So, do you think Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison contemplated female college students allowing their near naked visages to travel around the world in less than one second?
When the Constitutional Convention met in the late 1780’s the delegates created a pretty robust framework for a national government. Add-in the Bill of Rights defining protections for those within the nation and, well, give credit for a job well done…mostly.
Alas, none imagined a time when technology could destroy privacy. And, none envisioned a time when corporations made voyeurism profitable.
Remember, implicit in the Constitution and the American experiment is that most basic right, the right to be left alone. To be an obscure citizen in a faraway place, to not participate in any church’s services nor vote in any election. To live life in the shadows.
Of course, all the Founding Fathers (well to do old white guys) feared big government. Note how they say so explicitly what the government cannot do.
That fear of government escaped America. In 1984 Britain’s George Orwell dooms the novel’s populous with a government always watching, even in their homes.
Back in 2021, two quick items…
On January 6th thousands of people attempted to overturn the fair and proper election of a new President. Claiming they came to get a second term for their candidate, Donald Trump, they ignored the Constitution and violently tried to overthrow the government. They killed one Capitol law enforcement officer and injured scores. They did millions in property damage, and, they bragged about their lawlessness in social media.
Jump ahead to this past Sunday. The New York Times Magazine [3/21/21] devoted its cover story to explaining
How a secretive facial-recognition start-up blew the future of privacy in America wide open.
That company, Clearview, owns billions of images of law-abiding and law-breaking people. Orwell feared a government controlling omnipotent content, well, yes the United States government does have a lot of information on all of us. But Clearview and other corporate interests have way, way more details and they are not bound by that pesky Constitution. In the pursuit of profit they can do most anything they want with our image and our actions – including leasing that data to the government.
Here’s the ironic part…Clearview exists because of early support from arch conservative Trumpian investors, like tech billionaire Peter Thiel.
Yes, a wealthy part of the conservative fringe throws other conservative fringe members under the bus when to make money. Welcome to corporate America.
Now, Jefferson, Franklin et al did understand greed. Predicting a facial recognition marketplace would have been an incredible stretch, but, perhaps a few more lines limiting the power of corporations and defining individual privacy could have found a place in the Constitution?
More importantly, why don’t we now add a very defined right to privacy to the Constitution?
From all reports, Ben Franklin probably would enjoy the latest NSFW photos from Spring Break in Miami Beach: I doubt he’d be happy with the nation encouraging surveillance for profit. Worse, without strong action now, individual privacy will continue to disappear. We will all be constantly tracked and sold by corporate America. And, ever more often, by our own government.
Glenn
Photo Credit: Elvert Barnes from Silver Spring MD, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons