Fergie's Tech Blog

Twenty-First Century Wiretapping: Recognition

Ed Felten writes over on Freedom to Tinker:

For the past several weeks I’ve been writing, on and off, about how technology enables new types of wiretapping, and how public policy should cope with those changes. Having laid the groundwork we’re now ready for to bite into the most interesting question.

Suppose the government is running, on every communication, some algorithm that classifies messages as suspicious or not, and that every conversation labeled suspicious is played for a government agent. When, if ever, is government justified in using such a scheme?

Many readers will say the answer is obviously “never”. Today I want to argue that that is wrong — that there are situations where automated flagging of messages for human analysis can be justified.

posted by Fergie @ 6/01/2006 08:49:00 AM