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You know, it could wind up being good. Isn't one of our most basic tenants to do our damndest to avoid convicting the innocent, even at the cost of letting some guilty go free? If it succeeds, we could potentially see even better exoneration numbers for the innocent, and I'm not certain how to weight that against my privacy.

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If we felt that the accuracy of the justice system trumped all privacy concerns, then we could have voluntarily adopted such systems years ago after honest plain public discussion.

We didn't.

Did that discussion actually happen yet? Maybe I missed it.

Some sort of discussion got us the 4th amendment.

That is my point...

Well then maybe now is the time for that discussion?

You can have it whenever you like, but such a decision cannot be made retroactively. If we as a society decide that we want to make that tradeoff, then we can only make it going forward. Those who do not consent to such an invasion of privacy must be given fair warning. For the majority to retroactively strip privacy would be tyrannical. I should not have to explain why.

No one is looking for the truth, but rather results. If the phone records, email and so on prove the person is innocent, that data simply won't be used unless they also find an even better candidate for conviction.

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