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Comment by supportengineer | Hacker News Reader

It seems like this goes directly against the Constitution.

Just imagine what John Madison would think of the British red-coats doing this.

>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.

>The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Do you refer to the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution?

That prohibits unreasonable searches, but can the AI define what counts as "reasonable"?

I'm no constitutional scholar, or lawyer of any kind. But, I don't see how.

The closest thing seems like "searches and seizures". But none of that seems to be happening. That would probably be applicable if it was deployed on private roads or something.

Or maybe there's some other part of the constitution you had in mind.

Searching through a database of license plates to determine cause for a stop is plainly a warrantless search, SCOTUS is a dumpster who bend over backwards for LE but lets not pretend there's any merit to most of these decisions.

But it's not a search of the citizen. Presumably the owner of the database consents.

Pulling over the vehicle to search it on that basis is a search of the individual.

Yeah I hate what's happening, but I don't think it's unconstitutional (though I would strongly bet that the founders never could have imagined the capabilities that modern tech provides). It's more the equivalent of hiring billions of cops and having them watch every part of the road all the time and flagging when they see something "suspicious." I don't think the constitution would prohibit hiring billions of cops, if some jurisdiction were inclined to do such a thing. The mass surveillance is an extension of that principle.

> It's more the equivalent of hiring billions of cops and having them w

That itself would be unconstitutional. There is also the "spirit of the law" which is "you're not allowed to go digging around to find ways to violate these rights by inventing outlandish schemes that no one could imagine in the late 1700s".

When technology has no other effect than to cause the same result that might be accomplished by hiring billions of cops to watch everyone, then that effect itself is, without a doubt, unconstitutional.

> I don't think the constitution would prohibit hiring billions of cops, if

Why, though? That's the real question. Do you think the point of it was to just create a few hoops for the authorities to jump through, maybe for shits and giggles?

Why do you think this?

> That itself would be unconstitutional. > When technology has no other effect than to cause the same result that might be accomplished by hiring billions of cops to watch everyone, then that effect itself is, without a doubt, unconstitutional.

Which part of the Constitution would this violate?

> Why, though? That's the real question. Do you think the point of it was to just create a few hoops for the authorities to jump through, maybe for shits and giggles? Why do you think this?

I'm going to assume good faith on this question. The US Constitution mainly applies to the Federal government. The vast majority of these police units are at the state and local levels. The US Constitution enumerates the powers of the federal government, and then delegates all the remaining to the States.

In this case, they searched a person's car after the software system highlighted their behavior as suspicious. The constitutional issue would be whether the resulting search was reasonable or not.

We can agree that if the system was very poorly made and flagged 90% of drivers, then the flagging wouldn't constitute "probable cause" in a legal sense... so how good does the system have to be before we're willing to accept searches based solely on the system's recommendation?

Well no, they stopped him to investigate after the pattern recognition. They used a K9 who alerted. Turns out the system was right on the money because there was criminal activity.

The US constitution did not address the matter of privacy, but US legal tradition - over the centuries - has interpreted it to _imply_ such a right, or some kinds of privacy protection.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy#United_States

Also, The search part, and perhaps even the inspection of cars using the cameras, may be considered "unreasonable search" of the kind forbidden in the 4th amendment to the US constitution.

Still, remember that both law and policy are made by the state and applied by the state, in the service of state interests, which overlap the interests of subjects only to a limited extent. The US government already basically wiretaps most people's private communications (via Google, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft etc. - Snowden revelations) - so why not spy on people on the roads?

> But none of that seems to be happening.

Google civil asset forfeiture.

I'm aware of it. I'm opposed to the practice, and it seems unconstitutional to me.

But I wasn't talking about that.

The use case for this product is manufacturing suspicion. Perfect for increasing revenue from civil forfeiture.

Which part?

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