The law is a funny thing. There's laws. There's the constitution. There are courts. There are judges. There are processes. Many of these are intended to protect us. From the government. Some work. Some don't. In many cases we are being protected from the police, from heavy-handed law enforcement. Many folks today are concerned about a ubiquitous, pervasive surveillance state.
But is it? Is it a surveillance state? Flock's acolytes would say thee nay. They claim that their extensive hordes of cameras, their exhaustive data collection and processing is not surveillance, it is observation. You know, exactly like a cop standing on the sidewalk, taking down license plate numbers. An objective observer would see this for what it is. Bullshit. But, is it surveillance?
Legally, probably not. There is some merit, legally, to the notion that this is simply watching folks who have entered public areas, shedding any expectation of privacy. Then it gets tricky, because we're a quarter of the way through the 21st century. Past the Information Age. Filled with Digital Natives. And, the law, the Supreme Court, has caught up. There are precedents around Digital Tracking, and warrants are required to access records. Almost as if you have an expectation of privacy in your own person. And this includes geofencing. Geofencing is arguably exactly what that flock o' cameras, and the information collection behind it are doing.
It won't be long before this is argued. In court. Before a judge. Maybe even the Supreme Court, and if it makes it that far precedent suggest SCOTUS will not see this extensive data gathering as the legal equivalent of a cop with a pencil and pad. Maybe it is time for state and local governments to step up. Maybe they should establish requirements for warrant, even an administrative warrant, to perform Digital Tracking. As it turns out, the government does not have a Constitutional right to surveil us.
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