TRI In The News

McKenzie: Searching for Your Fourth Amendment Rights

January 31, 2012

From The Daily Progress

Hovering helicopters hack into your Wi-Fi.

Cameras scan your face as you walk to church, searching computer records to determine if you should be arrested.

The hummingbird outside of your window is gathering information on you for the authorities.

Dust particles sparkling in the sun’s rays transmit signals to offsite receivers, powered by the electromagnetic fields emanating from your TV and computers.

The future as seen by John W. Whitehead is frightening and closer than we think.

The head of the Albemarle County-based Rutherford Institute recently sent a missive warning that all of these things could be unleashed on We, the Unwitting, by Our Government. Without touching you or your property Our Government can subvert the Fourth Amendment ban on illegal search and seizure through science fiction-like electronic devices.

Mr. Whitehead is planning to push for an electronic bill of rights to protect We, the People, from becoming the Usual Suspects.

“It’s happening right now. There are many technological assaults on the Fourth Amendment. The newest thing that’s really scary is that they’re going to have mini-metal detectors carried by police officers in New York and, when they walk by you and your big set of keys sets it off, they can stop you, question you and search you,” Mr. Whitehead said. “We’ve already had drones flying above the cities and in regular use by police departments and customs officials.”

It’s natural that he’s sounding an alarm, for Mr. Whitehead is an activist. He’s the power behind the nonprofit civil liberties organization that provides legal assistance to individuals fighting in court for their constitutional rights. Recently he helped to convince the U.S. Supreme Court that police need to get a warrant before attaching a satellite tracking device to you and following your every move.

But the decision doesn’t go far enough, Mr. Whitehead insists. The Man can’t tack a bug on your bumper, but it does nothing to address other ways He can search, spy and follow you without a judge’s permission.

Ways such as Smart Dust, tiny transmitters the size of dust motes that work together in a network to sense everything from temperature to movement, powered by background electromagnetic radiation. It’s not science fiction or an activist’s fanciful imagination: Smart Dust has been under development for nearly 20 years.

The tiny surveillance drone disguised as a hummingbird recently appeared on the cover of national magazines and there have been reports of dragonfly-like drones keeping eyes on Washington protesters.

Florida police departments already scan the faces of passersby so software can ferret out terrorists and criminals and other ne’er-do-wells.

Small drones exist today that can hover around your home, hacking into Wi-Fi systems, stringing them together and using them as the drone’s operator wishes. The operator can send out annoying emails from the Wi-Fi system or monitor what’s being written on computers, sent via email or surfed on the net.

“Technology is driving everything and it’s becoming a system of its own. To a hammer, all the world looks like a nail. To a surveillance drone, everyone looks like a suspect,” Mr. Whitehead said. “With drones, you’re a suspect until whoever is operating it clears you. You can be under surveillance from blocks away, even a mile away.”

In the near future, that could be trouble. AeroVironment Inc., which makes many of the drones used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, has developed the aptly named Switchblade, a hovering munition that can be carried in a backpack, launched and controlled by software to silently find, spy and, with “precision strike capability” and “minimum collateral effects,” kill a terrorist, armed criminal or whoever upsets the drone’s operator.

The idea that The Government spies on our emails, texts and cell phone conversations has long been accepted as truth. In 1998, the National Security Agency admitted that it had more than 1,000 pages of classified information about Princess Diana gathered before her death. The agency said the princess’ dossier was inadvertently obtained and she was never a target, but refused to release the information, saying it would compromise national security by exposing how it was gathered.

“The only way I can see to make sure that technology doesn’t effectively destroy the Fourth Amendment is passing an electronic bill of rights forbidding the government from using these devices without properly attained warrants,” Mr. Whitehead said. “Without some kind of law, there are no protections. The Fourth Amendment isn’t dead yet, but it’s on life-support.”