I Read the Bill of Rights in Exploratory so You Don't Have To

Good day, and welcome to the blog.


As you all know, facial recognition is know a thing, whether you like it or not, and you may have it on your iPhone if you have one of the newest editions. A computer being able to recognize your face not only makes for quick unlocking of a phone, but a powerful tool for police and the like to use as well, not only in this country, but all over. Now, I’m counting on you guys having read the article, therefore I don’t have to go over all the technical stuff, but rather jump on into the point.

Being the reasonable Law and Debate student that I am, I noticed a very interesting red distracting ink block box of wisdom smack dab in the center of the first page of this article, reading, “The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures”. The reason for this little comment square is obvious enough, until I started to question; does the Fourth Amendment truly apply to this?

I started on my amendment quest where anyone would: with Google. This quickly brought me to constitutioncenter.org, staring into the face of The Fourth Amendment, Search and Seizure, found here. In short, no one can probe into your you stuff unless they have a good reason and a permit. For example, the bank can search your house if you owe them money. This time, however, it’s a matter of searching your person*, thus the problem here is whether or not the police are the exception to this rule, and do actually have a good reason.

From how I see it, it could go both ways, seeing as facial recognition is mainly used in a law setting to find unidentified criminals, which could easily be seen as a reasonable cause. However, you also have to take into consideration that these pictures facial recognition is recognising might be taken or used against someone's will. This could be taken as a privacy vs. safety sort of thing, but that’s a whole other issue entirely.

In summary, I can’t decide if police using facial recognition is a violation of the Fourth Amendment. I realize that’s unsatisfying, yet it also makes me curious if your guys thoughts could sway me to one side of this argument. Feel free to share your thoughts.

When Facial Regognition is Watching You

I thought facial recognition was just a scam to get people less likely to
steal things, but I guess not. That would be a good idea though. But in
China, they just don’t want the comunist party to lose power. It’s also a
way for police and the government to watch the citizens all the time.
Also, in Ecuador, there is an emergency response/surveillance system
that feeds into 2 rooms where ecuadorians watch their country. This
system was installed and taught by the CHINESE. Which means the
chinese are starting to gain power over other countrys. Facial recognition
works by captruing, and extracting facial features, and other pictures
of your face in different places where ever you live, then matches it
with ones that look like you.

One man in Ecuador has been suspicious of the ONLY camera in the most
dangerous neighborhood in Machala. Clearly it watches right into his dining
room, daughters bedrooms, and living room. He also states, he had been
followed by chinese spies until the cameras arrived. These are just a few
cases of cameras in the country's across the world. Oh one more thing.
Do you think that cameras are watching you every day? At your job?
Going home? In the grocery store? Maybe even in your house!?!? I feel
like people are stalking me at school though. 😂

How the Government Checks and Balances in Hard Times

Checks and balances play an important role in government and has shaped our country, but even though these laws are great for causing peace between different parties, lately the government have been divided even though there are checks and balances. For example, the  house of representatives have been investigating the white house, and lawmakers have threatened to impeach trump over the Mueller findings. And to make matters worse, the president has refused to cooperate with democrats until the investigation ends.  The senate and house of representatives believe that Trump did something did something wrong and are investigating it in an attempt  to impeach him. Trump does not like this and is retaliating. This is checks and balances in action  What do you think about this part of the government that the framers created in 1787 when they wrote the constitution? Do you think it is a successful part of our government or the reason of these government arguments and this crisis

Dora Talking Politics

I think it’s incredibly cool that Dora, a Nick Jr. show created 20 years ago, is still going and still has the same message- to make inclusivity a more important quality in kids. That’s cool, right? Especially as new immigrant rules come in, I feel that it has an even more important meaning now, and I certainly hope that you agree! I think the “fault” Code Switch discussed- about how Dora doesn’t completely look Latino- doesn’t really matter, I think that teaching kids that people’s differences don’t matter is more important, because obviously Dora can’t look like every single Latinx person! Although Dora isn't necessarily "talking" politics, she certainly is representing something that's talked about in politics! Truly I think the idea behind Dora and how it is presented it amazing, don’t you? If not, could you do better?

The Free Country or the Corrupt Country?

So we all know how Donald Trump might get impeached. Well I got some news about that. So, Nancy Pelosi went as far to say the nation is mired in a “constitutional crisis” over the president blanket refusal to not cooperate with congress investigations and Trump went 50 miles more than Nancy and responded by vowing not to work with any Democrats in Congress or any legislates. So is he gonna go up to a golf area and talk to the cashier and ask “ Are you a democrat?” and I am just concerned what if the cashier is a Democrat?

So another thing that's also really important is Checks and Balances. In a nutshell the Legislative branch makes the laws, the Executive branch enforces the laws and the Judicial branch evaluates the laws. But the problem is that all the branches are fighting for power! What will that mean for the Red White and Blue country? I don't know, I mean I can’t know everything!

The recognition security system

Facial recognition has been the newest type of security technology . It has helped a huge number of cities capture a lot of criminals. I think that this is an amazing idea to capture a lot of criminals and stop a lot of crimes or to identify the criminals that were responsible for the crime. I was amazed when I learnt how many cameras both public and private cameras the police had access to. When I learnt about the number of camera access the police , I knew that nobody was going to escape from the police camera. This is good because almost all the people wouldn’t even try to attempt any type of crime because they would be scared to try to rob anyone.

But many people are concerned about the new technology. They think that it may interfere with a lot of privacy. I think that this is all rubbish talk because the cameras were used to arrest more than 1,000 criminals in New York alone. Without the cameras , the crime rates are going to start going up again.I think that we should hold a vote about it. Even if we do , I am sure that people are going to pick safety over privacy because safety is much more important.What would you choose? Safety or Security ?

How To Fail At Getting Away With Crime

This is my first terrible blog post of many more to come. I am choosing to write about facial recognition. Yay. As you might have guessed by my title, facial recognition is a great way to fail at getting away with a crime. You know why, your face is being watched and recorded every day when you go out in public. Now, for me that isn’t a huge problem because I never go out in public unless I have to, so my face isn’t being watched quite as much as normal, social people’s faces are. That doesn’t mean that I can get away with a crime, though. My face has been watched and stored away with my information, ready to be whipped out the moment I try something illegal. Same for everybody else. There are cameras everywhere. School, restaurants, stores, libraries, movie theatres, pretty much in every place except your house, hopefully. Some people might look at this and think of it as a good thing. After all, it’s helping police find criminals, which is a good thing, right? It is, but maybe not using that method. Facial Recognition. Facial Recognition violates our right to privacy and the Fourth Amendment. In case you don’t have the amendments all memorized, here’s the Fourth Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. In simpler terms, it means it protects people from unlawful searches and seizures. This means that the police can't search you or your house without a warrant or probable cause. Looking up your face to find your private information without a formal warrant or something like that isn’t allowed, I think. Also, facial recognition has high rates of false positives, for example, a study was released that the technology managed to confuse 28 members of Congress with publicly available mugshots. Almost 40% of the false matches were of people of color. People of color are already disproportionately harmed by police practices, and it’s fairly easy to see how recognition could exuberate it. It was also found out that facial recognition technology from other companies have a much harder time identifying gender in people of color than white people. It managed to get Oprah wrong. There are so many flaws with facial recognition that San Francisco and Sommerville have already banned it. As of this moment I am between both sides, as I can see both point of views. Now, I have made my decision to agree with banning facial recognition. The ups can’t outweigh the downs of it. There are too many things wrong with the technology, as well as a violation of privacy, that I feel it should no longer be used. Maybe years in the future, if major changes are made to it, and the police or whoever would use it have to file for a warrant before using it, then maybe I would consider giving them the okay. But until then, since I am unsatisfied with it, I declare that it shall not be used. For now, until all the states ban it, next time you commit a crime, you better be good at disguises.