>When you drive on public roads, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
False. Until the observer effect occurs, I - essentially - do not exist but as a record in a database. Someone who knows me, my car, or has the ability to ascertain who I am from identifiers on the vehicle, is able to collapse that sense of privacy but, until that happens, I am just one of the many of the nameless mass. In that, I have privacy and you would be hard-pressed to prove otherwise.
>Tinted windows which obscure the driver’s face are, to the best of my knowledge, illegal in most of the U.S.
False. Tinted windows which obscure the driver's view is illegal. It's perfectly legal for you to have a high iridescent finish on the outside of your tint, which will obstruct the outside view of the driver (in sunlight).
>...or using them in an otherwise illegal manner.
When - in the history of ever - has law enforcement never abused the resources afforded to them? Your credulous, at best, belief in law enforcement's use of the system largely ignores the prevailing example given in the article - which was that they used the system on someone who was under "suspicious circumstance". The "suspicious circumstance" bar is so low that even a two-dimensional being couldn't limbo under it.
Some might argue that since the agreements were made that the three-lettered agencies would only use them for criminal investigations, that the example of the "suspicious circumstance" that was given just now is in fact illegal.
> Your credulous, at best, belief in law enforcement's use of the system largely ignores the prevailing example given in the article
Law enforcement will always be a compromise. There will always be some who abuse it, and there will always be a need for it (if you want a reasonable level of civilization anyway). It's not binary. It's not "Give up all freedom and rights for infinite security" vs "Give up absolutely nothing for absolute freedom" with nothing in between. The line has to be drawn, but it is arbitrary, and a lot of people have different opinions on where it should be drawn (rightly so! there's not an obvious place to draw it).
We certainly have to be careful not to draw it too far on one side, but that doesn't mean it has to be completely on the other side.
Eg: I personally think it's too far to put surveillance cameras everywhere, but I'd be ok with cameras and facial recognitions on some major roads (they already have pictures associated with driver's licenses and various other documents for acceptable reasons).
Yeah, it might get abused sometimes, but everything can be. Everyone for themselves and hope for the best hasn't historically worked out so hot either. Law enforcement being completely neutered with zero tools and powers isn't very effective.
The problem with the compromise argument is that it only ever goes one way. We had certain law enforcement capabilities in 1965 and civilization didn't collapse. Why would we expect it to collapse if they had exactly the same capabilities today?
Whenever this argument is used, it's always to add new invasions. Databases that were never needed before, facial recognition that was never needed before. Why are they suddenly needed now, just because we can? Moving in only one direction over time isn't balance, it's marching toward a cliff. Meanwhile anything that does improve privacy, like encryption, is used as an excuse for new police powers as well.
It isn't necessary for law enforcement to catch everybody. And they wont anyway. Which is fine, because 99% of their purpose is deterring people from committing serious crimes, which they can do well enough without any fancy new technology.
You don't actually have to catch fugitives as long as being a fugitive ruins your life sufficiently that hardly anybody is willing to do it.
Today's compromise is tomorrow's status quo. Then a new compromise is needed so the government can solve some new problem that gets headlines precisely because it's as rare as lightning. Rinse and repeat till all our rights are washed away.
> False. Tinted windows which obscure the driver's view is illegal. It's perfectly legal for you to have a high iridescent finish on the outside of your tint, which will obstruct the outside view of the driver (in sunlight).
That's not true. Most states have a limit on reflectiveness. I checked Alabama and Wyoming (first and last alphabetically), and both specifically limit you to no more than 20% reflectivity by statute.
False. Until the observer effect occurs, I - essentially - do not exist but as a record in a database. Someone who knows me, my car, or has the ability to ascertain who I am from identifiers on the vehicle, is able to collapse that sense of privacy but, until that happens, I am just one of the many of the nameless mass. In that, I have privacy and you would be hard-pressed to prove otherwise.
>Tinted windows which obscure the driver’s face are, to the best of my knowledge, illegal in most of the U.S.
False. Tinted windows which obscure the driver's view is illegal. It's perfectly legal for you to have a high iridescent finish on the outside of your tint, which will obstruct the outside view of the driver (in sunlight).
>...or using them in an otherwise illegal manner.
When - in the history of ever - has law enforcement never abused the resources afforded to them? Your credulous, at best, belief in law enforcement's use of the system largely ignores the prevailing example given in the article - which was that they used the system on someone who was under "suspicious circumstance". The "suspicious circumstance" bar is so low that even a two-dimensional being couldn't limbo under it.
Some might argue that since the agreements were made that the three-lettered agencies would only use them for criminal investigations, that the example of the "suspicious circumstance" that was given just now is in fact illegal.