This sort of thing just goes too far. Why not require us all to wear badges, or have transparent walls and floors?

http://www.dallasnews.com/national/291863_1ascotus_20nat.html

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This year in Tampa, police secretly videotaped the face of every individual attending the Super Bowl and identified each person through computer-assisted driver's license programs. Authorities in 15 American cities employ extensive networks of video cameras on telephone poles to track the movement of vehicles and pedestrians.

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Inside, Danny Lee Kyllo and his neighbors were asleep, unaware that the government was electronically scanning their homes by measuring heat emissions. Outside, the officers could tell if the residents were sleeping, hugging, having sex or using the bathroom.

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In the Kyllo case, law-enforcement officers used a device that looks like a video camera to scan for heat radiating from the exterior of his home. It converts the infrared signals emitted by people, ovens, hot water or lamps into a visible image on a screen. The technology was developed to assist soldiers in the Persian Gulf War.

Mr. Kyllo said government agents violated his constitutional rights when they used the thermal imaging device to "look" inside his home to see what he was doing.

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The use of such technology should be restricted to hostage situations, or other police standoffs.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2001

Answers

I think it's a direct invasion of privacy, but I'm afraid the Supreme Court won't see it that way.

I will say, though, that in this case, it would be easy (if a tad expensive) to defeat. Infra-red detectors can easily be spoofed by false sources of heat. Simply put heat strips in the walls, or extra insulation. :)

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2001

Technology like this will be used wherever it is a cost-effective way to achieve a proximate, concrete goal -- whether the goal be catching criminals or facilitating blackmail. If it works, we'll do it.

And Stephen is partly right, you must fight technology with technology. Prohibiting it by law merely changes the form or the legality or the definitions, but not the behavior itself. It's too useful for that. But the other part is, we need to accept that our notions of privacy will shrink. Get used to it.

What's terrifying is, the only reason most of us are not monitored this way is, there is no apparent reason to do so. We are protected by our anonymity only. So don't step out of line. Don't become conspicuous.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2001

Flint,

ALL governments want some agency that can take care of thing without having to worry about legal "inconveniences." In the past, it was the IRS; that's how they finally "got" Al Capone and Rev. Moon, remember, when nothing else seemed to work.

I can make the case that the IRS was *only* "defanged" (to the extent that it was, at least) when the government was satisfied that it had other ways to handle the "inconvenient," be it the draconian RICO statues or a few dozen happy trigger fingers in BATF suits.

The IRS As Bogeyman is now redundant; why not score a few political points by reining them in (while letting the rope out on other agencies)?

This might sound like mindless rambling, but I'll even link this to my thread on Political Correctness, because it all falls under the same general (if extreme-sounding) heading of "Government Tyranny."

Simply put, there are some people who think that lawbreakers are getting away with murder because of "technicalities" and they desire that these "technicalities" be removed from the system ... never realizing that they surrender a small piece of freedom each time this happens.

I am BAFFLED at the behavior of this Supreme Court on Bill of Rights issues. The only thing they've been (reasonably) consistent on is Free Speech. On things like search and siezure and confiscation of personal property, they've been almost frightening at times.

That's why I said that I expect the Supreme Court to rule that infrared monitoring is legal, even though I find it a serious breach of privacy. What I do in my home is no one's business but my own.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2001

Pretty much the way I feel about it, Stephen.

This SC is probably the most political SC I can remember. Frankly, I'm damned if I don't think they believe the Bill of Rights belongs to the states or something. They are scary.

And Clarence Thomas's remarks about being a warrior in a 'culture war' were not exactly soothing to me. Since we only have one culture, with just what part of it is he at war? And how does that affect his SC decisions?

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2001

Stephen:

While I agree that what I do in my own home *ought* to be nobody else's business, I was trying to point out that the only thing that has ever prevented it from being anyone else's business is cost, in one way or another. Breaking in on people is expensive, in money, in PR, in time and effort, in manpower, in various forms of public resistance. I believe our privacy was protected by cost more than by law or philosophy.

To the degree that it becauses cheap to violate, privacy will melt away. This IR scanners are only one example. Computers monitor nearly all that you do, all your online activity, all your purchases, all your income. The only thing that has prevented every penny you ever see from being followed from cradle to grave is the cost of tying all these systems together, creating the interfaces, building the bandwidth. But those barriers are being invented away by an army of busy engineers, paid by a worldful of interested customers.

And we need a certain sense of legal practicality. Laws against anything cheap and easy enough for anyone to do it are simply not enforceable, like speed limits. Everyone speeds, and getting caught is simply an exercise in probability. Cheap IR scanners are even less enforceable, harder to keep out of people's hands than drugs or guns. Beyond some cost/benefit ratio, you are arguing with the weather.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2001

Flint said:

What's terrifying is, the only reason most of us are not monitored this way is, there is no apparent reason to do so.

Yeah, that is where I stand. What about helo's flying over your property and using the same equipment. My house is 1/2 mile from the nearest public road. Is that the same as trespassing? We will see.

The great savior is that no agency can handle the amount of information that they can collect. They must focus on people that they have some reason to suspect.

Best Wishes,,,

Z

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2001

Z:

Suspected of what? Unfortunately, my observation has been that breaking the law isn't necessarily what you need to be suspected of, to be found doing something clearly wrong. I think Stephen was trying to say this too, that they had to use the IRS to get Moon and Capone. I've seen people followed around because the authorities didn't *like* what those people were saying. Look at those who were blacklisted in Hollywood, but who broke no laws. I've seen marijuana seeds planted on anti-war protesters who were squeaky clean because they *knew* the Man didn't like them. Didn't help a bit.

Ignorance of the law is not an excuse, but nobody can know *all* the laws, and even the lawyers and courts can't agree on what they all mean. There are simply so many laws that ordinary people cannot avoid breaking them in all ignorant regularity. We are protected by the sheer expense of monitoring everyone, and knowing every law. But technology will solve this, making monitoring cheap and automatic, and the software can find every law instantly.

The answer isn't just not being suspected of anything illegal. The answer lies in being inconspicuous. Not making waves, of any kind. Not exercising rights that irritate people, however legal you are or peevish they are. Irritate the wrong people, and you can become worth monitoring. And at THAT point, you are lost. No matter what you do.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2001

Flint,

We are protected by the sheer expense of monitoring everyone, and knowing every law. But technology will solve this, making monitoring cheap and automatic, and the software can find every law instantly.

Well, you'd still have the backlog in the courts to deal with. In that case, I suspect you'd get selective use and enforcement -- which raises the spectre of WHO gets selected. More court challenges. :)

For some reason, I'm reminded of a system called OSCAR (IIRC); ever here of it? It was proposed many years ago (late 70's?) to deal with speeders. This was an automated radar and camera thingie that would take a shot of you with the speed superimposed, showing both your license plate number and you at the wheel. The state would check the film, identify the guilty and send out citations; neat and simple.

The idea was dropped for several reasons. THe most obvious, of course, is that once everyone knew where the little OSCARs were mounted, they'd cease to be useful. For another, at the time, reasonably-priced camera technology would have required a flash at night; you can imagine the chaos that would have caused.

(Imagine tooling down the freeway at night and having a brilliant *FLASH* suddenly blind you.)

Finally, the little post-mounted OSCARs were too vulnerable. Once the truckers figured out what they looked like, it'd be open season on Mr. OSCAR; they'd be ironed out flat by 18 wheelers. (Power to the people and all that.[g])

But I'll bet something like this eventually comes up again. And in that case, the Law-and-Order types will holler, "well, if y' aren't speeding, y' ain't got nothing to worry about" while the civil libertarians will call it "entrapment."

We live in interesting times. :)

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2001

Flint,

One more thought. I can't share your dark view of the future. As long as we have the vote, there will always be at least SOME check on what the government does. Politicritters know better than to annoy large percentages of the populace.

That's why I believe that you're more likely to see selective enforcement -- which means that we just get more of the dismal same. Those voting blocks with less clout, the poor, etc., will be the most likely targeted, because they'll be LEAST likely to prevent it from happening.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2001

I'm not convinced that ANY of this NEW technology makes a difference. I was an SDS member some 30 years ago. This technology wasn't available then. When my ex-husband needed a security clearance, MY file showed up. No one knew my name at the meetings I attended. Hell, we weren't the Weatherman faction of the SDS.

The only difference in 30 years is that some FBI agents actually wore out those shoes they wore, chasing us all around. Now they just take silent pictures and sit at a desk. [I still think I'm a PRIME candidate for an FBI agent. I can sit at a desk and monitor internet sites. Trust me!!!]

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2001

Anita:

I think this is the point I was driving at. 30 years ago, some person had to be sent to take notes and do slogging legwork to identify potential subversives. This is expensive in people, money, and time. So you only do this when the effort seems cost-effective. In other words, you spend scarce resources where you hope they'll do the most good.

Now, imagine expending the same resources and doing equally comprehensive monitoring of thousands of times as many people per dollar. In this case, you can afford to define almost *anybody* as being "worth monitoring". Like, if Cadillacs are 10 cents apiece, then the gating factor is no longer the purchase price of the car.

Also, with computerized legal and other databases, the gating factor isn't correlating the observations or applying the law. The new gating factor is the capacity of the court system. But I believe this is a *qualitative* difference. In the expensive old days, they decided whom to *monitor*. Today and increasingly in the future, they decide whom to *prosecute*, because essentially everybody is monitored and essentially everyone breaks laws whether they know it or not.

To me, this is a phase change. The prosecution criteria have undergone a fundamental change from "broke a law", to the whim and preferences of the prosecutor. If (for example) *everyone* is caught speeding, you'll never get away with ticketing everyone every day. You must choose which speeders to go after. On what basis? Well, nobody will ever say anything aloud, but this guy is black, and that guy wrote a letter to the editor I didn't agree with, and this other guy's son teased my neighbor's daughter...

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2001