ACLU Sues FBI, DOJ Over Facial-Recognition Technology, Criticizing 'Unprecedented' Surveillance and Secrecy (washingtonpost.com) 28
The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday sued the Justice Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI for records detailing their use of facial-recognition software, arguing that the agencies have secretly implemented a nationwide surveillance technology that threatens Americans' privacy and civil rights. From a report: ACLU attorneys asked a federal court in Massachusetts to order the agencies to release documents about how the government uses and audits the software, how officials have communicated with companies that provide the software, and what internal guidelines and safeguards regulate its use. "These technologies have the potential to enable undetectable, persistent, and suspicion-less surveillance on an unprecedented scale," the attorneys wrote. "Such surveillance would permit the government to pervasively track people's movements and associations in ways that threaten core constitutional values."
We need a new Constitutional Amendment (Score:5, Interesting)
If privacy matters.
Privacy isn't really in the US Constitution. That said, I'm not against cameras (I call my dash-cam the "The Ticket Maker", some people shouldn't be driving). I want footage of someone breaking into my house (or a business).
Adding a new Amendment, loosely based on the 4th Amendment, allowing for public recordings, but requiring probable cause to search such for an individual sounds like a good solution. And I'm fine with facial recognition at that point based on a warrant.
Something like this:
The right of the people to have public privacy from all government agencies, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the places to be monitored, and the persons or things to be tracked.
It's already in there (Score:4, Informative)
People have this mistaken belief that the Constitution tells us what rights we have. It doesn't. It lists the powers government has. Anything not explicitly listed in it is not a power the government has, and thus a right reserved for the people (or the states). In other words, we're not limited to the rights listed in the Constitution. We have every right under the sun that we can think of, unless the Constitution explicitly says the government is allowed to transgress that right. Likewise, the government has no power to do anything, unless the Constitution explicitly says the government is allowed to do it.
The first ten Amendments were added not to give the People rights, but to remind government not to transgress those rights in particular. Unfortunately, people misinterpret the presence of the Bill of Rights as meaning our rights come from this document. They don't. They're intrinsic, inalienable rights which we all have by living and breathing. The founding fathers actually considered not including the Bill of Rights because they were afraid it would cause this very misconception. Their thinking is spelled out clearly in the Declaration of Independence.
Unfortunately, the Commerce Clause [wikipedia.org] has been abused to so broadly expand the Federal government's powers, that many, perhaps even most people today, now think that we don't have a right unless it's listed in the Constitution. That's not how it works. We already have an intrinsic right to privacy. The government can only violate that right in cases where the Constitution allows it.
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The Tenth Amendment
The Tenth Amendment has the opposite effect that you claim. A literal reading prohibits the federal government from interfering in state and local collection of data.
Roe v. Wade was based on a "right to privacy". Yet constitutional literalists argue that the ruling is a violation of the Tenth Amendment because abortion is not an enumerated responsibility of the federal government.
If you want a right to privacy, and you want it to apply to all levels of government, then a constitutional amendment is the wa
privacy not privacy (Score:1)
the right to privacy in Roe v Wade is not the "secretive" meaning, it's the philosophical meaning... something that adhere's necessarily to one person. For example, the right to decide who you like. I think of it as the "prih-vacy" rather than "pry-vacy" meaning.
Dictionary.com shows it as the (3) definition for "Brittish Dictionary Definitions for 'Privacy'"
"the condition of being necessarily restricted to a single person"
I think this has confused a lot of people b/c they think that abortion was made from
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The main thing the Tenth Amendment does is grant the states the bulk of the governing powers, which is why most laws you are required to obey day to day are state laws that, if violated, are prosecuted in state courts and argued by state lawyers who passed the state bar. The exceptions t
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ACLU what a joke (Score:2)
There was a time when I was a member of the ACLU until they joined the crazy left.
Just my 2 cents
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Your two cents are textbook ad hominem.
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You mean after Charlotesville? (Score:1)
who they defended, but after which they said, maybe not, you can't trust inherently violent ideologies.
Maybe the ACLU would appeal to you more if there were any conservative lawyers anywhere that wanted to actually protect everyone's free speech, as opposed to just the right to say "Jews will not replace us".
Re: ACLU what a joke (Score:1)
If ACLU is a joke it's because they cherrypick the bill of rights, and they justify said cherrypicking with some lie that plain English doesn't mean what it says.
The idea behind the ACLU is awesome, the implementation often leaves some to be desired.
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You mean until some slimeball like Trump decides to use the recognition for political purposes. It isn't as though he gives a rat's ass about the law or rules.
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The illegal migrants who share/buy/use/get given photo ID.
Make the wider use of city and sanctuary state photo ID for illegal migrants useless.
Detected in a war zone? Got a criminal past globally? No entering the USA. No staying in the USA.
Facial-recognition software at a national level will catch up with all illegal migrants and other criminals.
People at war trying to get into the USA with new/fake EU nation/UN issued ID.
We need to end CU and Privacy Invasion (Score:3)
Thou shalt not quarter any government troops in our data or metadata, or let artificial "persons" like corporations steal from us.
Re: We need to end CU and Privacy Invasion (Score:1)
I think most people suck at being stewards of their own time and do not want freedom or privacy. We usually call that third-world. Its an all or nothing proposition. I'll take a first-world existence thank you.
Re: We need to end CU and Privacy Invasion (Score:1)
*many.. Not most...
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The USA is no longer First World. Pay attention.
Re: We need to end CU and Privacy Invasion (Score:1)
The first-world is still intact, but you are free to define your own perspective.
Don't get me wrong, third-world is still human, but I have no interest in adopting their culture, traditions or way of "life".
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If you gave them an inch, they probably took a mile.
The First World uses centimeters and kilometers, actually
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