blocking software
and using anonymizers and encryption, but many risks still exist.
The claim made in the title that the Internet can be used
"without worry" is a bit of a misnomer. The government,
direct marketers, and private database services will continue
to collect and sell personal information about us and we will
continue to be bombarded with electronic junk mail despite taking
precautions. The author correctly points out that industry self-regulation
and possibly federal regulation is needed to truly safeguard
our privacy on the Internet.
JoAnn M. Hornak, U.W. 1987, is a Milwaukee
County assistant district attorney.
Third Party and Self-Created Trusts:
Planning for the Elderly and the Disabled Client
(Second Edition)
By Clifton B. Kruse Jr.
(Chicago, IL: ABA Real Property,
Probate & Trust Law Section, 1998).
271 pgs. $89.95.
To order, call (800) 285-2221.
Reviewed by Thomas G. Reynolds
This book is an excellent resource for attorneys who serve
disabled and elderly people in their practices. While of obvious
interest to estate planners and elder law attorneys, it will
prove equally beneficial as an introduction to this area for
general practitioners.
The author begins with a discussion of self-settled trusts.
These are trusts in which the trust creator retains a beneficial
interest. Kruse reviews the limited circum-stances under which
such trusts may be created without disqualifying the creator
from receiving Medicaid assistance. In addition, he reviews the
various self-settled trusts used in the past that are no longer
viable Medicaid planning techniques.
He then discusses trusts created by third parties. This section
is of particular interest to general practitioners who occasionally
have clients who would like to provide for an elderly or disabled
friend or relative without jeopardizing their access to Medicaid
benefits. Kruse includes sample trust illustrations for creating
these supplemental needs trusts. The forms alone make the book
worth owning.
Third Party and Self-Created Trusts is very well documented
throughout. It provides ample illustrations, charts, sample language,
and voluminous notes. My sole improvement would have been to
place the sample trust language on disk for ease of use.
Of special interest to Wisconsin practitioners is Kruse's
discussion of Wisconsin Statutes section
701.06(5m). This section provides statutory support for creating
supplemental needs trusts for the disabled that do not disqualify
them from receiving public support.
I highly recommend Third Party and Self-Created Trusts
to any attorney who works in or anticipates working in this area.
Given the demographic information in the book's introduction,
this material will become even more important as the population
of the United States ages.
Thomas G. Reynolds, Michigan 1988, is
vice president and trust manager of AMCORE Bank N.A., South Central,
in Madison.
 The
Legal 100: A Ranking of the Individuals
Who Have Most Influenced the Law
By Darien A. McWhirter
(Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1998).
396 pgs. Retail $27.50.
Reviewed by Kim Fenske
Lawyers contribute to the development and protection of individual
freedom, safety, and opportunity in our society. The Legal
100 provides scholarly highlights of lawyers who deserve
historical recognition for sacrificing personal comfort to attack
poverty, prejudice, and injustice in modern Western democracies.
McWhirter provides brief legal biographies arising from ancient
times, beginning with Babylonian ruler Hammurabi and including
Aristotle, Cicero, and Justinian. The author summarizes the contributions
of England and France through the works of King Henry II, Francis
Bacon, and John Locke. From the American Revolution, McWhirter
discusses the ideas of lawyers Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson,
and Alexander Hamilton.
McWhirter touches contemporary protection of privacy rights by
considering the decision of Justice William O. Douglas in Griswold
v. Connecticut, concerning the distribution of birth control
information. He also addresses the contributions of Earl Warren,
promoting racial equality in Brown v. Board of Education,
applying the exclusionary rule to states in Mapp v. Ohio,
and preventing forced confessions in Miranda v. Arizona.
Including the Thurgood Marshall dissent in San Antonio School
District v. Rodriguez and the swing-vote of Sandra Day O'Connor
in Mississippi Women's University v. Hogan, McWhirter
addresses the subtlety and power of lawyers influencing social
change.
In the vein of The Black 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential
African-Americans Past and Present, by Columbus Salley, the
latest Citadel roster earns its place on a scholarly library
shelf. However, McWhirter's work suffers the weakness of
its companion book by providing only a skeletal reconstruction
of each reformer, three pages in length, rather than a more intensive
tool to understanding great social movements.
Kim Fenske, U.W. 1990, is a social reformer
who litigated for several years, campaigned for the state assembly,
and now teaches government and social problems in Wisconsin.
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