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MadhuPochaFirstPaper 4 - 13 May 2008 - Main.MadhuPocha
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| | | -- By MadhuPocha - 27 Mar 2008 | |
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< | Few people have heard of Jeff Jonas, a man whose work has helped transform Las Vegas into an urban panopticon. Jonas created NORA – Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness – as a way to help casinos detect cheaters who were using aliases or colluding with casino employees. In addition to thousands of cameras, RFID tags embedded in casino chips, and facial recognition software, NORA represents another layer of surveillance that threatens privacy rights far beyond the casino doors of Las Vegas. | >
> | Few people have heard of Jeff Jonas, a man whose work has helped transform Las Vegas into an urban panopticon. Jonas created NORA – Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness – as a way to help casinos detect cheaters who were using aliases or colluding with casino employees. In addition to thousands of cameras, RFID tags embedded in casino chips, and facial recognition software, NORA represents another layer of surveillance that threatens privacy rights far beyond the casino doors of Las Vegas. | | | The constant monitoring and tracking of gamblers and revelers has caught the eye of the federal government. Jonas began sharing NORA with the Pentagon in 2002 and other technologies used by Vegas casinos have also been acquired by the military and federal agencies. More alarmingly, constant surveillance has produced a treasure trove of data on the nearly 40 million people who visit Vegas every year. The government has shown in an interest in acquiring such information, and has even demanded, as the FBI did in 2003, for access to customer data collected by casinos, rental-car agencies, and airlines. Most companies capitulated in December 2003, when the FBI alleged that there was a credible threat of a terrorist attack, but the data notably produced no leads. | | |
The likelihood of legislation to expand privacy rights or successful privacy and autonomy claims under the Ninth Amendment is uncertain, but this is why a two-fold approach is necessary. While the courts might not be inclined to give full effect to the Ninth Amendment, Congress might be convinced to do so (or at least partially). And though litigation success seems unlikely, it could help galvanize national support for comprehensive privacy legislation. Ultimately, I am not optimistic that all of the needed privacy protections will come about through judicial and legislative action at this time. But it is clear that we must do more to raise the public’s awareness of the dangers we face when we are at play (and thus least aware of surveillance and its uses by the recipients of our entertainment dollars), and the need for averting ever greater intrusions into our lives by private entities and the government. | |
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