Information Is Power and Power Will Be Abused: Video Surveillance and the 4th Amendment
Published October 01, 2007
Everyone's complaining about President Bush's overreaching warrantless surveillance under the PATRIOT Act and the FISA program, but those surveillance programs have been used to monitor the actions of a tiny number of people under very special and limited circumstances. Under the administration of the oldest and most powerful Democratic party machine in the country, the Chicago police are setting up a surveillance network which will monitor the actions of virtually every citizen in the city without the slightest hint of a warrant or anything resembling probable cause. They're just going to watch everyone all the time because they have the technology and they can do it.
Somewhere in all of this the Bill of Rights seems to have been forgotten. The privacy rights promised in the 4th Amendment have been qualified out of existence. The streets are public space and private businesses own the rights to their video and choose to cooperate with the program voluntarily. If the police wanted to set up video and audio surveillance on someone they'd need to get a warrant, but if the cameras are already there then all protections are out the window.
Years ago when I lived in the Soviet Union I learned to accept the fact that I had no real privacy, that there could be people watching me and listening to me even in the most apparently private and personal moments. It's a disturbing thought, but the truth is that you get used to it and learn to accept it. You operate on the assumption that your life is so mundane that it will likely put the watchers to sleep, plus you really don't have anything to hide. In that situation it was also very clear what you did and did not do and say. The KGB's interests were very limited and very specific.
The problem is that today the dividing line between normal activity and crime has become blurry. We've moved into an era of 'super crimes' with their names written in capital letters like the War on Drugs and the War on Terror, where even the erroneous impression of behavior associated with those high-concern crimes can land you in a lot of hot water. The pressure on law enforcement is intense and the result can be overreaction, like the recent case of the MIT student arrested at gunpoint at Logan Airport for wearing a peculiar homemade t-shirt.
More surveillance, even when computer assisted, means more opportunities to make a mistake or overreact or take something the wrong way. The car circling a building too many times, or the guy standing for too long on the wrong corner, or a bulgy jacket at a crowded event, or any of a hundred other things that raise a red flag and which people do for innocent reasons on a daily basis could lead to disaster. And that's just the mistakes. The potential for intentional abuse, or excessive enforcement or a self-righteous crackdown on trivial crimes is even more troubling. Even the possibility of our courts being clogged up with petty drug offenders and every prostitute and John on the streets is disturbing.
- Information Is Power and Power Will Be Abused: Video Surveillance and the 4th Amendment
- Published: October 01, 2007
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Politics
- Filed Under: Politics: Government, Politics: Local and Regional, Politics: Policy, Politics: U.S., Politics: War and Terrorism
- Writer: Dave Nalle
- Dave Nalle's BC Writer page
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Comments
well now..i agree heartily with over 75% of the Article and state most of the same reservations...
but this line..."Everyone's complaining about President Bush's overreaching warrantless surveillance under the PATRIOT Act and the FISA program, but those surveillance programs have been used to monitor the actions of a tiny number of people under very special and limited circumstances."
is jusgt so much bullshit in many ways..the "tiny number" part especially...seems the author has not looked into the public info about the data mining, or the FBI's own admitted mistakes looking at purely domestic calls (that they admit to)
this is NOT any kind of partisan issue here, BOTH sides are culpable on each and every one of the infringements to our Rights...
to try and spin it as if one side was worse than the other is bullshit, imo
fuck the partisanship on this one, all Citizens should be united against it, do NOT let this one fall into the hands of the spin doctors...whether they do it intentionally or not
nuff said...
Excelsior?
I cahn explain why they did not ask anybody in your neighborhood about installing the stolight: It's because they discriminate against the underclass referred to as Trailer Trash.
Human Right Abuses in Texas!
Gonzo, last I checked about 10,000 people at most had been impacted by Bush's wiretap activities, and about 200 by his use of powers granted by PATRIOT and FISA. That's in comparison to 3 million people living in Chicago. You really want to say 'tiny' isn't the right word to use for that comparison?
There's nothing partisan in this article. Show me where I excused Bush's actions. My point was just that what's going on in Chicago is worse by several orders of magnitude and no one is even raising an eyebrow. And I think it is a valid point that the difference is that one abuse is coming from beloved democrat urban tyrants and the other from our bumbling Republican scapegoat in chief.
And BTW, MR it's a violation of our neighborhood covenant to put a trailer or mobile home on your land. You'd be better off to go back to accusing me of being an elitist in a gated community.
Dave
Good article Davey me boy!
Why'd you have to ruin it with your reference to your beloved President's surveillance program comment? I mean, by your own statement of the facts that BushCo. has used it on 10,000 people versus 0 by the Democrats in Chicago, I guess they must have also installed the "mindspeak" recorders there.
Luckily, since it appears you never leave the duckblind, you won't be recorded too soon at the corner street light.
"Gonzo, last I checked about 10,000 people at most had been impacted by Bush's wiretap activities, and about 200 by his use of powers granted by PATRIOT and FISA. That's in comparison to 3 million people living in Chicago. You really want to say 'tiny' isn't the right word to use for that comparison?"
you missed my point...
we have NO FUCKING CLUE as to how many folks are "impacted" by the data mining , do we?
and we only have the Administration's say so about the rest of those numbers
now, i agree that the Chicago issue you raise is a very valid concern
i just refuse to forget/be distracted from the Administrations blatant high crimes and misdemeanors by something in Chicago that is heinous but yet to be found unConstitutional(i agree with you that it most probably is)
hope that clears things up
like i said, you came really closs to an unbiased piece here, and raise concerns that every Citizen should take seriously...my ONLY fault is in the partisan spin you appear to have stuffed in there, consciously or not
nuff said...
Excelsior?
Gonzo, it's not that I'm being partisan, it's that you're subscribing to the same old double standard you always get sucked into. You hold the GOP accoutnable and let the Dems slide.
If I'd wanted to be partisan I would have spent some time talking about the Daley family's close ties to the Clinton family and the likely guiding roll which Bill Daley (the mayor's brother) will play in Hillary's administration. What we see today in Chicago Hillary WILL be bringing us nationwide in 2009.
Dave
bullshit
read what i typed again..i fucking DEFY you to demonstrate the truth of your unfounded allegation
i said what Chicago intends is wrong, and those responsible should be held accountable...just like EVERY Senator/Congressman who voted for the Patriot Act should be prosecuted/impeached along with those who wrote that piece of shit up
now...where do you see me "letting the Dems off the hook"?
in opposition to quoting you..showing where i agree, and then demonstrating , with your own words right here in this article, where YOU have been biased/partisan....even giving you the benefit of the Doubt as to whether it's conscious or not
just goes to show, try and be reasonable and meet a shill and Apologist halfway, and they keep up the Big Lie and want more
fuck that noise
and the same to you, Vox
Excelsior?
my comment appears to be stuck in Limbo
ah well...
Excelsior
Congratulations, gonzo - you have been data mined by the Bush administration...
Your comment will be released as soon as the FBI has finished analyzing the video tapes of that strange car journey you made to the store last night, during which, upon reaching the store, you realized you'd forgotten your wallet, so drove home to get it, whereupon you discovered that there wasn't actually any money in it. So you drove to the bank but overshot the ATM in the dark. Realizing your mistake you circled the block, but this time were unable to park because all the available spaces had been filled by other bank customers. So you went around again and this time were able to park. However, owing to a brain fart caused by the stress of memory loss and parking problems, you were unable to remember your PIN, which necessitated several attempts before finally getting it right.
You then compounded your dastardly suspicious behavior by happening to glance at the ATM surveillance camera as you were picking up your cash.
The Men With No Facial Expression should be thumping on your door shortly...
heh...they would be in for a very rude awakening, Doc
but i digress...
the Comment showed up now...so it's all good
Excelsior?
OK, Bourne. :-)
Although flippant, my little reconstruction does illustrate how erratic but innocent behavior can appear to be something other to those who are looking out for it.
Meantime, the real villains are finding ways of getting round the system as they always have.
Doc D has a point about real villains and it fits with the paragrpj about the KGB in the article. Surveillance like this trains us all to think like criminals and it's a small step from there to being criminals or perhaps revolutionaries. Vandalism might come first. I bet u could take out a lot of traffic camers with a rifle and a good scope from the right spot outside of their range.
I bet we'll start seeing maps of the blank areas posted on the net like wardriving maps soon.
I might get a bit sniped for this, but I fail to see how the government can be taken to task and torn down for planting cameras in public places. Anyone can do that... if I could find a place to hide it, or keep it from being vandalized, I could record every person who walked past my front door. If I caught some kid spray-painting a stop-sign, I could sell that tape to the cops, and I could probably get paid and get him/her arrested.
Based on moral imperatives, we can demand two rights from the government: first, the right not to use coercive force on us if we're not being physically destructive ourselves. Second, the right to do whatever the fuck we want in our private space.
As this article suggests from the outset, we live in a world of information; people growing up in the current media environment need to realize: everybody in this world has access to information. If you do something dangerous or embarrassing in public, there's a reasonable chance you'll be caught by a camera-phone. At least the government has rules about probable cause... your neighbor will probably put the video of you crapping in your ex's car right up there on YouTube, where it'll stick to you for life.
Recording my personal conversations via wiretap... that's not a public space, and it makes me a lot more nervous. Out in the streets, the law protects me when it can, so I'm willing to coexist with it. I'm fairly confident nobody's watching those traffic cameras anyway.
I'm definitely with Lumpy, though... when this behavior becomes too invasive, and we start internalizing the criminal and revolutionary stigma we're being saddled with, then shit's going to hit the fan. Public surveillance programs might be one of the big catalysts for the next generation's dissent.
I think, when that happens, normal people will suddenly show that they know how to use information better than any bureaucracy does.
you gotta think positive dudes and dudettes - I work hard developing personal relationships with all those cameras (and the great minds behind them) by engaging in witty chit chat at every opportunity...I'd swear that sometimes they wink
happiness is never having to say you're lonely
For a taste of the future just go to Las Vegas, which must have more surveillance cameras per square foot than anywhere else on the planet (the Pentagon possibly excepted). Very uncomfortable once you're aware of them.
I even clocked four cameras positioned at an innocuous-looking spot at the entrance to the Bally's monorail station. There's nothing there except stairs and a walkway - no ticket machines, no barriers, no exits. I can maybe understand one or two cameras, but four?
I can only guess they had a few spare ones and couldn't think where else to put them.
For a taste of the future, correspond with me on this blog. The time it says I posted will be wrong, because I am posting this at 2.01am Wednesday October 3, and I am a day in front of you. The future is now.
As for the cameras Dave, you ain't the only ones .. although we haven't got 'em at the end of my street yet.
"remember, remember..the fifth of November..."
from someone who already knows how to think like a criminal...
you go around your neighborhood and hand out BB guns to the 12-15 year olds and offer them $20 for every camera busted, each time they get replaced, rinse and repeat
make sure it isn't just your area, but your rivals as well, to throw off suspicion
first wave of response, after that it gets devious
but i digress...
Excelsior?
One reason I have all my important data on CD-ROM:
An insurance against the day when criminals start using EMP bombs to knock out all the cameras and surveillance equipment within the radius of their getaway... along with anything else electronic.
"keep it simple, stupid"
no reason to get all EMP on any of this shyte
a cut wire, broken lens, turning the camera mount the wrong way...all work much better, and cost a lot less
you are too much the straight citizen...leave it to the outlaws and carnival folk when it comes to fucking with this kind of thing
Excelsior?
Except that first you have to get to the camera undetected in order to bugger it up.
Yeah, some nice snapshots of that kid down the street holding a BB gun.
Sheriff: "Where d'ya get the gun, son".
12-year-old would-be camera-buster: "Dave Nalle gave it to me."
LOL.
You're in fine form this morning/evening/300-year perpetual summer/whatever it is you have down there...
silly puppies..i can tell none of yas have ever been in the illegal substances distribution business
you use minors because they can't get busted like adults...a ski mask (or even any Halloween mask) makes the camera moot when you want to take more direct action
not to mention that going to the pole behind the camera to get at it's wiring is a bit smarter than the frontal assault
on and on...you guys may be Convicts, but yas sure forgot how to be outlaws...
Excelsior?
Off to Thailand in the morning. Can't sleep. It's a long flight - 9 hours - so I kind of hope if I stay awake, I'll zonk out on the plane.
Although with my wife and youngest daughter on board and both very well schooled in the fine feminine art of speaking underwater with a loaf of bread in your mouth, there's probably not much hope.
Coupla suggestions, Stan:
1. Noise-cancelling headphones.
2. Nyquil.
3. Slip the purser a twenty on the way down the jetway and see if he/she can't bump you up to first.
Hope you have a great holiday.
The open fields doctrine is a U.S. legal doctrine created judicially for purposes of evaluating claims of an unreasonable search by the government in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The open fields doctrine was first articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Hester v. United States[1], which stated that "the special protection accorded by the Fourth Amendment to the people in their 'persons, houses, papers, and effects,' is not extended to the open fields."[2] This opinion appears to be decided on the basis that "open fields are not a "constitutionally protected area" because they cannot be construed as "persons, houses, papers, [or] effects."
Wikipedia Open fields doctrine
Curtilage is a legal term describing the enclosed area of land around a dwelling. It is distinct from the dwelling by virtue of lacking a roof, but distinct from the area outside the enclosure in that it is enclosed within a wall or barrier of some sort.
It is typically treated as being legally coupled with the dwelling it surrounds despite the fact that it might commonly be considered "outdoors".
Wikipedia Curtilage
Castle Doctrine (also known as a Castle Law or a Defense of Habitation Law) is an American legal concept derived from English Common Law, which designates one's place of residence (or, in some states, any place legally occupied, such as one's car or place of work) as a place in which one enjoys protection from illegal trespassing and violent attack. It then goes on to give a person the legal right to use deadly force to defend that place (his/her "castle"), and/or any other innocent persons legally inside it, from violent attack or an intrusion which may lead to violent attack. Within the legal paradigm, therefore, it functions as a type of justifiable homicide.
Castle Doctrines are legislated by state, and not all states have a Castle Doctrine.
Wikipedia Castle Doctrine
California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 206 (1986), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court, in which it ruled that warrantless aerial observation of a man's backyard did not violate the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Wikipedia California v. Ciraolo
Interesting... that last one strikes a cord with me. Invasion of private space, ordered by local police for a trivial crime... wouldn't be so bad if the Burger court had decided to actually fulfill its "checks and balances" responsibility, as it did with the Nixon surveillance.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..."
in their persons...is a key bit here..it ain't just about yer House..it's about yer own Person and your "effects"
beat 'em at their game...wear a Masque
nuff said...
Excelsior?
Gonzo, do you know how fast you'd be surrounded and shot or tased if the surveillance network picked you up just walking around in a mask?
As for the past history of wrongheaded decisions provided by the courts, they just go to prove that courts can be wrong. They also don't dispel the protection that individuals have not to be under direct surveillance without cause which the court has upheld. Clearly there's an inconsistency in how the 4th is being applied, and IMO we ought to err on the side of more rights for citizens rather than less.
Dave
i welcome the tasing, and the lawsuit that follows...no need to shoot me, i know the routine and will comply
my point is that if it gets onerous...EVERYONE will wear hats/masks as a mark of privacy/civil disobedience
could be a good ground floor business, imo
"Clearly there's an inconsistency in how the 4th is being applied, and IMO we ought to err on the side of more rights for citizens rather than less."
Quoted for Truth
Excelsior?
"i welcome the tasing, and the lawsuit that follows...no need to shoot me, i know the routine and will comply
LOL
#34 -- Dave Nalle
"Clearly there's an inconsistency in how the 4th is being applied"
I noticed this too. This is the kind of gray area shit that can make defending yourself in court a bit of a gamble and also very expensive.
glad ya got a Laugh, Franco
if ya ever met me, ya might Understand it a bit better
Excelsior?
Why fear the government? Shouldn't they fear us?
"Meantime, the real villains are finding ways of getting round the system as they always have."
Yeah, they usually start doing this as soon as they're elected.
Nalle: I never accused you of being an elitist in a gated community.
That was probably something youo or one of your clones accused ME of.
I know you live in a trailer.


Dave Nalle has been a magazine editor, freelance writer, capitol hill staffer, game designer and taught college history for many years. He is Vice Chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus, working to promote liberty in the GOP. He designs fonts for a living and lives with his family just outside Austin. You can find his writings on politics and culture at 


Way-cool surveillance technology's coming down the pike, you ain't seen nothing yet Dave Nalle...
This all reminds me of the development of the bomb. The mathematical challenge of developing the atom bomb engaged some of the most brilliant minds on the planet at the time. The REAL thinking started after the finished product was delivered, and ramifications were considered.