Transparent Lives and the Surveillance State

207 Pages·2015·2.53 MB·English

Transparent Lives and the Surveillance State: Policing, New Visibility, and Information Policy

Bryce Clayton Newell

A dissertation
submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

University of Washington
2015

Reading Committee:
Adam D. Moore, Chair
Batya Friedman
Ryan Calo
Steve Herbert
Ricardo Gomez

Program Authorized to Offer Degree:
The Information School
© Copyright 2015
Bryce Clayton Newell
University of Washington

Abstract

Transparent Lives and the Surveillance State: Policing, New Visibility, and Information Policy

Bryce Clayton Newell

Chair of the Supervisory Committee:
Adam D. Moore
The Information School

In this dissertation, I utilize conceptual and legal analyses to explore the tensions between
personal information privacy and public access to information implicated by government
surveillance and citizen-initiated inverse surveillance efforts designed to cast the gaze back at the
government, and ask what implications these conclusions have for individual freedom (defined
as the absence of domination). I focus on police use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) and
automated license plate recognition (ALPR) technologies, on one hand, and citizen-initiated
recordings of police officers and freedom of information (FOI) requests for data collected by
police BWCs and ALPR systems, on the other. My analysis draws upon republican political
theory, philosophical and legal theories of privacy and free speech, the concept of “policing’s
new visibility” (Goldsmith, 2010), and various other theories of surveillance and
reciprocal/inverse surveillance within the surveillance studies literature. I conduct doctrinal and
descriptive legal research into relevant privacy and disclosure laws applicable within
Washington State (USA); utilize legal and philosophical theories of privacy, freedom, and free
speech to conduct an analysis of the values and value tensions implicated in these situations; and
apply elements of Value Sensitive Design for similar conceptual and analytic purposes.
Ultimately, I develop a theory of information policy that that accounts for tensions between
personal information privacy rights and government disclosure of personally-identifiable
information under state FOI law in Washington State, and I propose normative recommendations
for improving law, public policy, and police department surveillance and disclosure policies
related to these privacy and access concerns.
To Aprille
Thank you for your love and support during this process.
I am eternally grateful for who you are and for all you do for me and our family.
Acknowledgements
There have been many individuals who have impacted me and my work throughout the process
of developing this dissertation, as well as to my larger project of becoming a scholar and
educator. It is not possible to name and thank each of these individuals here (and I would likely
inadvertently fail to include everyone who deserves to be in such a list), but I do want to
specifically thank those individuals mentioned below:
My supervisor and Ph.D. committee chair, Adam D. Moore, for championing my application to
the Ph.D. program and for continually challenging me to think more critically about the
philosophical bases for—and my arguments regarding—privacy, free speech, and other rights
and values that arise in and around my work, and for allowing me the space to follow my
interests. The conceptual analysis and normative conclusions offered herein are much more
defensible as a result.
Batya Friedman, for always being optimistic and positive about my research while also taking
the time to give significant amounts of extremely valuable—and sometimes critical—feedback
on my work as it developed. This work is much better because of her advice.
Ricardo Gomez, for the tremendous amount of time and effort he has expended to help me
become a better researcher.
Steve Herbert, for always being willing to entertain questions and give helpful advice, and for
always reminding me to consider the values associated with law enforcement and criminal
justice that come into play in the context of my research.
Ryan Calo, for being willing to provide comments and feedback, and for pushing me to consider
and integrate new areas of privacy scholarship—and questions about how these intersect—into
my work.
Stephen Gardiner, for introducing me to the work of Philip Pettit and spending substantial time
helping me to craft and refine my arguments around privacy through the lens of republican
political theory.
I also want to acknowledge the following individuals for providing comments, suggestions, and
advice on this work (and related papers) and in regards to my general pursuit to become an
academic throughout these past years in graduate school: Anupam Chander, Rachel Cichowski,
Floyd Feeney, Chris Heaney, Elizabeth Joh, Laura Lenhart, Alan Rubel, and Ingra Shellenberg,
as well as the participants at the pre-conference workshop at the 2013 Information Ethics
Roundtable and members of the Comparative Law and Society Studies (CLASS) Center at UW
for all of their comments on earlier versions of parts of this project.
Thank you to Coke and Cindy Newell (my parents) for always supporting and encouraging me,
and for starting me out in life in an environment that prioritized and emphasized the importance
of education, expression, and creativity.
Thank you to Aprille Newell and our children, Annalesa, Caden, Aspen, and Oliver. I love each
of you and am so incredibly grateful for your love and support—and for reminding me of what’s
really important in life each day when I come home from school or work.
And in memoriam of Keith Aoki, for being gracious and willing to supervise the development of
my first published article while I was still a law student of his at UC Davis. That experience
helped ignite my interest in scholarship and set me on the path that has led me to where I am
today.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 1
1.1. The nature and purpose of the study ....................................................................................... 1
1.2. Overview of the problem ........................................................................................................... 3
1.3. Significance of the problem ...................................................................................................... 5
1.4. Primary and secondary research questions ............................................................................ 7
2. Methods ............................................................................................................................................... 9
2.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 9
2.2. Legal research .......................................................................................................................... 10
2.3. Philosophical method .............................................................................................................. 11
2.4. Value Sensitive Design............................................................................................................. 12
2.5. Empirical data collection and analyses .................................................................................. 14
2.6. Case selection ........................................................................................................................... 14
2.7. Connecting methods and research questions ........................................................................ 16
2.8. Theory development ................................................................................................................ 17
3. Theoretical foundations ................................................................................................................... 18
3.1. Epistemology and ontology ..................................................................................................... 18
3.2. Legal and philosophical theory .............................................................................................. 19
Freedom ............................................................................................................................ 21
Privacy .............................................................................................................................. 27
3.3. Free speech and access to information .................................................................................. 37
3.4. Privacy in public ...................................................................................................................... 40
3.5. Social Theory ........................................................................................................................... 43
Surveillance and surveillance theory ................................................................................ 43
Policing, new visibility, and public oversight ................................................................... 49
4. Setting the stage: privacy, space, and public access to information ............................................ 54
4.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 54
4.2. Constitutional protections in the U.S.: the Fourth Amendment, privacy, and space ........ 55
Property, trespass, and reasonable expectations of privacy .............................................. 57
The third party doctrine .................................................................................................... 60
4.3. Privacy and access in Washington ......................................................................................... 61
Privacy under the Washington state Constitution ............................................................. 62
The Washington Privacy Act ............................................................................................ 63
Common law privacy in Washington ............................................................................... 64
4.4. Public records access in Washington state ............................................................................ 65
4.5. Privacy in public: Cases from the European Court of Human Rights ............................... 70
4.6. Public outrage over public access ........................................................................................... 75
The New York gun map .................................................................................................... 75
Proposition 8 donor map ................................................................................................... 76
4.7. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 76
5. Automated license plate recognition, privacy, and public access to government surveillance
information ................................................................................................................................................ 78
5.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 78
5.2. Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 80
Legal research ................................................................................................................... 80
Value Sensitive Design ..................................................................................................... 81
Empirical data collection and analysis .............................................................................. 81
Philosophical method ........................................................................................................ 81
5.3. The law and ALPR .................................................................................................................. 82
The Fourth Amendment, ALPR, and privacy in public .................................................... 82
ALPR regulation by state law ........................................................................................... 85
ALPR in Canada and the UK ............................................................................................ 93
5.4. Value Sensitive Design............................................................................................................. 94
ALPR value scenarios: Overview of a possible future ..................................................... 94
Value scenario 1: ALPR disclosure as a tool for citizen oversight ................................... 95
Value scenario 2: ALPR as a tool for stalking and surveillance ....................................... 96
5.5. Exploratory empirical findings .............................................................................................. 97
Field observation ............................................................................................................... 97
ALPR database analysis and visualization ....................................................................... 97
5.6. Discussion ............................................................................................................................... 105
5.7. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 107
6. Civilian (bystander) video and the right to record ...................................................................... 109
6.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 109
6.2. Civilian video and the right to record .................................................................................. 111
6.3. Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 113
Legal research ................................................................................................................. 113
Value Sensitive Design ................................................................................................... 113
Philosophical method ...................................................................................................... 114
6.4. The law and civilian video..................................................................................................... 114
Federal and state court law in cases outside Washington ............................................... 115
Washington state law and civilian video ........................................................................ 118
6.5. Value Sensitive Design........................................................................................................... 121
Direct and indirect stakeholders...................................................................................... 122
Value Scenarios: Overview of a possible future ............................................................. 122
Value Scenario 1: Civilian video and crowd-sourced evidence...................................... 123
Value Scenario 2: Civilian video and discrimination ..................................................... 124
6.6. Other questions raised by overbroad restrictions on civilian video .................................. 125
6.7. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 128
7. Policing and body-worn cameras .................................................................................................. 130
7.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 130
7.2. Prior research on body-worn cameras ................................................................................ 132
7.3. Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 139
Legal research ................................................................................................................. 140
Value Sensitive Design ................................................................................................... 140
Empirical data collection and analyses ........................................................................... 140
Philosophical method ...................................................................................................... 141
7.4. The legal implications of on-officer wearable cameras ...................................................... 141
Body worn camera legislation addressing public disclosure in Washington .................. 142
Body worn camera legislation addressing other privacy concerns in Washington ......... 144
Privacy, space, and collecting evidence .......................................................................... 144
Public disclosure of body worn camera footage in Washington ..................................... 147
7.5. Value Sensitive Design........................................................................................................... 150
Direct and indirect stakeholders...................................................................................... 150
BWC value scenarios: Overview of a possible future .................................................... 151
Value scenario 1: Recording in private homes and the nosey neighbor ......................... 152
Value scenario 2: Proactive disclosure but limited public access ................................... 153
7.6. Discussion ............................................................................................................................... 154
7.7. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 158
8. Conclusions: A theory of information policy ............................................................................... 160
8.1. Outlining a theory of information policy ............................................................................. 160
8.2. An argument balancing access to information and privacy .............................................. 163
8.3. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 170
References ................................................................................................................................................ 173