I return today to the seemingly endless invasion of our individual privacy created and augmented by technology. This blog has included discussion of facial recognition, body cameras, and artificial intelligence. These technologies are racing forward, making the fictional 1984 an increasingly believable reality of government surveillance, revisionist history, and more. Who can forget the "party slogan":
“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
In the midst of the recent rioting, and abject property destruction ("get ready for an influx of claims and payouts"), we have seen example after example of individuals arrested based upon probable cause provided by ubiquitous surveillance cameras. Certainly, not every criminal act has featured cameras, many have. There is the woman accused of burning the Wendy’s in Atlanta, the lawyers who threw Molotov cocktails (yes, lawyers) in New York, and there are even disputes between neighbors over cameras.
Cameras, it seems, are everywhere. CNBC asserts that by next year there will be over a billion of these cameras keeping an eye on us. Most are in China. But, the United States is second in the proliferation. The non-China Asia countries combined are home to the third highest population. They are mounted on buildings, and on poles. Police use them to issue tickets for traffic lights and speeding. People install them in their doorbells. These home cameras have caught alleged rape, dognapping, mail theft, and even childbirth. It seems that the news brings us a new example of passive surveillance daily. A billion! Remember when there were none?
Since September 11, 2001, Americans have become increasingly acclimated to government surveillance. There are now cameras lining Interstate 10 in Florida. One government employee intimated to me it is possible for the Florida Department of Transportation to monitor a vehicle on that road between the state line and Jacksonville without ever losing sight of it as it fades from one camera's scope and enters another. I’ve done nothing to verify that statement, but, seeing the progression of camera poles along this road, it is hard to doubt.
Recently, the news brought reports of a commodity market in South America utilizing artificial intelligence to scan individuals entering its facility. This artificial intelligence is tied to surveillance cameras and thermal scanners. It evaluates pedestrians, noting the frequency of visits, checking their body temperature for potential COVID (but it cannot smell, see why that might matter), and processing this information through an algorithm. In a microcosm it is fascinating. Of course, avoidance is simple, just do not visit this particular marketplace. But as that microcosm develops, would this technology be engaged elsewhere and on a larger scale?
According to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), this system is collecting "data on the vendors and market-dwellers." It stores information about each person's "age range, gender, and" whether each is "wearing their mask correctly," in order to assess risks and more vulnerable demographics. Wow, a surveillance system capable of being the mask police; I see lots of people not wearing their masks properly, but have decided it is not worth mentioning to them. In addition, there are "thermal cameras" that are capable of measuring "the temperature of 200 people per minute." It is a massive surveillance of those who visit this facility. Their face, their temperature, and the potential for gathering more data in due time.
Another recent article describes scientists' efforts involving microcameras. The BBC reports that researchers have deployed a camera weighing only "just 250 milligrams" ("which is about a tenth of the weight of a playing card"). These are mounted on the back of an insect (Beetle). It is presently rudimentary, and the video produced is black-and-white and somewhat "grainy." But, it is bound to evolve further. There will likely be quality improvements. And, this micro camera, providing a beetle-eye view, can produce video over a six-hour battery-life. An insect in your home could stream pictures elsewhere for up to six hours.
The researchers were not satisfied with the unreliable tendencies of the wandering beetle. They therefore built an artificial beetle. This is acknowledged as "the world's "smallest terrestrial, power-autonomous robot with wireless vision." The device has legs that do not move, and it ambulates through vibration. It can "travel about three centimeters a second." Thus, 180 centimeters a minute (over two yards). This thing can get around.
The researcher responsible for the beetle camera admits that these "tiny camera robots could introduce new surveillance concerns." He contends that the solution to these challenges is public awareness of the technology and its potential. He says "that it's really important to put things in the public domain so people are aware of the risks and so people can start coming up with solutions to address them." That is an interesting thought. The double entendre is there as to the "public domain." There is the "let people know this exists" and yet also the "let's use this to spy on people."
Is it all too far-fetched? The Smithsonian reports that in Singapore a robotic dog patrols a park "barking" instructions to those it perceives as not social distancing appropriately. Amnesty.org reports that governments are using data from our own cellular telephones to track our movements and activities. It accuses some governments of sharing people's personal and private health information with others. It concludes with the warning "These measures have the potential to fundamentally alter the future of privacy and other human rights."
In this country, the Supreme Court conceived a "right to privacy," albeit in a context regarding contraception, in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965). Some wonder at the recency of this decision, others lament its fragility. There is no privacy mentioned in the Constitution itself. The Court cobbled together a protection of privacy through reference and influence of the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. The Court concluded that the "Constitution-specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras." That is a "shadowy, indefinite or marginal area" around the more defined core. It is a "penumbral right" to privacy upon which various personal protections hinge if Griswold is the focus of study.
This is not the end of the analysis. Of course, we all "hold these truths to be self-evident" and "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these . . ." There is a suggestion in this language that should be remembered and discussed more frequently. The rights you have were not endowed by your founding fathers, nor by our Constitution.
Your rights exist as a natural cohort to your existence. Whomever you conclude to be your creator, you have rights through that grant ("endowed"). Much like the old saw "I think therefore I am," (Rene Descartes), we might just say "I am, therefore I have rights." Though the Griswold Court strives to explain penumbras, the fact is that the rights we have collectively enumerated are "among these" rights. The right to privacy is perhaps therefore as fundamental as any?
As we progress in this age of ever-intrusive technology, perhaps we should stop periodically to consider how pervasive surveillance has become. What measure of our personal privacy will we each shed in exchange for the security or perception of security these cameras bring? Maybe it is that discussion that should be in the "public domain" more frequently for discussion? And, maybe we should wonder what the next generation may bring us if our complacency with these exceptional intrusions comes to it as normal or expected.
