Case:
When the video of a mother apparently repeatedly hitting her child was flashed across the evening news throughout the United States, viewers paid close attention to the mom’s actions, but scant attention was paid to the surveillance camera that recorded the event. The medium, Marshall McLuhan once wrote, is the message, and the medium here was the security camera. .Surveillance cameras are everywhere. The ACLU estimated in 1998 that there were 2,397 surveillance cameras in public places in Manhattan aloe, and the number has certainly grown since then. CCS International, a security firm, estimates that the average New Yorker is recorded about 75 times a day by various surveillance cameras. These cameras have become increasingly popular in the schools as well. In Santee, California, at the site of a school where there had been a shooting several years ago, school officials have instituted an extensive system of camera monitors that can track the 2300 students as they move through their day. They are considering adding face recognition capabilities to the system so that the computer can automatically detect when people are in places they are not authorized to be. None of this surveillance is illegal, although the vast majority of it is in private hands. In addition, much other surveillance occurs by other means—the logging of phone calls, automobile navigation systems, log files of internet surfing, red light traffic cameras, and the like. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, demand for surveillance has increased dramatically, just as opposition to it has decreased as such opposition came to be seen as unpatriotic. Imagine that you are the principal legislative advisor on surveillance issues to a U.S. Senator. The senator plans to introduce legislation establishing the limits of private surveillance and the rights of the individuals who are the objects, whether intended or not, of such surveillance. Outline the main points of your policy recommendation.