Farivar’s Habeas Data is an interesting read that discusses what happens at the intersection of technology, government, and privacy.

Perhaps the most salient point for me is that the law is just simply not keeping up with the changes in technology. I am not sure that it can, honestly. Cases take time to work their way through the legal system. Something that was an issue in, say, 2015, might be resolved by the time the case is heard in an appellate court in 2018.

The geography of the Appellate court system adds to this problem. In the United States, we have twelve appellate courts, and they frequently make decisions that contradict one another, which forces cases to the Supreme Court, which also adds time.

Part of the problem here is that sometimes it’s difficult view the technology through the lens of the relevant parts of the Constitution, say, the Fourth Amendment,

For instance, in the Riley case, the lawyers representing the police claimed that finding photos on a cell phone was just like finding those same photos in the defendant’s pocket, that they were in plain sight and, therefore, a warrant wasn’t necessary.

The Supreme Court said otherwise, and I;m inclined to agree. The phone is there, but what is on it isn’t obvious at all.

Of course, this is just the United States. Other countries have different issues.

One thing that struck me early in the piece was the conflict between Google and Germany over Google Street View. Here in the United States, we didn’t bat an eye when Google drove around recording our streets. Germany had a huge problem with it. Google eventually dropped the project in Germany.

The author states that Germans put up greater resistance to large scale data gathering because of their historical experience with the Nazi government and the Stasi in East Germany. I wonder if this feeling is not just limited to Germany, but common across Europe, which would lead to being more receptive to the Right to be Forgotten.

But, again, in the Uhnited States, we have different issues. For instance, the amount of data the Oakland Police Department collected just with their license plate photography program.

They weren’t just tracking suspects, or recent parolees, they were tracking everyone. Which leads us to the question, “Do we want our habits to be that well-known?”

I would say probably not.

Law and technology is a fascinating. scary place.

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.