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Government surveillance ‘an insidious assault on the freedom of Americans’ |
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Written by Justin Hemlepp
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Tuesday, 11 March 2008 |
According to a University of Florida News Bureau press release:
Acts of government surveillance — from increasing use of closed-circuit televisions and global positioning systems to an array of sophisticated technologies that can access records about our activities — represent an insidious assault on the freedom of Americans that the law has failed to respond to, according to a new book from a University of Florida law professor.
“The Supreme Court of the United States and the court system generally are not involved in overseeing this new surveillance, not so much because of a power grab by the executive branch, but because the courts themselves have taken the judiciary out of the game,” said UF Levin College of Law professor Christopher Slobogin, author of “Privacy at Risk: The New Government Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment” (University of Chicago Press).
In his book, Slobogin writes, “The assault comes from government monitoring of our communications, actions and transactions. The failure results from the inability or unwillingness of courts and legislatures to recognize how pervasive and routine this government surveillance has become.”
To ensure that the government’s use of these powerful tools is not abused, Slobogin argues, something equally powerful — the Constitution, and in particular the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution — must stand guard. Slobogin’s book focuses on new developments in the government’s use of technology designed to observe our daily activities through physical surveillance and to peruse records of those activities.
In related news, another device that sees through your clothing has been invented by the British, long the masters of the Watchful Eye.
[UF News, Yahoo]
Justin Hemlepp, executive editor of TheSequitur.com, is a third-year law student. |
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