What threats to individual rights might advanced technology create? Will our standards as to what constitutes admissible evidence, what is reasonable privacy, and so on undergo a significant reevaluation as a result of emerging technologies?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

In this information age, the obvious threat is to the privacy of the individual. Many believe it is already too late because somebody, somewhere, has likely already created a comprehensive database containing your entire life in a thousand or so bytes. Might this be paranoia or simply an accurate assessment of reality? Here is an interesting scenario: A business competitor obtains damaging information about you, including evidence of your participation in a criminal activity. Seeking to eliminate you as a threat to his business, he posts the information on the Internet. A police investigator, after seeing the information on the Net, arrests you for the crime you committed. Can the investigator argue the admissibility of the evidence he or she found on the Internet on grounds that it was in the public domain? This scenario illustrates what lies ahead for investigators, courts, and ordinary citizens who may be victimized by the posting of false and malicious information that leads to their arrest. Technological advances will continue to yield dramatic improvements in all aspects of American life, including the functioning of the criminal justice system. But they also have tremendous potential for spawning nightmarish confusion that is incapable of being unraveled, with devastating consequences for the innocent.