Unless I'm mistaken, isn't that generally called trespassing when private citizens do that? Not necessarily. An employee can search his place of work without it being trespass.
In any case, if private citizens put together a website which contained the data from license-plate tracking, do you think the police should be allowed to visit the website and use information from it? It's borderline without more specifics. But you have drifted away from my central point - if a human can do it, then it is not unreasonable on its own. If a human requires a machine to do it, then questions of 'reasonableness' arise. It's not private-citizen versus public-official, it's reasonable versus unreasonable given the context in which the 4th amendment was authored.
But they didn't do that. I'm still allowed to bring a hard-side plastic or metal case and as many plastic bags or other small containers as I like on to the plane, so long as none of them have liquid in them when I do it. You don't understand. If they put actual containers on the list of prohibited items then that is the same thing as telling the terrorists how to make a bomb using those containers. So by keeping them off the list, they don't draw any attention to such uses and so we are all better protected.
It restores the balance of power between citizens and authorities, Not it does not. The state has additional resources beyond the means of regular citizens. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole. In other words, the uses and thus the abuses available to the state are greater than those available to regular citizens. Kind of like giving everyone a gun and saying they are all equally armed, when only some of them have bullets.
Actually, it would be perfectly logical if you assumed that explosives research showed that using larger containers was also not a viable option. Bingo! So fucking BINGO, it's not funny.
We had better make x-ray machines illegal, then. And infrared goggles. And binoculars. Police use of these tools often does require a warrant. What is your point?
Do not confuse speed of collection with appropriateness of collection. If it's appropriate to collect the data, then it's still appropriate to collect it really fast. You have to do a better job of supporting that argument than simply declaring it. You, like many, are running afoul of the difference between "can" and "should."
If a group of private citizens can do it, then the police should be able to do it to, or at least look at the website where they post their information. Absolutely not. There are many things that private people can but which the state is forbidden. For example, private citizens do not need a warrant to search for court admissible evidence, but if they do it at the request of the police, they do need a warrant.
How is surveillance searching OR seizing? What, are you trolling? How is a wire-tap searching?
The 4th amendment doesn't state anything about cops watching people, just stuff about cops/anyone going into your home The 4th amendment mentions persons before it mentions houses. Pretty clearly being secure in your person is at least, if not more important than being secure in your home.
No-one suggests that the first amendment should only apply to the distribution methods available at the time of the Constitution, do they? Distribution is not expression.
That would depend on the reason for the right to bear arms. I'm pretty sure if the relative strength of the side bearing arms was supposed to not increase to match the firepower of whoever it is they're worried about, it would have been mentioned, don't you? So, what is the reason citizens are denied the right to bear helicopter gunships?
Hate to tell you this, but every phone call is logged. NOT by the state. By the telco as an unavoidable requirement for billing, not for tracking.
As for every email, well, it sits on a server which may or may not be deleting it NOT even close to the same thing as the state compiling a database of them for future reference. In fact, the courts have already ruled that doing so requires a warrant.
With the appropriate oversight in place, I can't understand your objection. EXACTLY. The appropriate oversight is to get a warrant if they want to record someone. The 4th amendment is pretty clear on that.
You have a real problem distinguishing between can and should. In a free country, what the state should do is minimized.
if you're a law abiding citizen, you're in more danger from the databases being kept by private credit reporting agencies than the ones being kept by law enforcement agencies. Nowadays said databases are routinely used by law enforcement agencies, they might as well be government databases for all the difference it makes.
For later uses, yes. What uses do you object to? Or are you willing to throw out the baby with the bath water? Yeah that's right throw the baby out along with the presumption of innocence while you are at it. Spare me the rhetoric. The issue is simple - by definition, free citizens do not have their movements recorded by the state for any purpose what so ever. Your position is the equivalent of arguing that every phone call, every email, every snail mail should be recorded for future use in case the state decides it needs that information.
If the police want to track someone, get a warrant, and the oversight that goes with it, and track away. But until then, treat everyone with the presumption of innocence that is required for a free society to function.
Uhhh.. the article specifically said that the purpose was to look for stolen cars and that a number had been found using the technique. Are you trying to be naive? Did you even read the article? The stated purpose and actual usage are two separate things.
Here's the important line from the story:
Every plate being scanned won't be tossed away but stored for future use. EVERY PLATE. That's what this entire sub-thread has been about. Every plate, just like every face in the facial-scanner analogy.
How is it not reasonable? It seems like it'd be quite straightforward for a group of volunteers with webcams Full stop. Right there.
The point is that technology is being used to augment what a normal person is capable of. The issue isn't whether it is possible today, it is whether it is reasonable given the conditions under which the 4th Amendment was written.
The same argument is commonly made about the right to bear arms. At the time it was written, the destructive force of even the most lethal arms wad limited to muskets and canons along with all the inconveniences of using them. That's why the right to bear arms does not extend to arms like helicopter mounted 50 caliber, 30-rounds per second machine guns or ground-to-air missiles.
I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying it should require a warrant and oversight, just like every other kind of search that goes beyond the reasonable.
I actually think it'd be quite interesting to have something like that for tracking the whereabouts of the vehicles of politicians and lobbyists It will never happen. First thing is that a list of "special" do-not-record plates gets created, in order to protect national security, and the political class will be exempted from the surveillence.
Ok, so, like, if your car gets stolen and you wanna find the person who stole it, you don't think you should be able to track your car? Nothing has been stolen here. They are recording information about vehicles for which there is no cause to believe that anything at all is wrong.
Is the only objection to this technology that data about which cars were where at a given time is being maintained for purposes unspecified? And that maybe there should be a limitation on what this information can be used for? The issue is that it should never even be recorded in the first place. If the cops want to record that they found a stolen vehicle, great, but that's not the case here. The case here is wholesale surveillance, in which case the vast majority of people surveilled have done nothing to warrant that surveillance.
What can I say, I kinda think it is ok for someone to track something they own. That attitude, if applied to the state, is pretty much carte blanche for the state to track anybody anyway they want. All they need do is make the same statement about cash, since the physical bills and coins are the property of the state too.
Slashdot, of all places, is no place for a luddite wrapped in the guise of privacy advocate. Lol! Do you even know what a luddite is? Perhaps you should do some research on it before using the term again because what you've described is precisely a modern-day luddite.
Do you realize you have gone from, "You own your face. They own your number plate. Big fuckin' difference." To, "Building a list of faces to present to a face recognition system is still a hard problem."
Since there is absolutely not one fuckin' thing in common between those two arguments, it seems pretty clear that you are grasping at straws.
Do you realize that your current argument, that it is a hard problem, implicitly assumes that if it were solved and thus made "easy" -- just as automated plate scanning has been made "easy" during the last decade, you would be accepting of such tracking?
Whether the initial database is seeded voluntarily by people filling out forms who wish to drive or the initial database is seeded voluntarily by people exiting their residence in full view of the cameras makes no difference.
If you are of no interest to the police, then your records will just be sitting on a disk somewhere. If I am of no interest to the police, they should not be tracking me in the first place. Convenience is not a strong enough reason to abrogate our basic rights.
You own your face. They own your number plate. Big fuckin' difference. You are going to have explain that "big fuckin' difference" because in this case there isn't one. The argument is that the police are just observing public spaces. It doesn't matter who "owns" the license plate, or "owns" the face, they are both out in public.
But claim that the police recording license plates on the open highway is unconstitutional? Can't side with you. I disagree. The fourth amendment 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.
I think that a surveillance system which magnifies normal abilities beyond anything humanly achievable must, by definition, raise questions of being an unreasonable search and seizure. If it is not reasonable to expect a person or an affordable group of people to achieve the same results, then it should be considered an unreasonable search.
The other half of his comment - about paying hospital bills - is also bogus rhetoric.
Hospitals have an obligation to stabilize critical patients. That's it. There is no legal requirement to treat anyone who is not critically injured, nor is there a legal requirement to continue care once the patient is in a stable condition. The last few times I've been in a hospital, there were signs posted all over place stating exactly that.
Thus the common meme that "illegals are bankrupting our hospitals" is pure bogosity. There are a lot of reasons hospitals have been going bankrupt, non-paying illegal aliens is not one of them.
So what you are saying is that people are being self-interested and thus not paying for the software. And by contributing to a pot to further software it is being communist? Perhaps you've heard of the "tragedy of the commons?" If not, now you have.
The rest of your post is just regurgitation of decade-old misunderstandings of free software, typical of people who think free software needs "fixing."
Slashdot Mirror
What you say requires a free market.
The FAA-supported oligopoly of airplane travel is far from a free market.
So fucking BINGO, it's not funny.
You have a real problem distinguishing between can and should. In a free country, what the state should do is minimized.
If the police want to track someone, get a warrant, and the oversight that goes with it, and track away. But until then, treat everyone with the presumption of innocence that is required for a free society to function.
Here's the important line from the story: Every plate being scanned won't be tossed away but stored for future use. EVERY PLATE. That's what this entire sub-thread has been about. Every plate, just like every face in the facial-scanner analogy.
The point is that technology is being used to augment what a normal person is capable of. The issue isn't whether it is possible today, it is whether it is reasonable given the conditions under which the 4th Amendment was written.
The same argument is commonly made about the right to bear arms. At the time it was written, the destructive force of even the most lethal arms wad limited to muskets and canons along with all the inconveniences of using them. That's why the right to bear arms does not extend to arms like helicopter mounted 50 caliber, 30-rounds per second machine guns or ground-to-air missiles.
I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying it should require a warrant and oversight, just like every other kind of search that goes beyond the reasonable. I actually think it'd be quite interesting to have something like that for tracking the whereabouts of the vehicles of politicians and lobbyists It will never happen. First thing is that a list of "special" do-not-record plates gets created, in order to protect national security, and the political class will be exempted from the surveillence.
Do you realize you have gone from, "You own your face. They own your number plate. Big fuckin' difference."
To, "Building a list of faces to present to a face recognition system is still a hard problem."
Since there is absolutely not one fuckin' thing in common between those two arguments, it seems pretty clear that you are grasping at straws.
Do you realize that your current argument, that it is a hard problem, implicitly assumes that if it were solved and thus made "easy" -- just as automated plate scanning has been made "easy" during the last decade, you would be accepting of such tracking?
Again no big fucking difference to be seen.
Whether the initial database is seeded voluntarily by people filling out forms who wish to drive or the initial database is seeded voluntarily by people exiting their residence in full view of the cameras makes no difference.
Big fuckin' difference. You are going to have explain that "big fuckin' difference" because in this case there isn't one. The argument is that the police are just observing public spaces. It doesn't matter who "owns" the license plate, or "owns" the face, they are both out in public.
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.
I think that a surveillance system which magnifies normal abilities beyond anything humanly achievable must, by definition, raise questions of being an unreasonable search and seizure. If it is not reasonable to expect a person or an affordable group of people to achieve the same results, then it should be considered an unreasonable search.
The other half of his comment - about paying hospital bills - is also bogus rhetoric.
Hospitals have an obligation to stabilize critical patients. That's it. There is no legal requirement to treat anyone who is not critically injured, nor is there a legal requirement to continue care once the patient is in a stable condition. The last few times I've been in a hospital, there were signs posted all over place stating exactly that.
Thus the common meme that "illegals are bankrupting our hospitals" is pure bogosity. There are a lot of reasons hospitals have been going bankrupt, non-paying illegal aliens is not one of them.
The rest of your post is just regurgitation of decade-old misunderstandings of free software, typical of people who think free software needs "fixing."