| | |
|
JasmineBoviaSecondEssay 4 - 21 Jan 2024 - Main.EbenMoglen
|
| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="SecondEssay" |
|---|
Privacy and the Police | | | Before examining potential solutions, however, it seems important to acknowledge and resolve an expected argument against citizens’ ability to access public safety personnel’s real time communications: if organizations are generally granted a constitutional right to privacy in their communications, why should this right not similarly apply to the police? In truth, the answer lies in the fact that on-duty police officers are neither theoretically nor practically treated as private citizens or members of a private organization in nearly any other facet of the law. For example, in addition to the due process rights granted to private citizens during criminal legal proceedings, officers in fifteen states have a special, additional bill of rights relating to any prosecution they may face relating to their duties. Further, unlike private citizens and organizations, police generally benefit from enhanced protection under the doctrine of qualified immunity. Legally and practically, then, public safety officials have themselves become a special class of citizens requiring a specialized set of rights given the nature of their occupations; in short, police are not private citizens before the law. They thus should not be entitled to all of the rights afforded to private citizens or organizations, especially when considering the advanced protections they have at their disposal, and the power over private citizens that these specialized rights afford them. | |
>
> |
Obviously. This entirely misses the point I was making, however. If: (1) citizens and organizations have the right to use strong end-to-end encrypted communications, and will do so, and (2) there are compelling reasons why public safety personnel should have communications security in their work at least as strong as that which every citizen has a right to use, and (3) there are compelling reasons why you would certainly not want paramilitaries of your own operating insecure communications while those parties engaged in criminal violence communicated securely, which they have a constitutional right to do, what is the weight of the public's right to know (and see e.g. Houchins v. KQED, 438 US 1) that could possibly force insecure communications on the police?
| | | Broadcast Delay | | | Conclusion
While a continued public broadcasting of police transmissions is obviously ideal, a pragmatic approach to the NYPD’s proposed encryption system may be necessary to ensure civilians and oversight groups maintain the ability to keep a watchful eye over an historically corrupt department. While broadcast delays and access to transmission for accredited reporters are two potential compromises, they run their own risks and require, at minimum, amendment in order to be feasible, long-term answers. Overall, the continued inclusion of non-policing parties is tantamount to ensuring that the New York police department, for the small price of 500 million tax dollars, are unable to purchase complete obscurity from the watchful eye of its citizenry. | |
>
> |
If this is about making good public policy, why is there no overall summary of policy objectives and assessment of trade-offs? If this is about what police can be required to do by law regardless of whether it is good public policy, then the question I asked originally still must have an answer that is satisfying in order for us to conclude that there are any legal requirements at all. It is still the primary road to improvement here to come up with something, for there is still no argument whatever on that point.
| | | \ No newline at end of file |
|
|
|
|
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
|
|
| | |