Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance
If we want to prevent ourselves from becoming silenced, compliant subjects in a corporatized society where everything we do passes through technology connected to a militarized surveillance grid, we should resist by declaring allegiance to all who dare defend their rights and freedoms by exercising them. Here are some suggestions for rolling back the surveillance state.
Starting with an examination of how computer technology is creating new places for social interaction, Greg Lastowka analogizes social and legal ordering to three different kinds of castles. The massive stone Welsh Cardiff Castle, Disney World’s corporate theme park fantasy Cinderella Castle, and th…
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A case involving Army spying on activists shows how some believe that expansion of civilian agencies’ authority imbues the military with the power to (1) engage in domestic law enforcement or (2) engage in the other abusive practices. The case was Panagacos v. Towery. My colleague Zak Wolfe and I wr…
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Digital detectives are becoming the frontline soldiers of law enforcement. The field of computer forensics is growing rapidly, with the demand for experts outpacing the need. Many hard-to-crack homicides and other felonies are solved on the basis of information unearthed by computer forensics expert…
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As a result, depending on the jurisdiction, an arresting officer may read a suspect one of a great number of differently written Miranda warnings. The warnings may vary even within a jurisdiction; in Pittsburgh, for example, there will be a different set of warnings depending on whether one is broug…
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Radio frequency identification, or RFID, technology is inching its way into our daily lives, often without our knowledge. Corporations have been working since 1999 to replace product bar codes with tiny electronic transmitters.
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In Police Interrogation and American Justice, Richard A. Leo presents a gripping indictment of what goes on behind the closed doors of police interrogation rooms. From psychological manipulation, to threats of harm and promises of leniency, to lengthy incommunicado questioning, all the way to outrig…
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The movie follows the Western genre, but with one difference—Hoffman doesn’t have a gun. Even staunch gun control advocates probably wish he had a pistol handy to intimidate the intruders and if need be, to fire in self-defense. That’s the reason that guns remain iconic for many Americans.
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When baseball stadiums—icons of Americana—are named after corporations instead of former coaches or presidents, the affect of big business in the public sphere is evident. Naming rights are sold to any entity that can bear a name, such as biomedical research centers and school locker rooms. As citie…
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Billie Holiday gave voice to Abel Meeropol’s 1937 poem “Strange Fruit,” which beautifully evoked the hideous imagery of lynchings. Perhaps no other work of art expressed the horrors of racism in the United States. Seven decades after “Strange Fruit” was written, two social commentators have rendered…
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Prosecutors claimed he was feigning insanity to avoid a prison sentence, while his attorneys said that he was mentally ill and incapable of running a crime family. The so-called “Oddfather“ was ultimately sentenced to prison on racketeering charges, and also pleaded guilty to feigning mental illness…
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No one knows this better than Henry Drake, who spent 12 years on death row after being falsely accused and convicted of killing a 76-year-old barber in Colbert, Georgia in 1975. The attorney representing the man who actually committed the crime knew of Mr. Drake’s innocence from conversations with h…
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Because of recent technological advances in forensics, audiences for these shows demand a more sophisticated lineup of techniques than they did in the days of Perry Mason and his sidekick, investigator Paul Drake. —But the tricks of the old-fashioned gumshoe still remain the hallmark of good legal p…
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