Summary: Technology Vs. Individual Privacy

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Essay #1 The article “Kyllo v. United States: Technology v. Individual Privacy” by Thomas D. Colbridge is to inform us about the balance between individuals privacy and the government enforcing laws to give safety to the public. It is about the use of thermal imaging technology by the police in the case of Kyllo which goes against his Fourth Amendment which protects him against unreasonable searches and seizures. Since the search was unreasonable and it was never defined in the constitution, it needs much more interpretation for the case. The Kyllo Case essentially is the use of thermal imaging law enforcement used to find out indoor marijuana growing operations in Kyllo’s property. But in the end when it reached the Supreme Court the third time and was ruled that Kyllo was indeed under the protection of the Fourth Amendment.…show more content…
In another article “Trading Liberty for Illusions” by Wendy Kaminer, she talks about the use of facial recognition systems used in the airport of Tampa and it being installed in Boston, Providence, and Palm Beach due to frightened citizens in the aftermath of September 11. The use of this system in itself was found faulty. It couldn’t even recognize any suspected people but instead it made false positives which made errors in identifying anyone. This relates completely to the point of Kyllo’s case which shows that technology still needs more improvement and that it creates errors. For example, what if the thermal imaging shows that a certain house is hotter than other houses, but the police later find out that the equipment is not accurate. It could jeopardize its effectiveness. This in itself creates an illusion of people having liberty traded for false sense of security. (Kaminer) This brings me to my next point of another technology not working properly which violates our Fourth Amendment

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