Selective enforcement

Abstract: A study was undertaken to review the recent Australian and international literature relating to traffic law enforcement. The specific areas examined included alcohol, speed, seat belts and signalised intersections. The review documents the types of traffic enforcement methods and the range of options available to policing authorities to increase the overall efficiency (in terms of cost and human resources) and effectiveness of enforcement operations. The review examines many of the issues related to traffic law enforcement including the deterrence mechanism, the effectiveness of legislation and the type of legal sanctions administered to traffic offenders. The need to use enforcement in conjunction with educational and environmental/engineering strategies is also stressed. The use of educational programs and measures targeted at modifying the physical and social environment is also briefly reviewed. The review highlights the importance of developing enforcement strategies designed to maximise deterrence whilst increasing both the perceived and actual probability of apprehension. The use of Random Breath Testing (RBT), automated speed and red light enforcement cameras and selective enforcement programs are highlighted. The need for publicity to support enforcement operations, police training and education programs is also documented. The review concludes with a series of recommendations regarding the most promising options available to authorities to improve the effectiveness of traffic law enforcement operations.

Abstract: COYOTE (an acronym for “Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics”) is the central organization in the social movement to challenge traditional definitions of prostitution as a social problem. Using historical documents, this work focuses on COYOTE's campaign to sever prostitution from its historical association with sin, crime, and illicit sex, and place the social problem of prostitution firmly in the discourse of work, choice and civil rights. COYOTE has done this through extended debate with law enforcement officials over discrimination and selective enforcement of the law, with the feminist movement over the freedom of women to control and use their bodies as they see fit, and with public health agencies over the role of prostitutes in the AIDS epidemic. Combined, these concerns form the foundation of COYOTE'S crusade to redefine prostitution as a social problem.

Abstract: From the Fourth Amendment to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and from the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to films like Minority Report and The Lives of Others, our law and culture are full of warnings about state scrutiny of our lives. These warnings are commonplace, but they are rarely very specific. Other than the vague threat of an Orwellian dystopia, as a society we don't really know why surveillance is bad and why we should be wary of it. To the extent that the answer has something to do with "privacy," we lack an understanding of what "privacy" means in this context and why it matters. We've been able to live with this state of affairs largely because the threat of constant surveillance has been relegated to the realms of science fiction and failed totalitarian states. But these warnings are no longer science fiction. The digital technologies that have revolutionized our daily lives have also created minutely detailed records of those lives. In an age of terror, our government has shown a keen willingness to acquire this data and use it for unknown purposes. We know that governments have been buying and borrowing private-sector databases, (1) and we recently learned that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been building a massive data and supercomputing center in Utah, apparently with the goal of intercepting and storing much of the world's Internet communications for decryption and analysis. (2) Although we have laws that protect us against government surveillance, secret government programs cannot be challenged until they are discovered. And even when they are, our law of surveillance provides only minimal protections. Courts frequently dismiss challenges to such pro-grams for lack of standing, under the theory that mere surveillance creates no harms. The Supreme Court recently reversed the only major case to hold to the contrary, in Clapper v. Amnesty International USA, (3) finding that the respondents' claim that their communications were likely being monitored was "too speculative." (4) But the important point is that our society lacks an understanding of why (and when) government surveillance is harmful. Existing attempts to identify the dangers of surveillance are often unconvincing, and they generally fail to speak in terms that are likely to influence the law. In this Article, I try to explain the harms of government surveillance. Drawing on law, history, literature, and the work of scholars in the emerging interdisciplinary field of "surveillance studies," I offer an account of what those harms are and why they matter. I will move beyond the vagueness of current theories of surveillance to articulate a more coherent understanding and a more workable approach. At the level of theory, I will explain why and when surveillance is particularly dangerous and when it is not. First, surveillance is harmful because it can chill the exercise of our civil liberties. With respect to civil liberties, consider surveillance of people when they are thinking, reading, and communicating with others in order to make up their minds about political and social issues. Such intellectual surveillance is especially dangerous because it can cause people not to experiment with new, controversial, or deviant ideas. To protect our intellectual freedom to think without state oversight or interference, we need what I have elsewhere called "intellectual privacy." (5) A second special harm that surveillance poses is its effect on the power dynamic between the watcher and the watched. This disparity creates the risk of a variety of harms, such as discrimination, coercion, and the threat of selective enforcement, where critics of the government can be prosecuted or blackmailed for wrongdoing unrelated to the purpose of the surveillance. At a practical level, I propose a set of four principles that should guide the future development of surveillance law, allowing for a more appropriate balance between the costs and benefits of government surveillance. …