Secret surveillance in Baltimore and Dayton (and elsewhere?)

I listen to a lot of podcasts. Some, like Alec Baldwin's "Here's the Thing," I listen to solely because I find them interesting. Others, like Planet Money, are both interesting and directly relevant to my teaching. I even assign them sometimes (like this one on debt collection). Radiolab is one of my general interest podcasts. For those who are unfamiliar, Radiolab describe themselves as "a show about curiosity." Their episodes often have a scientific edge to them, like their excellent episode about CRISPR.

This morning, I listened to an update called Eye in the Sky and thought that Prawfsblawg readers might be interested. As described by Radiolab, the story is about a man and his superpower: Ross McNutt can "zoom in on everyday life, then rewind and fast-forward to solve crimes in a shutter-flash." Ross McNutt's company, Persistent Surveillance Systems, has used high-flying aircraft to secretly record hundreds of hours of ordinary life in major U.S. cities, such as Dayton and Baltimore. The company reportedly uses a cluster of cameras mounted to its airplanes that allows it to snap a series of digital photographs over a 32-square-mile area. In a city like Dayton, that means that one plane can effectively monitor half the city at a time. Once a crime is reported, McNutt's company will scan backwards through their saved images until they reach the time the crime was committed and then can scan forward through the saved images to see where the alleged perpetrator goes. McNutt's company can then report that location to the police, who can make an arrest, if appropriate. This is just one of the technology's many features.

I'm not a constitutional scholar and so I present this merely as an interesting FYI. Or maybe its more appropriate to describe it as an ICYMI, since the story is not brand new. Nevertheless, I thought that folks might be interested in talking about the implications of this technology. At a community forum in Baltimore, apparently 25% of the ~70 people in attendance were very much in favor, 60% had questions or concerns, and 15% thought this technology represented something like an "existential threat to democracy, civil liberties and Constitutional rights." If it helps, the Fourth Amendment reads: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."