Surveillance by the government has existed before our Constitution even existed. Our Founding Fathers expressed in the Bill of Rights the fear of government power over individual rights and privacy. Our First Amendments Rights of freedom of speech, assembly and religion along with the Fourth Amendment Rights against search and seizure are all threatened by overuse of surveillance. Surveillance was made easier by the necessary need for the government to keep track of its populations’ numbers, locations and needs. As the government helped more people (The New Deal, Medicare, etc.) more information was needed. Then as technology advanced and data-collecting became easier, even more information was gathered and could be used. Unfortunately, as this all increased, there were not always included laws and regulations that protected the rights of individuals nor were there always ways of citizen oversight to protect our constitutional rights.
San Diego, as both a military and border town, needs to be ever more vigilant that surveillance tools that are easily accessible are not overused. There is a delicate balance between the need to detect crimes and the need for privacy, which often favors the former when fear is heightened. There is also the issue of private businesses creating technology that is sold to government agencies with the main goal of profit rather than protecting individuals. Salesmanship may hide the lack of effectiveness of surveillance tools.We saw very little proof that the expectations of the technology met with their actual performance on some of these tools. We suggest that there be oversight, public awareness and data collected that would demonstrate to elected officials that any surveillance of the public is effective, cost-efficient and respectful of individual rights. We believe that we should always be failing on the side of less surveillance than more.
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