Loss of Privacy

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There are already government closed-circuit TV systems in cities like Boston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., a member of both the House Homeland Security and Intelligence committees, said the nation needs even more video cameras in public places.

“They’re a great law enforcement method and device,” the congressman told NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell the day after the bombing. “It keeps us ahead of the terrorists who are constantly trying to kill us.”

Except these great law enforcement methods and devices didn’t keep anyone ahead of terrorists last week in Boston.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told the Washington Post Friday that the Boston bombings are “Exhibit A of why the homeland is the battlefield,” and that it would have been “nice to have a drone up there” to help track the suspects, brothers Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

How can you track suspects with a drone when 1) you didn’t even know they were suspects or what they were up to and 2) didn’t actually find them with drones, they came out and found the police. No amount of cameras is going to prevent crime from occurring. It didn’t during the London riots of 2011 nor did it stop the 7/7 bombings and it’s not going to help in preventing a terrorist attack anywhere in the United States.

CCTV undermines everyone’s privacy, while diverting resources from approaches that have a much higher impact on reducing crime and improving public safety, or is used by lazy officials as a way to placate the public who want something done to make their neighborhood safer.

Sadly, after the events of Boston, Americans will likely surrender more freedoms so that they can “feel” a little bit safer instead of investing money in more officers that can actually help prevent crime.

With camera technology increasing while prices decrease, the use of surveillance cameras seems ubiquitous in larger cities like Boston and New York City. With the large amount of people in Boston for the marathon taking photos, law enforcement were able to use private and public photos to find the bombers and piece together what happened. While this is a great thing, there are still many questions that need to be asked about the dangers of all the time surveillance.

privacy advocates remain concerned about pervasive, and potentially invasive, surveillance technology.

Government use of surveillance technology has expanded considerably in the past decade, amid advances in computing as well as government spending on homeland security. Such technology includes a high density of cameras in some urban centers, traffic cameras along highways, and well as the use of advanced technology such as facial recognition in airports.

Some privacy advocates said the ability of investigators to track the suspects within a matter of days demonstrates that more invasive surveillance isn’t needed. “It’s one thing to have private closed-circuit cameras and look at feeds after the fact,” said Alan Butler, a lawyer with the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “It’s very different if you’re talking about systems of cameras identifying and tracking people over time, all the time. Especially if you couple that with facial recognition and license-plate readers and databases.”

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While everyone is oogling at the new Google Glass, they are forgetting that there are some major privacy concerns that aren’t being addressed.

But there’s something particularly troubling about Google Glass. When we put on these surveillance devices, we all become spies, or scrooglers, of everything and everyone around us. By getting us to wear their all seeing digital eyeglasses, Google are metamorphosing us into human versions of those Street View vans — now thankfully banned in Germany — which crawl, like giant cockroaches, around our cities documenting our homes.

Once engaged, Glass is capable of taking photos, recording videos, looking up answers on Google, showing reminders (such as for a flight) and sharing whatever you’re looking at — either via messaging or through a Google+ Hangout.

These spectacles, which have been specifically designed to record everything we see, represent a developmental leap in the history of data that is comparable to moving from the bicycle to the automobile.

It is the sort of radical transformation that may actually end up completely destroying our individual privacy in the digital 21st century.

What many people are missing is that there is no way to opt out of Google Glass. They are slightly inconspicuous right now and will only become more so in the future. Someone could be filming you while you go about your daily business and you have no way of knowing and no way to stop it from happening. With these glasses, it will be possible for Google, and its advertisers, to know where we are at all times, whether or not you actually own Google Glass.

The DHS’ civil rights watchdog has just concluded that it’s okay to confiscate any electronic device without suspicion anywhere along the US border. The DHS office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties said that they would conduct an investigation in 2009 and have just concluded their findings in a two page report.

“We also conclude that imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits,” the executive summary said.

According to legal precedent, the Fourth Amendment — the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures — does not apply along the border. By the way, the government contends the Fourth-Amendment-Free Zone stretches 100 miles inland from the nation’s actual border.

The DHS watchdog’s conclusion isn’t surprising, as the DHS is taking that position in litigation in which the ACLU is challenging the suspicionless, electronic-device searches and seizures along the nation’s borders. But that conclusion nevertheless is alarming considering it came from the DHS civil rights watchdog, which maintains its mission is “promoting respect for civil rights and civil liberties.”

Unfortunately, the courts have ruled that your fourth amendment rights are not being violated at the border or within the “Constitution Free Zone.” This is chilling because the 100 mile limit includes two-thirds of the American population as well as major cities, such as Detroit, where any electronics can be seized simply because a law enforcement officer wants to look at it. He doesn’t need a warrant and he doesn’t need a reason other than his own desire to snoop on ordinary citizens.

One suggestion is to use TrueCrypt to encrypt your data. Make obtaining the information as difficult as possible, even if all you have is photos from your vacation. Everyone has something to hide and they should be allowed to keep their private things private without the prying eyes of random law enforcement officers wants to peer into them.

The ACLU has filed a FOIA request to view the full report as it is, currently, labeled as secret.

See also:

United States v. Cotterman.

Almeida-Sanches v. United States

United States v Boucher

US map source.