Electronic Surveillance: Good and Bad Sides

Reason Contributing Editor Julian Sanchez has written at length for us (see his classic 2007 cover story "The Pinpoint Search") and elsewhere on the legal and practical intricacies and complications of a world of high-tech electronic surveillance.

This week he writes a revealingly ironic, nuanced and detailed account of how some of those very same tools he is concerned about in some contexts might be used to help find the person who burgled him the other day in D.C. The thief definitely used one stolen item (a Metro card) and will likely use another (a Sony PS3) that could, in the high-tech world of tomorrow today, be used to track him down. Burglars and the burgled alike will learn valuable information from the article.

Comments

[Montani Semper Liberi]

I hope they find the burglar so that Julian can have some closure.

[smartass sob]

Julian has my sympathies - my home was burgled once, twenty something years ago - so I have an idea how he feels.

[Pro Libertate]

A PS3, huh? In my family, my brother and my dad have PS3s; I'm the renegade with the Xbox 360.

Sucks getting burgled. Hope they catch the guy and retrieve the stuff.

[?]

"Fake libertarian is fake" isn't ironic.

[wylie]

Reason #42 why PCs are better than consoles: too much for a burglar to carry.

[J_L_B]

Property crimes is one area where I plead for draconian sentencing. I wouldn't mind 25 to life first offense for the thugs who do this.

[Dwight Schrute]

This is why I booby-trap all my stuff.

[Tulpa]

Pervasive electronic surveillance in public places would be a good thing, so long as access is unrestricted.

How Reason can keep (correctly) complaining about police trying to stop people from filming them and then turn around and complain about widespread surveillance is beyond me.

[cynical]

Because surveillance is a tool of tyranny and sousveillance is a tool to prevent tyranny?

[Kolohe]

Even if caught, Julian Sanchez is not going the fuck that burgler.

[Abdul]

A neighbor of ours had her car broken into. the thief took the GPS and all of the gift cards she kept in the car. I thought the greatest injustice is that the thief was probably using the GPS to find the nearest Outback Steakhouse to enjoy a blooming onion on her gift card.

I never understood why GPS devices, which are a high-target item in car-break-ins, don't have a built in "lo-jack" function. I mean, the whole poit of the device is to track where the frigging device is on the earth at any given time.

[Dello]

Sympathies to Sanchez, but seriously, anti-burglar systems are cheaper and better than ever (speaking of our hi-tech world). Why ANYONE wouldn't have one (one that actually defends the property, in fact) is beyond me, save for that "It won't happen to me" mindset.

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