On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of
Virginia sent requests to numerous police departments and localities seeking
information about how these entities are using automated cameras that take
pictures of license plates of vehicles as they pass by.[1]
According to Catherine Crump of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy
and Technology Project, the license plate readers track the location of
motorists, storing this information forever.
There’s a fine line between public safety and government
overreach[2]
into the lives of its citizens for purposes of security. The issue of storing
location-data on motorists forever leans more towards the latter (i.e.
government overreach).
The question, how much intrusion into the private lives of
its citizens in the name of social security are we as a people willing to
accept, is rarely asked, at least by lawmakers or the mainstream media (e.g.
CNN, Fox News).
The only counterexample that comes to mind surrounds the
decision by the Transportation and Security Administration (TSA) to use
full-body scanners in airports across the U.S.[3]
Unfortunately, few if any questions were actually answered and the debate
quickly faded while more supposedly pressing concerns came to the forefront of
America’s political discussions.
But as America, and hopefully the world, enters a new age of
advanced technology, questions of security and privacy will have to be
addressed more forcefully.
Most who’ve studied just about any time in Western history,
in particular, are aware that the issue of security has oftentimes been used as
a justification to crack down on the liberties of the people by their
respective governments. But what is it to be secure? How much intrusion are
American’s willing to accept to feel “secure?”
Intrusion by the state for security purposes is not,
however, an appropriate justification for pulling a “Big Brother.” You’ve heard
the phrase before but I think it’s appropriate to use here, it’s a “slippery
slope” once society begins acquiescing to the gradual erosion of its privacy
for reasons of security, knowingly or not.
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