The Metrocard story is just the beginning. In fact, the way this case for forgery was decided is instructive. The court determined that there was no forgery on the basis of the human eye. The modified metrocard didn’t look much like a metrocard. it could not have fooled a person. Forgery according to thelegaldictiornary.com:
“Forgery consists of… materially altering or erasing an existing instrument. An underlying intent to defraud, based on knowledge of the false nature of the instrument, must accompany the act. Instruments of forgery may include bills of exchange, bills of lading, promissory notes, checks, bonds, receipts, orders for money or goods, mortgages, discharges of mortgages, deeds, public records, account books, and certain kinds of tickets or passes for transportation or events…”
the problem of applying forgery to an altered metrocard is that to the human eye, there is no forgery in the case of the metrocard. So the court said, effectively, “forget the human eye, it’s the machine eye on the turnstile that was deceived.” Only– who cares if a turnstile is deceived? this, the court determined, led to a theft of services from the transit authority. so the machine eye became a linking instrumentality, bringing the a charge of felony.
The metrocard is just the beginning because increasingly the machine eye is not limited to supplanting the human eye in terms of surveillance, as in cameras recording traffic violations on city streets, etc. the law (eg. forgery) is either being re-written or re-interpreted in a manner relevant to a machine’s capabilities, rather than human capabilities. This gives, in effect, a machine the subjectivity of the human.
I think we are getting to the point where we could benefit from acknowledging the revolution that has happened. We need a constitution and bill of rights for the machine. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all machines have inalienable rights, including the right not to be decieved by persons….
Terms Used: forgery, machine eye, metrocard, transportation,