tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091955.post819793963198188888..comments2023-05-29T10:27:35.536-04:00Comments on Inn of the Last Home: Who You Looking At?Barry Wallacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08691670547045531673noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091955.post-82436500528454141972007-08-01T13:10:00.000-04:002007-08-01T13:10:00.000-04:00Barry,I have to disagree with your assertion that ...Barry,<BR/><BR/>I have to disagree with your assertion that it's hyperbolic of me to describe warrantless surveillance as a breach of the Fourth Amendment. <BR/><BR/>Warrantless surveillance (whether undertaken by video cameras or by eavesdropping on the phone network and Internet) is offensive to any definition of privacy, no matter where it occurs. The act of merely walking down a public sidewalk does not negate protection from blanket surveillance, just as the act of using the (more or less) public portions of the phone network and Internet does not surrender the privacy inherent in your personal communications.<BR/><BR/>Certainly, if a person does something criminal in the line of sight of the police, the cops have a duty and a right to intervene. That's not the same thing as blanket, warrantless surveillance. You know, "reasonable suspicion" and all that.<BR/><BR/>It really comes down to the distinction between a paranoid society and a free one. We can't have both.<BR/><BR/>For example, over the last twenty years, the UK has installed 4.2 million CCTV cameras around the country; each person in the UK is photographed an average of <A HREF="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6108496.stm" REL="nofollow">300 times per day</A>. It's hardly hyperbole to suggest that such surveillance is incompatible with privacy, and it's hardly hyperbole to suggest that data gathered in such a way would not be abused. One particularly silly (but pertinent) example is <A HREF="http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2005/01/sefton_council_employees_inves.html" REL="nofollow">here</A>.<BR/><BR/>(As an aside, I find it endlessly ironic that Orwell's former flat in London is currently within eyeshot of no less than <A HREF="http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23391081-details/George%20Orwell,%20Big%20Brother%20is%20watching%20your%20house/article.do?expand=true#StartComments" REL="nofollow">32 surveillance cameras</A>.)<BR/><BR/>The advent of face-recognition software makes the erosion of privacy even harder to defend, since the collation of faces to names (and therefore other data) is obviously a kind of warrantless "search."<BR/><BR/>The counter examples you cite all avoid the issue of blanket surveillance by law enforcement, which is the main concern I have with the technique. I'm not all that concerned by CCTV cameras in commercial establishments, but I'm certainly concerned by the blanket surveillance of an entire population by the police. I don't think the two can be readily compared, since the police would have access to all those video streams in one, easily collated location.<BR/><BR/>And, I'm hardly a libertarian. ;-)<BR/><BR/>I appreciate the critique.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com