Issue link: http://lawandordermag.epubxp.com/i/139048
SPECIAL REPORT Precrime Detecting SUMMARY We want to make absolutely certain that every American can bank on the utter infallibility of the precrime system, and to assure that which keeps us safe will also keep us free. MORE INFORMATION www.eff.org It is not the future if you can stop it. Every so often, those accused of a precrime might have an alternate future. PRECRIME DETECTING PRECRIME DETECTING IS A HUGE JURISPRUDENCE STEP BEYOND PREDICTING. By Stephenie Slahor T he short story "Minority Report," authored by Philip K. Dick, and brought to the screen by Steven Spielberg in 2002, looked at a future time in which precrime detecting rode roughshod over personal liberty in favor of public safety. Dick was more of a futurist than a sci-f writer. His short stories were the basis for movies like Blade Runner ("Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"), Total Recall ("We Can Remember It for You Wholesale") and Terminator ("Second Variety"). 32 LAW and ORDER I June 2013 While societies built on the rule of law and justice dismissed the Minority Report short story and movie as science-fction fuff and a bit of escapist entertainment, the notion of precrime detecting presents a scarier side as it appears to be being considered as a sooner, rather than later, reality. It stands to reason that with the plethora of hardware, software, statistical data and, yes, gadgets and gizmos marketed to police and security, data streams might, at times, be able to give police the ability to predict crime before it actually happens. The accuracy