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Policing, Technology, And Doctrinal Assists, Bennett Capers

Florida Law Review

Sounding the alarm about technology, policing, and privacy has become an almost daily occurrence. We are told that the government’s use of technology as a surveillance tool is an “insidious assault on our freedom.” That it is “nearly impossible to live today without generating thousands of records about what we watch, read, buy and do—and the government has access to them.” The message is clear. Big Brother is watching. And we should be afraid.

But the police use of technology, or what this Article terms “techno-policing,” does not have to be dystopian. This Article challenges conventional thinking and offers an …