On Tuesday evening, Iowa City is scheduled to hold the first reading (PDF) of what is likely the first municipal bill anywhere in the country to simultaneously ban the local use of drones, license plate readers, and red-light cameras—three tools increasingly used by law enforcement and often fraught with privacy-related controversy. The ordinance is the result of a local petition brought forward by a citizen group (and represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa) that originally began as a referendum on red light cameras.
We, the undersigned, believe that the class of technologies currently described as the “Internet of Things” has genuine potential to deliver value, meaning, insight, and fun as well as a totalitarian control society. [Some words about potential to support evidence-based policy, catalyze the emergence of self-aware publics, and enhance the specifically political agency of human users.]
Its definition, however, is not self-explanatory, nor do we believe these benefits are by any means guaranteed.