HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — There is plenty of debate these days over the use of license-plate readers, and whether or not they’re an invasion of privacy.<\/p>\n
“Flock does not serve the people,” one resident at Tuesday’s meeting of Harris County Commissioners Court said. “Stop funding mass surveillance.”<\/p>\n
Comments like those highlight a concept as old as the country itself, according to David Kwok of the University of Houston Law Center.<\/p>\n
“This country was founded on the idea that democracy was a pushback against what (the founders) felt was overbearing government,” Kwok said.<\/p>\n
The use of technology has only added to that concept over the decades.<\/p>\n
“The scope of our federal government today, obviously, would be unimaginable to someone in the 1700s,” Kwok said.<\/p>\n
With technology in mind, ABC13 looked through the Houston Chronicle archives for examples of when Houstonians believed their government was taking things too far with technology.<\/p>\n
A letter to the editor in 1970 called HPD’s use of motion detectors “one more instance of police overstepping the bonds of personal privacy.”<\/p>\n
There were also plenty of concerns over the years regarding wiretapping, the usage of small cameras, the recording of phone calls, and even polygraph tests.<\/p>\n
Kwok said technology will continue to change, but there will always be a delicate dance between the governments that use it and the people it serves.<\/p>\n
“It’s a dynamic environment that the police will adapt, governments will adapt, and citizens may adapt, too,” Kwok said.<\/p>\n
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