I don’t generally agree with Reason’s Julian Sanchez, but when he’s not acting like a polemicist for privacy absolutism, he can write articles that are quite informative. Take, for instance, “The Pinpoint Search,” from January’s Reason:
A new wave of advanced surveillance tools is capable of detecting not just drugs but weapons, explosives, and illicit computer files, potentially flying under the Fourth Amendment’s radar all the while. A handheld scanner picks up stray particles of cocaine on a car during a routine traffic stop. Is that a search? A high-tech camera detects the gun one pedestrian is carrying under his jacket. Is that a search? A forensic analyst finds a single image of child pornography on a computer server containing thousands of files owned by hundreds of users, without ever seeing any other private information. Is that a search?
In a nation whose reams of regulations make almost everyone guilty of some violation at some point, Americans have grown accustomed to getting away with minor transgressions: the occasional joint or downloaded movie or high-speed dash to the airport. For at least some crimes, though, the expectation that our peccadilloes will slip through the cracks may soon be outdated. The new style of noninvasive but deeply revealing detectionâ€â€call them “pinpoint searchesâ€Ââ€â€will require rapid adjustments in both legal rules and social mores.
The article is lengthy, but it is worth reading in full.
For my part, I tend to come down on the side of Futurists like David Brin (cited in the article), who argues that
a world of more perfect enforcement will create democratic pressure to either eliminate or drastically reduce penalties for “victimless†offenses. What matters, Brin avers, is not what the government knows about you but what it can do to you. To those who fear a world in which, for instance, routine speeding infractions are invariably met with stiff fines, Brin ripostes: “Can’t you trust your fellow citizens to not want that either?â€Â
Similarly, here’s GW law professor Jeffrey Rosen, whose opinion, while completely at odds with libertarian Judge Andrew Napolitano, seems to me to strike the correct balance, and has the good fortune to be, in my estimation, more constitutionally conservative:
such [pinpoint] searches avoid some of the central problems the Fourth Amendment’s framers worried about. “Privacy people should be unequivocally and unambiguously enthusiastic about technologies that can manage to find illegal activity without intruding on innocent privacy interests,†he argues. “The paradigmatic example of an unreasonable search at the time of the framing of the Constitution was the search of private diaries, because you had to look at a lot of innocent and intimate information in order to find potentially illegal information.†Pinpoint searches may allow the cop who pulls you over for speeding to scan you routinely for drugs or guns. But they may also mean he’ll be less likely to invent a pretext to rifle your glove box, exposing that legal but embarrassing bottle of Viagra. And the subway cop who wants to be sure your backpack doesn’t contain a bomb won’t need to open it up and see what else you’re carrying.
Particularly in the case of explosives or biochemical weapons, exigent circumstances might always be assumed. With drugs, I anticipate, per Brin, a popular, legislative demand for the softening of certain drug prohibitions as a counterweight to the new technologies—the upshot being that we aren’t filling our jails up with minor offenders.
And I’m for any advance in privacy that is considered by voters, legislated, and can pass Constitutional muster.
Sanchez cites several other scholars who take a position between Napolitano’s privacy absolutism and the arguments of Rosen and Brin, and I suspect many pw readers will find a comfort in one of those opinions that they may not find in mine, as expressed by Brin and Rosen. But hey—we’re a coalition. No need to walk in lockstep, right?
Discuss.
Wow, no kidding Jeff, I’m 100% against this idea.
The main reason is in this line right here
I’m a CCW holder and you can bet if I’m clothed, I’m probably carrying. Cops already are overzealous, seeing the ‘scary gun’ in my pocket could make a routine traffic stop into a long, drawn out ordeal as I’m persecuted for something I have a friggin’ constitutional right.
It’s still a warrantless search, regardless of what technology they use. It automatically makes 99.9% of the population criminals or at least makes the assumption that they have the potential to be. Didn’t they throw out the conviction of the guy they used heat sensors to find his marijuana growing operation? Why would this be any different.
I agree we must change the drug laws, but this is not the way to do so. While you might think the laws would change due to so many people getting put in jail, that doesn’t help those who get thrown in jail.
One problem not mentioned is the budgetary problem. What department is going to assign the resources to do this, and where is it going to be done? Mnay people seem to assume that law enforcement agencies have unlimited resources to afford all of the gee-whiz stuff and constantly use that equipment. Every law enforcement agency each year has a set budget with which they have to do many, many things. They cannot be everywhere doing everything all the time. Not only that, they cannot afford to acquire the equipment and then dedicate the personnel to reviewing all of the ‘flags’ the equipment raises. It’s too much for them. They instead concentrate in likely areas.
As an example, it would be impossible for Customs and the Coast Guard to inspect thoroughly each cargo container that enters an American port. It’s beyod their capabilities, both personnel and budgetary. Instead they have to use intelligence tips and concentrate on those containers coming from certain geographic locations. It isn’t perfect, and yes, something will get through, but it isn’t possible to do otherwise.
That is just one objection. I’m not even going to touch on the question of getting these types of searches past current fourth amendment requirements, be they either the reasonable expectation of privacy or other intrusions.
”…or other objections.”
Dang!
Robb, automobile searches have their own fourth amendment jurisprudence going back to the 1920’s, and yes, a heck of a lot of searching can already legally occur, super-duper high-tech unGodly expensive equipment aside.
Mikey, if you read the article, you’ll see that the cost of some of these sniffers are cheaper than the dogs!
And remember that 15 years ago, 1M of memory cost $40. You can get 512 times that much for about the same cost now. Once there’s a market for the items, competition moves in and prices go down.
The thing is, I have no problem with getting a ticket if I break a traffic law. That does not give the cop the right to try to find something else to pin on me. My old man’s a cop and trust me, they have to write up enough to fill their quotas. Last thing I need is some lazy ass cop who’s 20 minutes from going home needing to nail somebody to meet his quota.
Yes, the technology exists or can exist. This doesn’t mean it should be used. We need to keep a level of privacy that prevents society from breaking down. We all have hidden secrets and we function just fine because most of them are behind the scenes and stay that way. But to simply allow the government to intrude because of a possible threat regardless of circumstances (i.e. “routine” traffic stop) chips away at the very foundations of what this country was built on.
If you have a license to carry a gun, why would that be a problem, Robb?
I would agitate heavily against drug snooping without reasonable suspicion. But not, as I say, explosives or unlicensed weapons—which keep exigent circumstances in play.
Of course, what goes along with this is that I’d expect it to be easier for law-abiding citizens to get conceal carry permits.
This is what I think Brin is getting at. Rather than try to stop the technology, we use it to force structural change.
The questions raised here are at the very least fascinating to consider, and I’m not at the point where I can’t be persuaded to rethink my position. I just reject the kind of privacy absolutism from people like Napolitano who, though I admire him, is so stuck in the procedurals trees that he misses the boobytrapped forest.
Privacy? Wha dat?
I tend to come down on the paranoiac side, with visions of “sniffers” capable of detecting hundreds of “forbidden” things dancing in my head. They’re coming, you can bet on it. Our pals the Jihadis have pretty much guaranteed that.
The problem is the list of “forbidden things” is highly political, which means it depends on who’s in charge at the moment and who (or what) they don’t like. So watch you step, citizen!
Also, the innertubes are becoming more and more a creature of governments, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
This is NOT a good thing.
Well worth reading:
Simson Garfinkel
http://www.simson.net/projects.php
And his excellent book, “Database Nation”
Robb, I read the article – I was speaking generally. You still have to get to court and you have to convict. And if your evidence keeps getting thrown out, you are going to tick off the prosecutor’s office, which also does not have an unlimited budget.
Did you know heat sensors are awfully cheap? Did you know buildings in which pot plants are being raised generally give off a high heat signature? Did you know that type of warrantless search was shot down?
Breathalyzers aren’t overly expensive either, but alcohol raodblocks are rare because of the lack of manpower – police can’t be everywhere scanning everyone. It isn’t 1984, it isn’t Judge Dredd. Even the nanniest nanny-stater runs head on into that wall known as physical (and fiscal) reality.
People have to calm down a bit. Articles like this exist to get everybody in an uproar. No police department has the money to randomly run around scanning people – nor could they do so anyway without probable cause. They have to concentrate on what they can accomplish reasonably with the resources they have.
I’m against it because it assumes that we are all law breakers and deserve to be monitored as such. It assumes the government has a right to play the role of an all seeing God in our lives, something I think the framers would have taken issue with.
I’d like to see marijuana be illegal in the same way jaywalking is. Not legal exactly, but then not exactly illegal either.
Because Jeff, even though I’m “licensed” to practice a constitutional right, many cops will remove gun owners from their cars, handcuff them, and take their weapons, all under the guise of “protection”. Several people I know have had their weapons taken from simply because they have the right to do so.
And the only weapons that require licensing are fully automatic ones, so 99.9999999% of guns aren’t covered there, so why search for them?
Mojo —
I agree. I’m not arguing that anything goes. There is, as with any technology, the chance that it will be misused.
It’s our job to rein it in, sure. But I think doing so in a way that increases rights is the better option, and you can increase the rights of the law abiding when they can be reasonably certain that those who are being prosecuted are, in fact, criminals.
Apply safeguards. Add to the legislation the provision that such searches are only valid if they turn up explosives or unregistered weapons. Make registering weapons and concealed carry less of a bureaucratic hassle for those who obey the law.
Robb —
Your problem is with the cops, then. Before allowing for any such usage of pinpoint search techniques as described in the article, you’d want to push for protections for the law-abiding by way of legislation.
How are we doing at reining in the power of government? It seems to me we are almost powerless to stop the ever increasing grabs at more and more power from those we elect.
We can either fight the advance of technology or try to use it to affirm positive privacy rights.
I think we’ve been trying to hold back a tide when we should be letting it flow and harnessing it to our needs.
But then, I’m high.
For every high tech search method (radar) used broadly by the government, there will eventually be a cheap, high tech counter (radar detectors) available to the public (and terrorists).
The government has an interest in keeping the market and potential profits for such counter measures as small as possible.
I am not suggesting we fight the advance of technology. I am suggesting that we not grant the government new powers because the new technology enables it.
Perhaps we could try it out only on illegal aliens and politicians for a while and see how it goes.
Maybe I’m overly pessimistic about human nature, but I see too much potential for abuse and error. So what I have a trace of cocaine on my clothing? Who knows how it got there? And what valid reason would anyone have to randomly search me for it? Plus, I just don’t see any of this “pinpoint” evidence holding up in court.
Explosives, bioweapons, toxins, radiation—those I’m slightly more comfortable detecting(and it wouldn’t be “searching”; it would be “detecting”).
Well, there’s the rub. The article talks about whether the powers would be “new” in a legal sense, or just an extension of the old powers with better equipment.
Orin Kerr has much to say on this.
As to alphie’s point, what he’s arguing, essentially, is that the government has the responsibility to kill technology in its crib because competing technology could emerge.
Or, put another way, that the government has the responsibility to determine market and regulate creativity.
One possible solution (thunk up by, if memory serves, Greg Bear): “Citizen Oversight”
All surveillance systems are emplaced, very big brother, but all the data is under the control of a sort of technological priesthood, sworn to secrecy.
And they mean it.
The cops must apply to Citizen Oversight for access to “data of interest”, which request may be denied with no explanation.
Also, they get to submit a limited number of requests per year. Use ‘em all, you get to wait. This insures against frivolous requests.
Thoughts?
No, Jeff,
I’m saying that the government should use new search technology as little as possible if it doesn’t want to create a huge market for search counter-measures.
I mean, let’s face it, if you’re doing a broad sweep for bad guys, you don’t really have a clue what you’re doing and are just hoping to get lucky (see Iraq).
Oh – the book, BTW, is called ”Queen of Angels”…
I thought a pinpoint search was the way Amanda found PunkAss Marc’s dick.
I got a lot less worried about the idea of “Big Brother” watching me when I realized it works both ways.
Who, then, watches the watchers? I’d much rather the watchers be people accountable directly to the public. This notion of somehow insulating those wielding power from the influence of those who might abuse it, overlooks the fact that those of us who don’t want it to be abused would also be locked out in the cold. No thanks.
Hey, I’m not married to the idea, McG. I just threw it out as a possible.
Let’s face it, this shit is in the pipeline. The time to deal with the whos and hows is before it’s all in place and running. After that happens, fageddaboudit. Your privacy is one with the dinosaurs, pal. Smile for the nice camera.
I’d go for it, but along with all this technology, there is nothing wrong with strapping a mini-cam to every cop as well. It protects the cop and the citizen. If the tape gets mysteriously deleted, so do the charges. Of course, this doesn’t help if the cops beat the shit out of you and the tape gets erased, but I’m sure there are ways to transmit this data to a secure server or, wtf, a public domain.
If the cops like using big brother technology, I don’t see why we shouldn’t.
regarding my post above…we can require that every cop wear a pair of these?
http://www.mjelectronics.com/pages/new/suncam.html
link it up to a secure public domain server and we are good to go. Of course, the cops are citizens too, and their privacy should be protected when they are not on official duty, or taking a leak or banging their mistress on their lunch break, but these details can certainly be worked out.
Lots of applications here, plus each department can get a television show contract to help pay for the costs of the equiptment.
I’m for legalizing all drugs then impose a luxury tax to pay for high-tech explosive-detecting gadgets.
The heat signature doesn’t come from the marijuana, it comes from the high intensity lights under which it grows. Growers know this and strive to address the issue. They are effectively bankrolling the development of LED illumination which the Instapundit recently reported, along with simpler technologies such as ducted HID lamps and well-insulated houses.
I have no idea how one goes about searching for unlicensed firearms. One searches for firearms, and then later checks if they are licensed. Gun nuts: freak out!
I’m not following your bit about exigent circumstances being assumed for bombs or other things. First, exigent circumstances are for when one has probably cause for a search but no warrant. Second, the thing about exigent circumstances is that they are perceived, not assumed. The perception of the exigency is important. Here we are talking about searches. Before exigency, before we know we are dealing with bombs.
I’m not so sure what is absolutist about napolitano—he’s not quoted directly. I don’t know if he advocates tossing aside true exigencies: when there is probable cause and evidence is about to be destroyed, would he still demand a warrant for example?
Brin? He’s quite absolutist when he declares that it doesn’t matter that the goverment knows. It most certainly does. Government does lots, including what its not allowed to do. It matters to us what others know about us, even if this does not lead to legal consequences.
Frankly I don’t trust the jeffersonian majoritarianism that tells us that if the government begins to infringe on us we will vote against it. I think that still leaves several large minorities (or hell, even unpopular majorities) exposed. Not to mention the discretion it gives to the government. There is room in our system for counter-majoritarian rights. And its precisely for these reasons.
Lastly, friend forgets that snitches may not want to talk to a cop that is wired to a ‘public domain’ server. Nor would people want their interactions with the police in general to automatically be ‘public domain.’
The title of the thread:
Pinpoint Searches
alphie’s concern:
I want to dismiss him, but he does have absolute moral authority on not having a clue what you are doing, after all.
tricale,
Well, I’m glad to hear that surveillance is driving energy consciousness. Sort of.
The term “pinpoint” in this case refers to what is being searched for, B Moe, not how many people are subjected to it:
Called Noped, the crude Visual Basic Script program would infect PCs by way of an email attachment and (after mailing itself out to everyone in the infected user’s address book) scan for images with file names that its author considered suggestive of kiddie porn. If it found a match, it would email law enforcement a list of its findings.
I think you have proved my point.
Please adjust your filters.
It’s not about the bureaucratic hassle. Imagine for a moment if it were suggested that we should take a class, pass a test, and be duly licensed in order to start a registered blog. It would be absolutely no hassle, really, just a simple procedure with, perhaps, a background check and the approval of two officials in your local government. No problem, right?
Now, now, no sputtering about First Amendment rights!
As much as I hate ceding any further intrusive power to the government, as the author notes: the capability is very much in place. The question is how we as a “free” people respond. Somehow, I don’t think going through the motions of relaxing penalties for potential crimes makes sense. What practical effect will that have? We would all still be subject to being zeroed in on simply because we trigger some random alarm.
But oh, well, it’s indiscriminate; I suppose that’s some consolation.
So you are upset because we aren’t profiling?
Not really, B Moe.
There are over 6,500,000,000 people in the world.
Crude filter are useless nowadays in the hunt for evildoers.
Broad searches are usually instituted by folks who want to create the illusion they are doing something, no matter how ineffective, to combat whatever it is we’re all worried about today.
Not to get too far off topic, but alphie, radar detectors aren’t countermeasures, any effective countermeasure to radar would be illegal. Radar detectors just notify you of enforcement, so you can stop breaking the law before you add a little bottom line to the county gov’t Christmas party.
If terrorists were using radar dectectors in my little Kentuckiana burg, they’d be the most law abiding people on the planet.
And I cooperate with the police, but you can bet your bottom dollar that if I was stopped for a seat-belt violation and was arrested because my kid left a roach in the ashtray and the cop saw it with his X-Ray specs, I’d fight it tooth and nail.
Good chance I’d win too, remember Winona Ryder was caught on tape shoplifting and was successful in getting the tape thrown out.
Glad to hear some righties are still willing to stand up for their right against unlawful search and seizure. I thought all bets were off in this war on terror.
Location, location, location.
I’m all for explosive detection equipment used in subways. I’m entirely against scanning my car for illicit substances.
Public interest allows for reasonable high-tech detection equipment such as explosive detection in subways. But it doesn’t necessitate this.
What we need is legislatures bright enough to write the laws correctly. What we’re likely to get is something else.
Jeff,
One line from the block quote was telling.
“Can’t you trust your fellow citizens to not want that either?â€Â
As you are finding from the Colorado legislatures ongoing attempt to turn the state into a giant baby sitter the answer is big stinking no.
I am certain that if push comes to shove and the interest groups have enough time and media assistance they will be arresting people for the possession of trans fats. Semi Joking with that last point.
However, if you had said 25 years ago that in order to keep a job people would be asked to urinate on command to prove they were not smoking Camel cigarettes people would have said you were nuts. But that is where we are today.
The quote below really frost me
He thinks giving the cop tools to more easily break the law in order to save some hypothetical person from embarassment is a good idea.
That is an utterly insane proposition
I don’t have words to express just how dangerous these ideas are to our free society and a decent quality of life.
So many responses her beg the question—and this is, unfortunately, my fault for not highlighting the appropriate pieces from the article.
My concern is that many of the fourth amendent issues wont be “issues” at all, because the law assumes agency in a search. Some of the new technology can’t be construed as agency, and so problematizes all of these issues.
I favor a strategy that maximizes rights for law abiding citizens while making it more difficult for those who break the law to rely on legal “safeguards” to artificially protect them.
I’m ambivalent about the enabling technology.
The micro version, as described in the article, is reasonably easy to regulate with a ‘probable cause’ requirement.
The macro version is much more frightening. When the technology becomes so cheap, it’s deployed everywhere. Then we do have a monitored society (won’t quote any Eric Blair novels).
Think of pinpoint radar speed detectors morphing into speed cameras in England. Every speeding car is photographed and sent a ticket.
Think of rental car companies putting in technology that will report any activity them deem unwanted in the car. Fines are issued to violators.
Think of your state knowing the contents of all out of state packages sent to your home and billing you the unpaid taxes.
They are challenges we will need to deal with, more so with private business than government.
Ah, hell. Lets just have strip searches when ever anyone leaves the house.
I’ll cover sorority row.
You guys divide what’s left amongst yourselves.
Seriously, you’re already being video recorded in a majority of public places, and everyone now has a camera (and video recorder) in their cell phone. Most times you are stopped by a traffic cop, you are being subject to a covert alcohol sensor, and can be detained until the drug sniffing dog shows up if you don’t consent to a search of your car. You can’t go to a concert without getting a metel detector passed over your ass. The police helocopters are equipped with infared and heat sensors. You can order personal sound amplifiers from TV commercials to listen in on the conversation accross the room.
Face it. When you walk out your front door, you have about as much privacy as the guy on suicide watch in San Quintin. I don’t see “more perfect enforcement creating democratic pressure to either eliminate or drastically reduce penalties for “victimless†offenses”.” I see new tech increasing revenue for agencys hungry for new gizmos to create more revenue.
As a technical note, any scanner that can “see” a bomb inside your backpack can also “see” a variety of other things. Like that 10-in variable-speed real-feel vibrator you bought as a gift for your girlfriend’s birthday…
Yours is a country of wild contradictions.
You can carry concealed firearms but you can’t call a poof a faggot.
I can’t even carry a penknife in a public place any more, but I can call the Deputy Prime Minister a needle-dicked fat fornicator and the Prime Minister a lying hypocritical pharisee without the least danger of calling down a storm of protest. So I’ll have to make do with that.
What do you mean by ‘agency’? Someone chose to look inside Kyllo’s house. Someone chose to have a dog sniff Caballe’s car. Do you mean there won’t be agency in that everyone will be subject to the search?
Its unclear what you mean about maximizing rights for those who follow laws. We all have the same rights. And, despite david brin’s take that we would be outraged, we are all going to be lawbreakers.
Now that is sound.
Ok, sorry I haven’t responded quickly. Sleep and all that jazz.
Let me make a hypothetical – feel free to indicate where this goes astray.
Let’s say I make a new gizmo called the Remote Cocksniffer 2000. It’s a small, wand like device that can detect the age, gender, and orifice used of the last person you had sex with by chemical traces in the air.
Now, you are saying that because .0001% of the population are pedophiles that the cops should have the right to determine into what port you sail your dinghy just because you might be a child molester?
I’m sorry that I simply cannot see how allowing the cops to violate our rights will somehow protect our rights.
The easiest thing to do would to not allow cops to use pinpoint searches without a warrant, regardless of technology. Everyone’s rights are secured with no need to craft wacky legislation on how to give those rights back from time to time when some cop / politician gets their panties in a wad.
Yes we’re already under surveillance, yes our privacy is dwindling, but that’s no reason to open the flood gates and just wash the rest of it away.
And Jeff, I can’t believe you actually think by making everyone a criminal is the best way to secure our rights. Our jails are overflowing with people who got caught with a dime bag and yet the War On Some Drugs continues. The government survives and grows when there are threats to society and the best way to secure that growth is to increase the ‘threats’. It’s not a cabal of white men smoking in a dark room conspiracy, it is a natural evolution of people wanting to keep their jobs.
I’d ask the very same question. The dog doesn’t act on it’s own. Did the dog, in Caballe’s case, open the door and hop out on it’s own?
Does the technological device, which can be used to find trace amounts of an illegal substance, open the door of the squad car and perform it’s ‘search’?
No, the devices themselves by not be ‘agency’, but I believe the officers and other members of law enforcement are.
Think about it this way. An officer stops you and, through the use of a drug sensing device, finds out that you have trace amounts of an illegal substance on your car. Now, beyond these trace amounts that are only detectable by this device, there is no other evidence that would give the officer ‘probable cause’ for a search.
In this particular case, an extra measure of searching had to be undertaken to actually find the ‘probable cause’. The officer had to turn the device on and had to act upon the device in a manner so as to retrieve readings from the suspects car. How can someone not say that this violates our Fourth Amendment rights?
I mean, this isn’t the same as a case where you’re searching for one thing, fully within the legal boundaries, and then find something else and can proceed from there as law allows. In this case, the device you are using is specifically targeted at finding something in particular (illegal narcotic, guns, etc…). Therefore, your traffic stop is not a simple traffic stop, but now becomes a drug and/or gun inspection simply because the officer can.
Precisely, Agent W.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . .
A search requires a search warrant. Period.
Does this sort of technology, “pinpoint” or otherwise, have targeted uses where public safety is concerned? Of course.
Cargo loaded on ships, planes, and trains.
But the problem of unintended consequences isn’t the idiotic scenario of embarrassment over a Viagra prescription–it’s the extension of authorities into parallel law enforcement avenues. Oh, while we’re sniffing passengers entering the subway turnstile for traces of explosives, let’s sniff for traces of narcotics.
Oh, sorry, we delayed you a few hours so that we could determine your Tylenol-3 w/codeine was legally prescribed. Really, it’s an inconvenience any law abiding citizen should be willing to put up with. Not.
Yup. Presumed guilty–and set free because I proved my innocence.
Simple possession of narcotics (no matter your opinion on the drug laws) differ in a magnitude and degree from that of possessing explosives, regarding public safety, as the difference between prostitution or gambling, and attempted murder.
And the usual complaint of crime fighters is that they are being ham-strung when performing their job because we, the people, place limits on the authorities and investigative capabilities used therein.
When new technology is introduced, the question is never why, but why not?
Robb and Agent W, I agree with what you’re both saying, but I think Jeff’s point is that if the cops had this ability, there would be a huge surge of support for legalizing marijuana because tons of us are driving around with detectable “trace amounts” on us, and we wouldn’t want to get caught. It would motivate people to demand a rollback on the War on Drugs, because they would be in danger suddenly, not just the idiots who do it openly.
Sorry Jennifer, I cannot accept the premise that the best way to restore rights is to violate them enough to piss people off into action.
Besides, as long as it’s not YOU who get thrown in jail with Miguel “the South of the Border Rapist” Rodriguez, who cares if thousands of innocent people get thrown in jail while we wait on our rights to be restored?
And even after your rights are restored you might not want people knowing you smoke a little green stuff on occasion. Too bad, a normal, HUMAN being now has access to that information and can use it when it suits their needs. Being a cop doesn’t stop stupidity.
You are missing the point. The question is about whether such actions would indeed violate rights. Legally, this seems to be a toss-up.
From that perspective, I think the best way forward is to embrace the technology, legislate how and when it can be used, and, as voters, determine where we wish to concentrate our efforts.
Jennifer is right—that was what I was getting at. I would never, however, vote for the use of technology that allowed officers to use a cocksniffing device—and yet law enforcement is already using certain computer programs to find child porn purveyors and users, and the law is not settled on the legality of what they are doing.
Leave it up to the voters, I say.
In a democracy, sure. But we’re not a pure democracy and hence, we don’t get to vote on the Cocksniffer 2000 (or the updated version CockSlapper 3.0). I didn’t vote for the taxes I have, but nobody who I could pull the lever for was worth a damn.
Hence they should not be allowed to do it period. I believe, and please correct me if I’m wrong or illogical, that when it comes to actions of the government towards Americans, they should have to prove the legality before the implementation. Yes this hamstrings the government and I’m all sorts of happy about that.
I can’t see how rights aren’t being violated. This is illegal search and seizure, albeit on a very, very small scale.