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.cb "TECHNOLOGY, CRIME, AND CIVIL LIBERTIES"

	Crime and civil liberties are related because measures to
control crime are often thought to infringe on civil liberty.  We
want to be sure that new ways of controlling crime leave the civil
liberties situation better than it was before.

	At any given level of law enforcement technology, the  practices
of enforcement agencies represent a compromise among several
considerations:  suppression of activities regarded  as  undesirable,
costs,  the convenience of the authorities, and civil liberties (i.e.
the right of citizens not to have their privacy invaded or  even  worse
to be wrongfully punished).  The matter is further complicated by the
fact that what activities are so undesirable as to  be  prevented  by
legal  means  depends  on  one's  point  of  view  which  is  further
influenced by one's position in society.

	It is not the purpose of this  essay  to  resolve  all  these
problems,  but  merely  to  point  out  how  technology  can make the
problems easier to solve.  In the main, we  shall  be  interested  in
ways  in which behavior that is universally agreed to be criminal can
be prevented while the civil liberties can be increased.

       	Perhaps the suggestions I give first, for preventing crime,
will make you nervous.  The subsequent suggestions, for preserving and
extending civil liberties, ought to make you feel better.


		         Violent Crime
 
	The  use  of guns for crime could be reduced by registering
guns, as often proposed.  The National Rifle Association has frequently
objected to this idea because they suspect that the next step after
registering all guns would be to impound all guns, and I suspect that
they're right-- most of the people who propose registration would indeed
like to confiscate guns.  I suggest a compromise.  Perhaps gun
enthusiasts would agree to register guns if they were given some concrete
reason not to fear confiscation.  (Like maybe we could add something to
the Bill of Rights about the right to bear arms?)

	It would be helpful to tag bullets with radioactive isotopes.  If
each box of bullets is tagged with 30 isotopes out of 30 pairs of isotopes
(one from each pair), then if a bullet is found in someone, it can be
determined who bought the box of bullets, provided sales of bullets are
registered.  Of course, illegal bullets could be manufactured,  but
criminals do not use a uniform kind of gun, and possession of untagged
bullets would be a crime.  Likewise, gun barrels should be rifled or
otherwise scored in an individualized way and the scoring registered when
the gun is manufactured so that if a fired bullet is found, the registered
owner of the gun can be determined.

	It would be good if the Government could obtain the co-operation
of the bullet manufacturers and put the marking system into effect without
notice so that the unmarked bullets would be flushed out of the system
before too many criminals noticed.

	It has been remarked that criminals could establish their own
bullet loading facilities and sell each other unmarked bullets.  This
would require the establishment of an additional underground industry
that would be subject to investigation and legal attack.

        Such a marking scheme is already under consideration for explosives,
and it is often possible to trace the origin of dynamite used in a bomb.

    	Guns are not involved in all violent crimes.  One of the largest
categories of violent crime is family fighting.  This is where the police
are most likely to get hurt.  It's one of the most prevalent crimes,
and will always be the hardest to prevent.  Keeping spouses from
slugging each other, brothers from killing each other, and so forth, is
always going to be hard.  However, technology could help in one category
of crime prevention which is presently almost completely ineffective---
enforcement of restraining orders.  The courts frequently issue
restraining orders making people liable to arrest if they do some thing
specifically forbidden in the order, like following their ex-wife, calling
their ex-husband, or trespassing on someone's property.  Then, if the
order is violated, the complainant usually calls the police and is told
that nothing can be done unless an officer actually witnesses the
violation.  Battered wives frequently get restraining orders against their
husbands, but rarely manage to get actual protection that way.  If these
orders were accompanied by the technology to detect infractions, many
violent confrontations could be avoided.  For example, if a person wearing
a movement tracer entered an area he had been ordered to avoid, the police
could be automatically alerted.  A telephone call in violation of an order
could be recorded.

	Hitch-hiking could be made safe both for the hitch-hiker and
and the person who picks him up.  This could be done if the transaction
was recorded in some way.  If the car automatically photographed its
passengers and transmitted the image for storage, then if either person
came to a bad end, the presence of the hitch-hiker in the car would be
discovered.  Even without this I think hitchhiking should be encouraged as
part of a more friendly society.

	The goal is that anyone, child or woman should be able to go
anywhere at any time with a high degree of safety from molestation.  This
could be accomplished by having the person carry a trackable device and
also having cameras record people crossing boundaries.  Then if something
happened to someone, it would be discoverable who was in the area at the
time.

	In this, we have to take into account the fact that crime is a
rare event.  Thus, the records taken are not inspected by humans unless a
crime has occurred.  This is what is currently done with the film in bank
cameras.  Further safeguards are required to protect people against
surveillance, namely, if a person is identified in a photo that is looked
at, then he gets to know about it, and gets to know what investigation it
was part of.


			         Theft

        We could cut down on theft by eliminating cash.  Paychecks have
practically eliminated  the  payroll  robbery which used to be the most
lucrative and easy kind of robbery.  The universal use  of  credit  cards
with photographs of the owner and credit checking terminals would make the
theft of cash into a minor problem.  If money were completely eliminated,
a robber would have to demand that his victim transfer
α$500 to account number 558 30 4793, leaving an easy-to-follow trail.
However, note that most taxis do not yet accept credit cards although this
is easy with present technology and would reduce the cash they have
to carry.
	
	Credit card companies charge businesses increasing amounts for their
services, and some small businesses have given up accepting some cards to
avoid incurring these charges.  Technologies and business practices would
have to be found to reduce these costs.  In general, credit card technology
requires improvement.  The imprinting machines currently used to make
charge slips, for example, ought to run a credit check at the same time.
Credit card numbers ought not to be visibly imprinted on the charge slip,
in order to make it hard for criminals to get hold of credit card numbers.
Ultimately, it would probably be best to eliminate charge slips and other
pieces of paper that clutter up such transactions.  This is already done
in the recent telephones that accept credit cards.

	If cash is  completely  eliminated,  then  even  private
financial  transactions  have  to  be  recorded and fencing of stolen
goods can be detected.  Criminals already have a hard time laundering
money, and this would make it much harder or impossible.

        If it is considered infeasible to eliminate money, an inexpensive
device to check and register serial numbers of bills can be attached to
cash registers.  The idea is that the bill is entered into the cash
register as in the slot of a change maker.  The serial number of the bill
is read and a call is automatically made to check the bill against a
list of hot money.  Outgoing bills are also registered.  A robbed
individual will be able to identify at least some of the stolen bills
by reporting what he can remember about his most recent transactions
with cash registers.

        Property registration like  that  required  for automobiles
could be extended to the kinds of expensive goods that are commonly stolen
such as TVs, hi-fis, cameras,or  expensive musical instruments. It would
then  be  illegal to possess or repair these items without proper
papers.  Registration should be simpler than it is for
cars, where the process is complicated by the government's wish to collect
taxes.  With the home terminal, registration could take place very quickly.
Alternatively, registration could be made and transferred by telephone
with no immediate verification.  A criminal could steal something
and reregister it in his name, but as soon as it was reported stolen,
he would be in trouble.
One could start by making registration optional with the initial
purchaser with the registered items being distinctively marked.
Subsequent purchasers would have to maintain the registration.  A
purchaser of a hi-fi, for example, would decide whether the trouble
of maintaining the registration would compensate for the reduced
attractiveness of theft.  He might also speculate on whether the
price he could get on resale would be more or less if the item were
registered.


		The Enforcement of Traffic Laws

	The two major sources of conflict between ordinary citizens
and the law are automobiles and taxes.  I discuss taxes elsewhere in the
section on increasing the productivity of bureaucracies.  Here are some
ideas for reducing the conflict around automobiles.

	The ultimate solution is computer driven cars, also discussed
in another chapter of this book.

	A major source of injustice and complaint is the erratic
nature of punishment of traffic infractions.  People see others getting
away with it and whether one is caught is a random variable with
high variance.  Also the punishments are more severe than they would
have to be if the probability of being caught were higher.

	Suppose that driver's licenses have the form of machine-readable
credit cards, that the car will go only if a license is in a slot
in the car, and suppose that a transponder in the car gives the
license of the car and of the driver when interrogated.  Moreover, the
speedometer of the car is recorded also, and finally the recording takes
place in the driven car as well as in the police car.  The numbers of
the police car and its driver are recorded as well as the readings of
the speedometer of the the police car and the reading of its radar.
Thus an objective record of the event is available to both parties.
Police cars carry television cameras and video tape loops.  When a
policeman sees an infraction he causes the video tape loop to be copied
onto a stored video tape along with relevant information such as the
speedometer reading of the police car and the automobile and drivers
license of the car he is following.  He can also warn the driver if
car-to-car communication is provided, but he doesn't have to stop it.
Some events can be recorded by roadside cameras also.

	This will vastly increase the productivity of the traffic police
and can also increase the level of evidence required to secure conviction.
It will no longer be the unsupported word of the policeman against 
that of the motorist.  If a tendency to gimmick the hardware is suspected
the hardware can be audited by civil rights organisations.  Since the
probability of detection of infractions is increased, much more use can
be made of warnings, and fines can be reduced.

	A means of car-to-car communication will also aid in traffic direction,
requests for directions, and in giving warnings.
	
	A related possibility is the wired cop.  A policeman on duty carries
a miniature sound recorder that records all sound in his presence.  When
technology permits, vision can be added.  The record will be availaable to
either side in a case.  Having such a record will permit higher standards
of proof, but one of its main benefits will be to assure police that crimes
they see will be prosecutable.  This will reduce their desire to make the
arrest process a punishment in itself.



	                  Civil rights

	How much civil liberty should people have?  This question  has
been much debated as civil rights have extended.  The traditional way
civil rights have been extended is to pretend that  the  rights  have
always existed and that a violation is being detected.  This obscures
the truth of the matter.  Namely, individuals  in  a  society  should
have all the civil rights society can afford, and these rights should
be extended as time goes on.

	Fears are often expressed about the danger of having data about
oneself and one's transactions in the hands of the government.  They'll say
they want it to protect me from crime, but what if they use it against me,
compiling dossiers for whatever reasons occur to them and spying on every
aspect of my life?  One way to lessen this worry is to make it a two-way
street.  Citizens ought to be able to spy on the government.  Has the
department spent that money yet?  Did they get competitive bids?  Is there
actually a regulation like the one the officer cited?

	Furthermore, if the government is spying on you, you should be able
to tell.  Everyone ought to be able to inspect their own records easily, which
would include the information, say, that the Treasury Department has been
looking at your bank records as part of a routine audit of giraffe breeders.
Your record would say who looked at what information, and what reason they
had for doing so.  Each inquiry would have a number, so that you could track
its progress.  Naturally, not everyone would have the right to look at your
records. There would be two categories of file, public and private.

	Part of the worry about abuse of police communication
systems and future surveillance systems can be relieved by 
arranging for these systems to be audited by civil rights
organisations.  First, civil rights organisations should have copies
of the programs and the right to verify that the programs they
have are the ones actually being used.  Second, all traffic on
the communication net, including all inquiries made, should be
dumped on tape drives in custody of the civil rights organisations.
This must include the authorization for each inquiry.  The civil
rights organisation has the right to make statistical studies
with the data and can get court orders to look at particular data when a
question of abuse of the system arises.
Any organization that will guarantee the security of the records
and go to the trouble can call itself a civil rights organization
for this purpose.

	I have two opinions as to why this isn't as serious a worry as it
might seem.  First, I don't think that dictatorships come about through
information-gathering, but through military power.  Second, I think that
all this worry about what people will do with all this information is
something of a superstition, like the belief that it's dangerous for an
enemy to have a hair of your head.

	While having information gathered about one is something that
anyone might worry about,  many of our civil rights are concerned with
unusual events.  Most people are never arrested, yet the right to trial
by jury, to have legal representation and so forth, are important parts
of the legal system, and most people would agree that these are important
protections.  I'd like to look at how techology can affect arrests and
convictions from the standpoint of increased civil liberty.

	The arrest of a person accused of a crime should  be  very
rare  even  for  murder.  As the world becomes more settled and the
technology  improves,  the  feasibility  of  running  away  declines.
Therefore,  the  accused  can  be  counted  on  in  most  cases to be
available for his trial.   Exceptions  might  be:  the  defendant  is
accused  of  attempting to injure someone and might still do it if he
were free; he is accused of failing to appear for trial.
The present practical objection is that delays in trial are so
great and so easy for a defendant to extend that many dangerous
activities such as dope peddling or systematic extortion would
continue without interruption if arrest always resulted in immediate
release on recognizance.

	Promptness of trial would fix this, but perhaps the state could
ask for a court order of temporary exile from a city for someone
whom they can show is ⊗probably dangerous.  They must pay this
person compensation while he is away and pay damages if he is not
convicted.

	A person on bail for a crime of violence must wear a locator and a
"bell" or a "night bell" or in extreme circumstances an immobilizer
triggered by a scream or a police whistle.

	An immediately feasible improvement is to require the police to
accept checks for bail.  The courts are in a better position to resent bad
checks thanany other institution in our society.  Making people spend a night 
in jail because they don't have cash for bail is part of making arrest a
punishment.

	⊗Jails for holding arrested persons should be separate  from
⊗prisons holding convicted persons.  A jail should be a hotel
with good services including entertainment  -  in keeping with  the  idea
that  the  person is presumed innocent until convicted. The custodial
agency should be independent of the police  or  the  prosecutor,  and
these  agencies  should  have no access to the prisoner if he doesn't
want to see them.  The prisoner should have full  rights  of  private
communication  with  anyone  including the right to use ciphers.  Any
exception should be based on a court order. It is not clear that  our
society  can  afford  this reform yet since the police depend on
control of prisoners for much of their evidence.  On balance, I think
we can afford it (certainly once the technologies proposed in this
chapter become available), and in any case it should be a goal
to be implemented as soon as alternate means of evidence collection
become available so that confessions and plea bargaining can be
dispensed with.

	Every institution including a prison develops a tradition.
In the case of a prison, this tradition is usually one of cynicism,
despair, individual selfishness and gang rule.  Attempts by reformers to make
other attitudes dominant sometimes have success in new institutions
with selected inmates and young, enthusiastic personnel, but eventually
cynicism among the inmates and personnel re-establishes itself and is
almost impossible to overcome.  This effect might be mitigated by
running prisons as batch processing rather than continuous institutions.
The idea is that a group of prisoners who will be released at about the
same time should be kept together and isolated from others.  The staff
will attempt to establish a good tradition in this group.  No prisoners
whose terms overlap the release date of the group will be put in it.
When the group is released, the facility becomes available for a new
batch.  This calls form numerous small prisons rather than a few large
ones.  Perhaps a number of states could share facilities in order to
put the prisoners into homogeneous groupings.
Any prisoner should have an absolute right of isolation from other
prisoners whom he fears.  This could prevent prison gangs from
intimidating other prisoners.

	A counterpart of making crime more difficult is making going
straight easier.  Once the country can afford to give each person a
base income independently of his working, people who cannot bring
themselves to work will have an alternative to crime.  Under present
circumstances, it might pay to pension released criminals at a rate
of pay less than it costs to keep them in prison.  If this were done
only for those who have spent five years in prison, there would be little
temptation to commit a crime in order to get a pension.
Society being able to afford it requires advances in the technology
of providing services comparable to those in providing material goods,
because social misfits require services at least as much as goods.

	In  general,  a  major  object in improving the technology of
crime prevention and detection is to be able  to  afford  more  civil
rights.

	These various anti-crime technologies may not be foolproof.  If
they were put into practice, ingenious criminals would come up with
ways to circumvent them.  Ingenious law enforcement experts would come
up with ways to forestall those.  But if crime can't be eliminated, it
can be reduced.  Most people would agree that earlier technological
innovations, like the padlock, have reduced crime.  Improved technology
can produce new categories of crime, like credit card theft, but should
still cut crime over all.