PRIVATE PARTS

Quis custodiet custodes ipsos?
("Who watches the watchers?")

Privacy has become a central issue in the affairs of U.S. citizens as of late and I felt the need to take a closer look at the whole area. Public surveillance by police departments and other government agencies has expanded in leaps and bounds recently. New York, Chicago, Baltimore, etc., and cities all across the nation have installed, and plan to install, 1000s upon 1000s of video cameras throughout the cities.

It occurred to me that Privacy could be broken into three major considerations:

Legality – What is the legal definition of Public vs. Private.

Personal Feelings – Regardless of the law or other moral/ethical concerns how does it make one feel to be surveilled.

Ethics – What are the intentions of those doing the spying/surveilling? Do they have the best interest of the citizenry at heart or are there other motives?

Legality

What exactly is the Public domain for surveillance? It is generally considered OK to train cameras on people in public streets, malls, parking lots, etc. Security cameras pointed at the building being secured is generally OK, but if it is pointed at the surrounding neighborhood, it may be a problem. I was unable to find a clear definition of public in this context; it seems a little fuzzy. For example, one police department considers it fine to point the cameras at streets, but considers it crossing the line to point it at windows in high rises. So where exactly is the ‘public’ area where it OK to observe and record video and audio of citizens. How about restaurants and bars? They are privately owned but publicly visited. How about the restrooms in the Federal Building? Public property, but is it private? What about if you leave your window shades open in your house? Does that qualify as an invitation to be observed by video? There are audio devices that can zero in on a particular location at a very long distance. There are satellites that can presumably take a picture of any location on planet surface. Can these be used? What about in your car? You are in public streets so is anything that goes on inside the car up for government grabs? Do the same rules apply to citizens surveilling government officials as to government agents surveilling citizens? There are hundreds more questions like these, and I am not sure the legality has really been defined. If there were definitely boundaries of where we cannot be surveilled, it would be interesting to see the government define these? I know that it was considered illegal to use very good encryption on messages and files on the Internet. It is categorized in the same section of law as using munitions. I also read that it is illegal to insulate your house walls with tin foil, since it ‘foils’ efforts to use high-tech electro-magnetic sensing devices. Intelligence agencies already have access to our phone conversations, and Internet emails and activities. Just where is the line drawn?

So what is the point to Privacy anyway? Cardinal Richelieu once said concerning surveillance, “If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." The idea is that if you watch someone long enough, eventually you will find something to prosecute, or at least blackmail them with. Privacy helps keep the powers in check, and those using their powers from corruption. It helps prevent abuse when we are doing nothing wrong.

“A future in which privacy would face constant assault was so alien to the framers of the Constitution that it never occurred to them to call out privacy as an explicit right. Privacy was inherent to the nobility of their being and their cause. Of course being watched in your own home was unreasonable. Watching at all was an act so unseemly as to be inconceivable among gentlemen in their day. You watched convicted criminals, not free citizens. You ruled your own home. It's intrinsic to the concept of liberty.”
–Bruce Schneier - Wired

Personal Feelings

Think of a world in which we are constantly observed. How does it make you feel? It would make me feel like I might be judged, corrected, censored, and criticized at any time. I would feel like I would have to watch everything I say. There is nothing wrong with making love to my wife, or visiting the head, yet I would wonder if someone were watching or listening in. I would feel like a child under the eyes of a watchful parent, only the parent has become governmental authority. I would feel like whatever actions I take may come back to haunt me. I would feel inhibited in being my self, like losing my individuality for fear of retribution. How would you like it to be talking, and in the middle of a conversation and stop suddenly to wonder if you were being eavesdropped on?

All of this feels like a loss of Freedom. It feels like what I would imagine Nazi Germany to have felt like. It feels like what I was told it was like in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. It feels like giving up liberty to authoritarian control.

“No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets.” - Edward Abbey

Ethics

What are the motives of those doing the watching and eavesdropping? We are told it is to protect us from criminals and terrorists. But why is it necessary to bypass previous laws that required a court order and probable cause? By circumventing these laws, it allows the ones doing the watching to hide their true motives. Has it ever happened that eavesdropping has been done for less than honorable purposes? You betcha, and plenty of it has occurred. J. Edgar Hoover had files on virtually anyone who appeared in public. Do you think politicians have ever been blackmailed with secretly collected data? I think with little research you will find there is a huge huge potential for unethical use of the data collected. So the question arises, should any attempt be made to judge the ethical intent of spying on citizens? Should those in power, such as government agencies, have limitations and restrictions or how they gather data about citizens? Because anyone can go to a sporting event with a camera, does that mean we should pay government agents to take pictures of our citizenry, with no restrictions?

“Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.”
–Bruce Schneier – Wired

No matter which of the three viewpoints from which I choose to look at the issue, I guess I just don’t being like being watched without my consent.