Computer Ethics Paper 2

Due: Friday, March 28, 2014

Topic option 1: Privacy on the streets

Do you have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" -- in the sense of police surveillance -- while out and about?

This question relates to police tracking of vehicles by attached GPS transponders, and to tracking of pedestrians by their cellphones, or to tracking by street cameras. If you have a reasonable expectation of privacy, a warrant may be necessary. In the 2012 US v Antoine Jones case, the Supreme Court did not entirely answer this.

On the one hand, you can certainly be followed, either by one or more officers actively tracking you or by a succession of street or license-plate cameras.

On the other hand, people have long enjoyed a de facto sense of privacy while driving or walking. The expression "lost in the crowd" is well established. While the police can physically follow you, it is impractical to do so for long without a very good reason; tracking people this way as part of a "fishing expedition" is simply not cost-effective.

Before modern tracking technology, most people probably felt they did have an expectation of privacy while on the streets or in a park. The question is essentially whether people may legitimately still feel that way even though low-cost tracking and surveillance tools are now available.

Although this is partly a legal question, in large measure it is a social and ethical question: what should we all expect here? How often should we have to revise our privacy expectations in light of changes in technology? Should we all just assume we are being tracked whenever we are outdoors, or are using a commercial service of any kind? Note that much the same issue applies to mass searches of online business records. Do we have a right to feeling that we are not being watched if there is no one around to watch us? Or does that not matter, if the police have the appropriate technology?

In the Supreme Court case Kyllo v US, the majority opinion (written by Scalia) contains the following:

Held: Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a Fourth Amendment “search,” and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant.
 
But roads and sidewalks are not a home. GPS (though not GPS tracking) is in general public use. So are surveillance cameras.

As a parting note, here is a famous literary example about expectations in surveillance technology:

When Winston followed her, he found that they were in a natural clearing, a tiny grassy knoll surrounded by tall saplings that shut it in completely. [Julia] stopped and turned. 

'Here we are,' she said....

'We're all right here?' he repeated stupidly. 

'Yes. Look at the trees.' They were small ashes, which at some time had been cut down and had sprouted up again into a forest of poles, none of them thicker than one's wrist. 'There's nothing big enough to hide a mike in.'

George Orwell, 1984

Topic option 2: Defamation Policy

You and two friends, Alice and Bob, are starting a new website in which user comments figure prominently. Users comment on various products and also on the reviews and comments provided by other users. Users can also post pictures. Your goal is to create a social-network feel to the site, although all posts will be public and users will be rewarded with coupons. You anticipate that the majority of users will use their real names on the site, though pseudonyms are permitted.

Right now you've agreed to a policy allowing the deletion of profanity and obvious insults. However, you're having more trouble agreeing to a policy for dealing with defamatory comments that don't fit into the obvious profanity/insult categories. Alice has argued

We don't need to do anything; section 230 of the CDA clearly means we have no liability for what our users post, and thus no obligation to remove libelous content. Many other sites, such as youtube.com and aol.com, don't seem to remove such content. How would we determine if an allegedly defamatory post is in fact true? Would we have to post the other side's position? The bottom line is that we'd be censoring someone's post based on a complaint that may or may not be well founded. We already know from prior experience that if users say something negative about a product, corporate sock puppets will take offense and demand action. We have to stand firm.

Bob is not so sure; his position is that

We simply should not let defamatory content remain. At the very least, the possibility that they could be the victim of such an attack will discourage other users; we want to encourage our users! We need to have a clear standard of behavior; this is about "takedown" and not about arguing the points of libel.The bottom line is that we cannot side with injustice, any more than we can side with harassment.

Your job is to propose a policy and then argue in support of it. If you leave something out of the policy, such as a way for users to complain that they have been unfairly depicted, be sure you explain why you don't think the feature is necessary. You should also make clear whether features of your policy are there to address legal risk to the site or are there to make users feel more comfortable.

You can take a legalistic approach, an ethical approach, or a combination. When making ethical arguments in a business context it is sometimes helpful to recognize that ethical behavior can be closely tied to a business's own long-term self-interest.


Your paper (either topic) will be graded primarily on organization (that is, how you lay out your sequence of paragraphs), focus (that is, whether you stick to the topic), and the nature and completeness of your arguments.

It is essential that all material from other sources be enclosed in quotation marks (or set off as a block quote), and preferably with a citation to the original source as well.

Expected length: 3-5 pages (1000+ words)