

Let's start surveillance debate

6:04 PM, Jul. 28, 2013  |  Comments
  • Filed Under

In the near future, imagine waking up to get ready for the day. You make a cellphone call to a friend to set up a lunch date. The government maintains a record of when the call was made, its duration and to what phone number, courtesy of your cell provider.

You fire off an email to your boss, stating you're running behind schedule, and it's likely the government via your Internet provider, will have a record of that communication as well.

Stepping outside to walk to the car, a drone a few blocks away notices and adds you to a database while it's maintaining surveillance of everyone in a 10-block area.

You begin the drive to work, and license plate scanners on the roadsigns and buildings track your route and time stamp your passing. A stop at the local convenience store for coffee yields a financial record of your whereabouts when you use a credit or debit card to pay.

That's in addition to the surveillance cameras at the store watching every move you make.

To make up for lost time, you speed down the interstate, which triggers roadside cameras mounted in overpass signs that record your presence, time and speed. In a day or two, a traffic ticket will arrive costing you a couple of hundred dollars. There's little solace in knowing the technology also ticketed 10 other vehicles also speeding in the other lanes during the commute.

At work, your whereabouts are tracked by cameras. Perhaps your company monitors your computer and phone use.

With the exception of the drones, this scenario plays out every day in the U.S.

It's mostly confined to larger metro areas, but the technology to track our movements is cheap, and law enforcement agencies want to deploy it in the fight against crime. If it's not in your city yet, it will be soon.

The technology to track us works silently and efficiently. And truth be told, only the criminals have anything to fear from it. Yet the potential for abuse exists and it's only a matter of time until it will be abused.

It's troubling there has been little public debate about how the technology should be used, who has access to it, and how long should records be maintained.

The debate is long overdue, but it must happen.

With the revelation the National Security Agency is tracking phone and Internet use, and a study by the American Civil Liberties Union showing widespread use of license plate scanners, the summer of 2013 might go down in history as the time we realized government is watching and recording everyone.

Here are some components of the debate that must be addressed: Why is it necessary to record everyone, and what safeguards are in place to make sure the data is secure and won't be used for malicious purposes? How much privacy is anyone entitled to receive?

It's not enough to have reassurances from government officials about the use of the data. Laws and ordinances that spell out the limits of the technology and protecting the rights of individuals need to be on the books.

After all, just because the technology exists to track us, doesn't mean it ought to be used, especially with few restrictions or oversight.

- The Star Press, Muncie, Ind

Which performance impressed you most?

Retrieving results.
75 votes
38 votes

Real Deals






sign up for home delivery today