New Technology

Court cases dealing with laws of new technology continue to set precedent for laws of future technology. With the advent of the telephone as new technology, courts had to determine a safe way to guarantee people’s right to privacy while also protecting the nation against criminals conducting internal crime or outside espionage through easier means. Similarly, email and cell phones created new difficulties for creating laws that governed new technology.

• Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in the late 19th century and shortly after this time, the new technology required legal interpretation regarding laws of privacy and individual rights. Once the telephone grew to widespread use, police officers and investigative bodies would tap phones without any consideration to personal liberty. Since their were no similar forms of communication prior to this new technology, few laws of governance existed to combat this practice.

• After the Supreme Court ruled that wiretapping was constitutional in 1928, the judicial body did not issue more complete laws of wiretapping until 1967 in Katz v. USA. The decision handed-down established that a warrant was now needed to wiretap an individual’s phone.

• During the latter part of the 20th century, common wired phones became outdated as new technology allowed for mobile and eventually cellular phones. Laws of governance regarding mobile phones posed a specific difficulty in relation to individual protection. Since each cell phone call emits signal to the closest tower it is possible to determine the caller as well as their location in many instances. Although the preordained laws of new technology remain in terms of wiretapping (although no longer actual wiretapping), cell phone calls are easily intercepted by certain devices.

• Privacy concerns and laws of new technology regarding email continues to confound lawmakers. Since emails pass through multiple computers on the way to their destination they are particularly open to interception. Following the attack of 9/11, certain liberties were reduced as a supposed attempt to reduce the change for foreign or domestic terrorism. These included stipulations that allowed voice-mails and email to be searched under a normal search warrant as opposed to the wiretapping requirement of a court-ordered warrant.
Laws of new technology will continue to change as current devices continue to adapt to a globalized world. The sharing of information rarely occurs over actual wires anymore and this void that the internet controls in a court of law requires concrete explanations. The Supreme Court needs to set-up invisible boundaries of space that each individual is entitled to, regardless of the arena.

Internet Security

Recent attacks on Internet security illustrate the need for new technology in protecting computer files. In early December, an Internet hacker gained access to certain computer files from the University of East Anglia. The University claims host to the Climatic Research Unit, a leading researcher and developer of new technology for tracking the effects of global warming. Although the national debate has leaned more towards the implications of the global warming research, many have noted the residual effects this could have on Internet security and new technology.

• The hacker that secured these contested filed sparked a national debate over the tools and methods that led to findings by many climatologists that suggest a trend of global warming. After the advent of new technology and research in the field, the national and global opinions of global warming heavily leaned in favor of these findings and commenced a worldwide effort to curtail these changes.

• Media and national officials tend to attach “-gate” on any issue that could ignite national debate as to further entice the public. Clearly stemming from Watergate, the implication of this suffix poses questions to the nature of the most current challenge now commonly refereed to as “climate-gate.” After Nixon became indicted on allegations of engineering the Watergate break-ins, few people contested his resignation and had he not been pardoned, the criminal charges levied against him. The nature of a physical break-in opposed to that of an Internet break-in comes into clear focus when delineating these two situations. Its as if once the information was hacked and became public knowledge, there was no entitlement to security. On the other hand, had this Internet hacker broke into the front door of the University and stole the same files, more focus would be attached to the head perpetrator engineering the robbery.

• The reason for highlighting this paradigm is to shed further light on the need for new technology to secure Internet files like a protected-home, making the actions of hacking more intrusive to the privacy of the individuals. People no longer comprehend the Internet as a new technology, but rather a fixture of a globalized world, however, many guidelines and laws continue to be parsed out on a national level that change the way the Internet functions.
Regardless of the information obtained by the Internet hacker, a necessity of new technology and Internet security requires national attention. The Internet remains a new technology and requires a system of morals and laws that reflect actual society, rather than a system of crooks and gimmicks.