Chapter 9 Page 474 of Computer Science and Overview by J. Glenn Brookshear states that:
1. Should Law enforcement agencies be given access to o databases for the purpose of identifying individuals with criminal tendencies even though the individuals might have not committed a crime?
The question of ethics regarding the safety of the few versus the safety of the many is a complex one with a long and well publicized history. The recent increase in the powers of the “Department of Homeland Security” (Wagner)i; have created a fervor over the increase of these agencies prevue into our privacy and brought to question the American citizen’s civil liberties and rights to privacy.
The notion of a double standard where almost any government agency may utilize its mandate as a means to bypass the legal process of writ and warrant has become the basis for many articles both online and in print. (Doctorow)ii Organizations such as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) are seeking to increase their own powers to pursue and utilize independent private databases as a means to persecute “suspected” persons in civil matters.(McCullugh)iii Up to this date they have included a 94 year old woman and a printer; sued for file sharing.
Law enforcement agencies have a role to play in society at large; that is to uphold the law and maintain peace and order within a civil society. However they like any other organization public or otherwise have to, by regulation and in some cases LAW; respect people’s privacy.
Within Ontario (as I am not an American) the legal regulations for the mentally ill do not require them to register publically; nor do local law enforcement agencies have the right to access public databases within Health Canada to see if a suspect has a mental disorder. Although this “Database of potential criminal’s” would be beneficial; the local Ontario government (as well as the federal Canadian government) value an individual’s privacy as a matter of policy; however in the light of recent global terrorist threats this attitude is changing.
Pierre Trudeau once stated that “The state has no business in the bedroom”; he was referring to gay marriage at the time; but he meant that federal policy and law has no reason to involve itself with religious bias and that religion and state should always be separate.
Benjamin Franklin once stated that “Those who give up Essential Liberty for Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”; at the time he and the founding fathers were engaged in a grass roots political revolution that eventually led to the first American civil war. By today’s standards they were by all means terrorists.
Let us for a moment consider the idea that if Ben was a political activist today; he would have been profiled by a number of institutions most notably the FBI and DHS; possibly brought in as an Enemy combatant and taken to Gitmo for further “Questioning” as his plans were to overthrow the current government by any means necessary; potentially involving water boarding and other questionable techniques.
The largest law suit regarding privacy in the united states at the moment is between the EFF and ACLU; they are suing Verzion, BellSouth and AT&T for illegally allowing the NSA to commit wiretaps on private phone lines on an as needed basis and without warrants; specifically for violations of privacy dating back to 1934; which was the same year the national phone system was implemented. (Bangeman)iv. This suit involves both the illegal monitoring of client data and the use of these institutions databases by said government agencies.
The ability to rule thought is a fascist’s dictators or oppressive regimes dream; part of implementing it is to profile your populace and then utilize propaganda to modify their opinions. Modern examples include China, North Korea, Iran and a few others. Propaganda is the reality of the modern world: The ongoing wars of ideas are as important to the development of society as water, air or shelter.
Law enforcement agencies are subject to the same errors as any other; where the potential for abuse exists it must be limited and mitigated accordingly.
Where the intent may be good but the outcome is often a violation of the individual’s rights.
Legal Agencies should not have unwarranted access to information; they should by law require warrants and writ’s subject to legal prevue prior to being granted access to anyone else’s data; corporate or otherwise; and the case requirements should be a lot thicker than “probable cause”.
The notion of being innocent until proven guilty is at the heart of criminal law; as such one should be proven before a judge to be a suspect of reasonable cause before a legal agency may access said suspects personal information: this process should be public and transparent however it is not; since legal utilities like the “Public Secret’s Act” in the United States and the “National Secrets Act” in Canada may allow these institutions to place restrictions on both Legal oversight and public transparency to any of these processes. Similar act’s exist in all G7 member nations.
We cannot as a “free society” deny the individual right to free thought; this includes political dissent in any non-violent form; as such allowing any agency anonymous access to a 3rd party individual’s information should be a grievous violation of both the law and public trust and should carry very stiff jail time for those involved; however in this modern time we often think of ethical considerations as an aftermath of the act deemed necessary for public safety.
Hyeak published “The road to Serfdom” in 1944 as a treatise on how the Nazis in Germany came to power and it often has an eerie familiarity with the laws regarding wiretap, the digital millennium copyright law (C-61 in Canada), and many others currently being instituted by government agencies under the idea of keeping the public safe. “I robot” is another good example of safety gone awry.
I for one maintain the hope that we the people see the forest from the trees.
i Wagner, Mitch (Information Week, August 4th 2008) Homeland Security: all your laptops are belong to us, [Online] World Wide Web, Available From:
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/08/homeland_securi_2.html
(Accessed on November 13th 2008)
ii Doctorow, Cory (Boing Boing, February 24th 2008) Government and corporate employees engage in an "epidemic" of snooping into databases [Online] World Wide Web, Available From:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/24/government-and-corpo.html
(Accessed on November 13th 2008)
iii McCullugh, Dean (Cnet News, September 11th 2005) RIAA, MPAA resume lobbying push to expand copyright law [Online] World Wide Web, Available From:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10039238-38.html
(Accessed on November 13th 2008)
iv Bangman, Eric (ArsTechnica, May 15th 2006) Wiretap update: big three telecoms sued while government invokes state secrets, [Online] World Wide Web, Available From:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060515-6829.html
(Accessed on November 13th 2008)
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