Sotomayor Concerned About Drones and Privacy, Says You Should Be Too

[unhappycamper]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/09/12/justice_sonia_sotomayor_says_drones_are_a_threat_to_personal_privacy.html



Sotomayor Concerned About Drones and Privacy, Says You Should Be Too
By Lily Hay Newman
Sept. 12 2014 2:14 PM



Justice Sonia Sotomayor told law students and faculty at Oklahoma City University on Thursday that Americans should be feeling very concerned about the potential for drones to compromise personal privacy.

According to the Wall Street Journal, she said she thinks that as drones become more ubiquitous, they will encroach on physical spaces that have traditionally been respected as private. And she emphasized that citizens should channel their concern into more active involvement in privacy debates nationwide.

There are drones flying over the air randomly that are recording everything that's happening on what we consider our private property. That type of technology has to stimulate us to think about what is it that we cherish in privacy and how far we want to protect it and from whom.

Sotomayor pointed out that while many current drone privacy discussions center on government surveillance, invasion of privacy by any group—including corporations or other private citizens—can be just as problematic, especially since there is technology available that allows drone operators to have not only eyes in the form of video feeds but also ears from advanced audio techniques focused on an area of interest.

[silverweb]

1. Especially as they get smaller.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Our military already has bug-sized drones. How long will it be before the bug drones are loosed on us? Who will own them? How will they be (or will they be at all) regulated?

Do you trust any government agency or their corporate contractors to respect your right to privacy at all? How long before they're used for stalking and personal vendettas?

[merrily]

2. I remember a story about Justice Brennan being concerned, too.

Brennan was another Justice (like Warren) who was nominated by Eisenhower and turned out to be more liberal than Eisenhower may have anticpated.

Be that as it may, I read that Brennan lowered his voice speaking to someone, noting that technology was allowing people from outdoors to listen to conversations occurring indoors. The fact that he supposedly lowered his voice, if true, would indicate that he thought people might be listening to his indoor conversations. Take that in. A justice of the Supreme Court, having a conversation indoors, lowered his voice (probably ineffective against the technology, but telling).

Almost a quarter of a century after Brennan left the Court, we hear from another supposedly liberal Supreme Court Justice that privacy is a concern.

If judges and justices aren't doing anything about it, but genuflect when they hear "National Security," what in hell am I supposed to do about it? Make sure I vote Democratic? Hello, I've done that all my adult life.

It's like Eisenhower, spending most of life in the military, some of it as a five star general, then spending 8 years as POTUS and CIC, doing zero to curb the MIC, "warning" Americans like me about the the MIC on the day he leaves an office where he could have done a lot to save us from the MIC.

Y'all clap louder if you want, but this is not news to me and I have no power to do anything about it anyway. I hope Sotomayor, unlike Brennan, does do something about it. Did I say hope?

[Pholus]

3. This is why drones get better federal protection than many citizens...

After all, some gun nuts decided to buy drones and shoot at them instead of skeet shooting and
THE FEDS QUICKLY SHOWED UP ALL SERIOUS-LIKE....

http://www.today.com/video/today/55895105

[bemildred]

4. The papparazzi will go nuts with drones for one thing. nt