The common reaction to surveillance seems to be similar to how we diet. We allow/validate a little bit of the negative agent, but try to limit it and then discuss endlessly how to keep the amount tamped down.
One aspect explored/hypothesized in Rainbows End, is what happens when surveillance becomes so ubiquitous that it's not a privilege of the "haves". I wonder if rather than "deflocking", the counter point is to surround every civic building with a raft of flock cameras that are in the public domain.
Just thinking the contrarian thoughts.
The last thing I want is only a few individuals having that data, whether it be governments, corporations, or billionaires and their meme-theme goon squads. Make it all accessible. Maybe if the public knows everyone (including their stalker/ex/rival) can track anyone, we'd be more hesitant to put all this tracking tech out there.
I feel like at some point we need to recognize the futility of solving this issue with technology. It is unstoppable. In the past we had the balls to regulate things like credit bureaus -- would we still do that today if given the choice?
We need to make blanket regulations that cover PII in all forms regardless of who is collecting it. Limits on how it can be used, transparency and control for citizens over their own PII, constitutional protections against the gov't doing an end run around the 4th amendment by using commercial data sources, etc.
Cool, change the First Amendment first. Your face and name aren't private under our existing framework of laws - no standard legislation can change this.
Doesn't mass surveillance plausibly violate the First Amendment, by having a chilling effect on speech and freedom of association? Or is the argument that it's private entities and the Constitution only limits the government?
Even in the latter case, at least we could do something about the government using private data collection to do things they are not otherwise permitted to do under the Constitution. That's some BS we should all be on board with stopping.
> Doesn't mass surveillance plausibly violate the First Amendment, by having a chilling effect on speech and freedom of association?
Plausibly, but no relevant case law I am aware of makes this interpretation.
We can prohibit the government from utilizing and collecting the data: absolutely, but you cannot prevent the people from doing the same.
That gets you as far as distributing the license plate, location, and time. But if you combine that data with other non-public data, then it is no longer a First Amendment protected use.
As an aside, if we cannot figure out a way to make this fit with the First Amendment as written today, we need to make updating that a priority already. The founders had no idea that we would end up with computers and cameras that could automatically track every citizen of the country with no effort and store it indefinitely. "No reasonable expectation of privacy" rests on a definition of reasonable that made sense in the 18th century. Our technological progress has changed that calculus.
This is a commonly echoed sentiment for the Second Amendment too ("These idiot founders! They could never have imagined so much individual power - We need to take rights away!"), and I am in hard disagreement for both.
I cherish the fact that our legal system is so intentionally slow that these types of "progressive" efforts to reform the Constitution are basically impossible.