Should the government start implanting newborns with a tracker?

Jump ahead in time to when every single person has a tracker implanted. Obviously privacy concerns are the main con of this. Do the pros outweigh the cons? Personally I think they do.

Major crimes would drop significantly

If the government (or police) had access to this information it would be a lot easier to catch criminals. Say someone robs a store. All the police have to do is analyze the criminal's location to catch him. Same thing if someone decides to shoot up a school. It would allow law enforcement to catch the criminal almost immediately. It would also allow law enforcement to determine who the actual person is who committed these crimes. Say someone walks into a classroom and shoots everyone. All they need to do is analyze movement of the trackers. If there are 9 non-moving trackers (victims) at that time and a few moving trackers, it is fairly obvious that those moving trackers are the suspects. If someone gets kidnapped how easy would it be to find that person? And it is obvious who kidnapped them (by analyzing the tracked person close to the victim).

It would be a proactive approach to reducing crime. Do you think someone is going to rob a store knowing how easily police can track him down (assuming everyone knows they have a tracker implanted in them)? Do you think kidnappings would happen? Even gang violence... do you think there will be as many gang related incidents if these gangs know that all the police have to do is analyze all of the people who were at the incident?

 

The question is why anyone would rob a store with a tracker.

All the real criminals would just take them out

 

No, I'm not interested in living in some "perfect" dystopian society that's because the government can track everybody (even if they already practically can & do).

It's a serious infringement on rights and I can see trackers being tampered with, spoofed, removed, etc. Sounds like a great way to frame someone if you ask me.

 

You watch way too many movies, something like this would never happen, and it would be a serious violation of privacy. The time/money that would be needed to implant a tracker into every newborn would be way too much, but yes this would limit crime because who would do something illegal knowing they would be caught?

 

Logically it makes sense. However, for the sake of humanity I hope not.

I prefer to have to ability to choose not to go rob my local store and cause alarm/distress to other people without a tracker.

However, with facial recognition, data-mining and personality traits as well as signature strikes. I think this course is the least of our worries.

 

Never going to happen. Can see the Government trying to enforce it, but it won't work. Government shouldn't have that much control over every single person because a few assholes decide to rob stores and kidnap people.

 

Considering the government is the largest crime committing entity in human history, I don't possibly see them performing surgery on unwilling patients for spying purposes could possibly be good.

 

In the future there wouldn't need to be a "physical" surgery. I'm sure this can be done by rubbing some permanent invisible formula onto newborns. So it shouldn't be expensive or time consuming. Obviously "taking your tracker out" would be a major crime. Plus there would be many ways to make this impossible anyway.

Yes it is obviously a major privacy violation. However it is inevitable that in the future we won't have much privacy anyway. And to me personally I don't really care if the government knows my location 24/7. How is that going to affect me? If I have nothing to hide I don't care.

 

How I feel about this is summed up below

 

You're stating this as if it's fact. There's no idea of knowing technology is going to lead to GPS-like-chips being so tiny they can fit into a dissolvable solution that upon placing it onto human skin, soaks through it, inherently making you a walking GPS.

No, it is not inevitable. You can be a very private person now, it may be difficult, but there are ways to function online completely anonymously. This goes for general communication too, you don't have to have an iPhone, or run Windows, or anything else that is spying on you. It may be convenient, but there are other options.

How is it going to affect you? Everything you ever do will be completely monitored (more so than it already is.) Anything, there will be dossiers with your movements, all your habits, whose house you visit on tuesdays at 7 o'clock, what you enjoy eating every other thursday, where your favorite vacation location is. This just further opens the way for more right infringements (such as freedom of assembly).

You should care, it's that apathetic attitude that has allowed the stomping on of rights by governments; furthermore, not caring about your rights doesn't mean you lose them.


@Dun

I get what the quote is trying to get across, but it's not true. Liberties are inherently given up when people enter into their "contract" with a government. You do not have the same liberties as a citizen of a country as you would as a completely individual person.

Edit: Well, I suppose that could be building on liberties that have already been "infringed" upon. As in, giving up more liberties than were initially agreed upon; either way, 100% security and 100% privacy don't exist, it's finding a balance.

 

You're assuming that such a large percent of the population are criminals that this would be worthwhile. This is not the case. For every criminal in the United States there are 11 non-criminals -- does inconveniencing the remaining 92% of society really seem worth it to have a relatively improved chance of catching criminals? As if most of the American population isn't already being monitored to some extent anyway? Also,

This is pretty spot on. What you're suggesting sounds like some serious 1984 shit just in the name of having a reduced crime rate. We have more legitimate problems we could be worrying about. Not to mention I can easily foresee an ENORMOUS rebellion (possibly inciting more crime, riots, violence, etc.) in response to this being implemented. Again, I ask you: is it worth it?

Another incident of your idea creating more criminal activity rather than stopping it.

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."

 

It isn't all about crime. It would have other uses. Say someone gets injured in the woods and can't make it out themself. That person would be located instantly. Obviously this one small thing doesn't justify the use of a tracker but there are a lot of small things like this where a tracker is handy. How would this be an inconvenience to the person? They can just live their life. If you were't told a tracker was on you, you would never know.

Yes there is no doubt that at the beginning there would be a lot of angry people. But really what are you angry about? A lot of people will complain about their rights. Tell me how this would negatively effect your quality of life? Freedom of speech is completely different. You literally are being censored. How does putting a tracker on somebody censor or restrain them in any way?

You will have to tell me how this creates more criminal activity than it stops/prevents.


@Tmoe
"You can be a very private person now, it may be difficult, but there are ways to function online completely anonymously."

I am not talking about online privacy. I'm talking about the second you step outside of your home.

 

Your argument is based on the people in control of it having the perfect mind-set for it's use. However, I believe anyone given this sort of power would use it to their advantage thus resulting in corruption.

As well as this, it would be almost impossible to protect your signal. Therefore, someone would only need to know your "ID" and they'd be able to locate you. Which, without a doubt would be an instant danger to yourself.

Let's use a less exaggerated example. You want to break into a house, you get the ID of the people who live there. You sit and wait for them to be completely out of town, then you put on your clothing that stops transceiver signals from your device. Go to the property, and take whatever you like, and you can see exactly where the residents are so you know how long you've got. Later the investigation would show that nobody entered the premises whilst they were gone which would likely infringe their insurance.

Or another,

A creep manages to get a hold of a girls ID that he wants to assault, he sits and watches her every move from his bedroom learning her routine and learning where she's vulnerable. Then he strikes when she isn't expecting it.

or another,

You can create a crime scene and place somebody at it by sending data to the servers. I.e, placing someone at the scene of the crime, when they weren't present.


Now, this is going by the preconceived notion that you'll be able to 1) stop your device transceiver 2) locate and use the technology for your benefit. Here's my reasoning for both.

People right now, can read/write the data sent to-from air-traffic as it's not encrypted. However, even encrypted it can still be decrypted. If that's a possibility, then it will be possible for people to alter the data transceived.

Also, any sort-of signal restriction between the two would be easily achieved. You'd just line your clothing with a particular material that would restricted the signal.


This then can only lead to a few results.

Any evidence used against a person would be questionable for it's integrity, it would also allow suspects to have an alibi for not being at the scene of a crime.

This then would render it's use, useless making it nothing more than as I stated above, a person is able to locate you at any time, anywhere. For the few that are lost out in the middle of nowhere. They should be better prepared and take a GPS locating device with them. It's their responsibility to be found if lost, if they don't take the time for a safe venture, then clearly they'll have an unsafe risky venture.

 

Those are good points and why this would probably never happen (there is no way to 100% guarantee the integrity of something like this because there will always be corruption and people smart enough to get into the system). What would you say if theoretically speaking there would be no corruption and people trying to get into the system to abuse it? Do you think the benefits outweigh the "breach of rights"?

 

If there was no corruption, and we lived in a society of angels, there would be no need for this technology in the first place.

 

Are you kidding me? It's not completely different, it's the same underlying concept. When you are being tracked, ESPECIALLY without your knowledge or consent, your basic individual rights to privacy are being shredded. You are being monitored at all times -- actions, words and all. This seriously interferes with free will as well. You are literally being censored.

You said it yourself: removing the tracker would be a serious crime. I can imagine plenty of people discovering they were implanted with a tracker without being told (also your idea) and promptly removing it due to serious ideological differences, probably because they understand their basic rights as people. This creates an entirely new field of crime that would otherwise be nonexistent.

 

Reread my post. I never said there would be secrecy behind these trackers. Did you even read my first post where I iterate how public awareness of these trackers would be a proactive approach to reducing crime? I stated that someone's quality of live would not be effected in any way if they were not to know about the tracker.

These trackers track movement and nothing more. I don't know why you are going on about "actions, words and all". This discussion is on tracking location and location only.

You talk about basic rights as if they are always sensible and will always be there. Can you actually explain why this "right" means so much to you? Not just "because you don't want to be deprived of your basic rights"? Tell me how your life will be negatively effected if the government has access to your location? Tell me how the government having your location (and nothing more) is censoring you in any way?

You are acting as if each crime is equal. Even if a million people commit the crime of removing their tracker. One murder outweighs these crimes. The heavy punishment is just there as a proactive approach to stop people from removing their trackers.



@CompileTime
I am talking about corruption and obedience in regards to the tracker. Not holistically.

 

I think hypothetically if the intentions were for the positives only it's still a very bad idea for the sake of humanity. I mean, I choose not to do certain things because it's the nicer/right choice to make. However, there are also instances where I would definitely commit the crime if there would be no consequences. The consequences are what prevent me in certain circumstances. I personally prefer the choice opposed to "if you do it, you will get caught". Then that deterring me.

However, given the hypothetical if it was fool proof and it could be used against someone in court with absolute certainty of it's integrity then yes, it would be a good asset to have when justice is required to be served.

 

they can also use it to their advantage, give fake evidence to incriminate people they suspect of being terrorists, etc. they could know when you take a poop, where you go what you do.. the privacy concerns are too much, regular people do illegal activities every single day that don't harm anyone but they could go to jail for a significant amount of time. plus they can use this to control us. anyone supporting this is just too dumb imo

 

One more murderer being caught absolutely does not "outweigh" the rights and liberties of all the citizens of a country, especially if you're talking lengthy prison sentences for the millions who remove their tracker.

Have you never heard, "We would rather let 1000 guilty men free than wrongly convict one innocent man"