Tech & Law Issues Valid But Miss Forest For Trees

Aside from pulling out specific laws that need change, which you skirt — breathtaking in scope, albeit needing undertaking unlikely to occur beyond traditional case law — your fear mongering misses reality. Couple of points:

1. Despite media lust for spectacular events — if it bleeds it leads — the number of instances for such a militarized approach is insignificant.
2. Suggesting, as you do, that such an approach, in some form, might be used “by the police in your neighbourhood? Without a trial” is dangerously off the mark. Indeed, the events in Ferguson, Missouri where this occurred has become a case study in what NOT to do.
3. Police abuse is a hot issue, and rightly so for the African-American community and other minorities, But the technology employed is a old and basic. The real problem is bad recruiting and training, not new tech. Any imagined AI-type Robocop is, at a minimum decades away.
4. Most common crime police are involved in — by a mile — is domestic abuse and new tech you outline will not have any impact in this area.
5. Law enforcement is smart and organized. The only way to cope with radical or deranged violence is prevention and preemption, not after the fact with cool tech. While surveillance state and Minority Report pre-crime approaches are abhorrent, this is the direction.
6. Issues related to encryption and algorithms are key. Encryption is a losing issue for police so algorithms will be refined and surveillance state is where we are head.

My Medium publication, A Passion to Evolve, has numerous articles addressing encryption and surveillance state.

Doc Huston