| Worry is not a finite resource. I am perfectly capable of worrying about all the petty crimes associated with mail delivery in addition to the infrastructure already in place to effect massive surveillance against suspicionless people at the press of a button. A mechanism for dragnet surveillance with practically nonexistent oversight is far more threatening to me than individual criminals. And while you may have some respect for yourself and your profession, you don't really have anything to do with this. The images are processed at the hub of the system built to automatically sort the mail, and diverting those images to permanent storage or a network pipe requires nearly zero additional capital investment. The only regulatory hurdle to prevent any cop in the U.S. from getting copies is a politely worded request, which does not necessarily need to be detailed or truthful. And once one cop has it, nothing prevents him from sharing it. There are already several nationally accessible systems in the U.S. run by a single county sheriff's department, sometimes as a means of evading federal data retention rules. We already know from media reports that such systems can be abused. Cops look up themselves, friends, enemies, family members, ex-spouses or ex-lovers, celebrities, journalists, politicians, or whomever else strikes their fancy. This bothers me for the same reason that widespread e-mail metadata collection bothers me. It is done with callous disregard to the expectation I have as a free man that if I live my life without any criminal intent, I should be largely invisible to the enforcer class. Innocents should have blank records in all those databases. Instead, I feel that everyone now has an individually numbered target painted on the backs of their heads. Any tool that can be used for legitimate police work can also be used for political oppression. I have no doubts whatsoever that the mail cover program has been used for purposes beyond fighting crimes with individualized suspicion against known suspects. |
<< I should be largely invisible to the enforcer class.
The genie is out of the bottle. My health suffers if I think and express myself like you just did, although very eloquently. My roots are academic but my current state is prole. (ever read Fussell's Class?" [1] It is WONDERFUL!)
<< far more threatening to me than individual criminals.
I disagree. If you ever lose a relative to a gun or a drunk or cocaine, then storing a googol of data on me is never as threatening.
<< Any tool that can be used for legitimate police work can also be used for political oppression.
Maybe because I am political only one day of the year (or 2, depending), the day I vote, I do not feel oppressed.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Class-Through-American-Status-System/d...