An investigation into the legal, political, and moral issues surrounding how the police and justice system use surveillance technology, asking the question: what are citizens of a free country willing to tolerate in the name of public safety?
The police now have unparalleled power at their fingertips: surveillance technology. Seamless, persistent, even permanent surveillance is available - sometimes already deployed, sometimes waiting for the right excuse. Automatic license-plate readers allow police to amass a granular record of where people go, when, and for how long. Drones give police eyes-and possibly weapons-in the skies. Facial recognition poses perhaps the most dire and lasting threat than any other technology. Algorithms purport to predict where and when crime will occur, and how big a risk a suspect has of re-offending. Tools can crack a device's encryption keys, rending all privacy protections useless.
Embedding himself with both police and...