Justice Sotomayor Warns Against Tech-Enabled "Orwellian" World

An anonymous reader writes: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke on Thursday to faculty and students at the University of Oklahoma City about the privacy perils brought on by modern technology. She warned that the march of technological progress comes with a need to enact privacy protections if we want to avoid living in an "Orwellian world" of constant surveillance. She said, "There are drones flying over the air randomly that are recording everything that's happening on what we consider our private property. That type of technology has to stimulate us to think about what is it that we cherish in privacy and how far we want to protect it and from whom. Because people think that it should be protected just against government intrusion, but I don't like the fact that someone I don't know can pick up, if they're a private citizen, one of these drones and fly it over my property."

Comments

Re:She doesn't mind the state controlling everthin

[AthanasiusKircher]

She's probably just fine with the *state* peeping into your (not her) business. That's the very definition of a self labeled "progressive". Guns, drones, private (no tax man involved) monetary interactions between people, healthcare, retirement, etc.

Actually, Sotomayor is a bit of an outlier on the Supreme Court and has been highlighted for laying the groundwork to reinstate stronger Fourth Amendment protections -- particularly against the government intrusions -- especially in her ruling in United States v. Jones . (For details on her privacy rulings before joining the Court, you can see EPIC's summary here.)

Note that in TFA she was warning about "Orwellian" surveillance, which specifically tends to refer to a world where the government is spying on you, not just private citizens. The quotation highlighted in TFS seems to focus on private citizen regulations, but she has also demonstrated more concern about many government invasions of privacy than most other Supreme Court members, including those who are definitely NOT ''progressives."

Re:if only

[PopeRatzo]

if only she were in some sort of position to do more than talk to oklahoma students about the topic.. ah well.

Do you understand how the Supreme Court works? They can only adjudicate cases brought before them. They can't make policy outside of those cases, so in fact, she is not in a "position to do more than talk" until a case comes before her challenging surveillance. And even then, she's one vote out of nine.

A Supreme Court justice can do three things in their official capacity: talk, write and vote, and the talking they do is mostly asking questions. They can't initiate any action at all.

If you want something "done", you've got to talk to your congressbum.