taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (06/25/86)
Computers and Society Digest, Number 15
Sunday, February 23rd 1986
Topics of discussion in this issue...
Mistaken Arrest due to computer error
Re: Ethical Issues with Technology
Another Brief Foray into Societal Class Issues
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[from Risks Forum, volume 2, issue 7]
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 86 02:25:03 PST
From: stever%vlsi.caltech.edu@nrl-css (Steve Rabin)
Subject: Mistaken Arrest due to computer error
Thursday night I was mistakenly arrested by a Pasadena police patrol due to
a computer error. I spent two hours in a smelly holding cell while my
friends collected bail. $130.50 Cash. Exact change please.
When I appeared in court Friday morning with proof that the ticket had in
fact been paid in February of 1984, the case against me was dismissed.
In conversation with the court clerk and with the police officers who
processed me I learned that mistakes like this are not uncommon, and that
the safest thing for me to due is to keep the 1984 receipt on my person
at all times. One friendly officer said "In processing these (warrant
dismissals), the paperwork goes through so many hands that if anyone
drops the ball there is no way to tell what happened."
It appears I have a good case against the City & County of LA ("failure to
properly document computer system"), and the City of Pasadena ("improper
stop and use of excessive force by arresting officer"). The excessive force
claim arises because the officer physically prevented my departure after I
had identified myself and before the information about the bogus warrant
came over the radio. He is not supposed to do this. There may be an
additional case against Pasadena if in fact the statute on the original
offense (jay walking in 1981) had expired.
Do any of you high powered legal types have any insights on my case? Do any
of you folks know good, reasonably priced lawyers in the LA area with whom
you have had personal experience? Have their been any problems with Chas. &
Angelique Johnson, attys? I am also looking for a good patent lawyer, so if
you know/are one please write me.
stever@{cit-vax.arpa,csvax.caltech.edu}
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Date: 11 Feb 86 10:51:28 EST (Tue)
From: Larry Hunter <hplabs!hunter%yale.arpa@CSNET-RELAY>
Subject: Re: Ethical Issues with Technology
Regarding your question about who is responsible (or should feel
responsible) when technology fails catastrophically is an important one.
I'm not sure, however, that the technology involved makes the question
substantially different than the already difficult issue of determining
liability or responsibility for other kinds of damage.
In the world of lawyers, the REAL method of assigning blame is to find
the "deep pockets." "Deep pocket" means anyone (or any institution) with
a lot of money who was somehow involved in causing the disaster. Since
it is often impossible to determine the true cause of any complex event
and this is a way of ensuring that the victim is compensated, it's not
such a bad thing. To take your pharmacist example, if some little
neighborhood pharmacist killed someone with a program from Major Medical
Software Inc (I hope that doesn't actually refer to anyone) then you
can bet MMSI will pay; if Huge Nationwide Pharmacy bought the program
from Little-Bitty Software House, HNP will probably pay. If the cause
is clear-cut (a rare event) the deep pocket might avoid being hit unjustly,
but don't count on it.
This legal reality has led to a rather bizzare (and somewhat relevant)
hypothetical proposed by Marshall Willick, a lawyer interested in computer
issues: Suppose Medical AI Inc builds an expert system that modifies
its knowledge with experience. Suppose that several dozen of these gadgets
have been out in the field, working perfectly for years. Suppose further
that some physician relies on the program's advice and kills John Doe.
Doe's lawyers sue everyone in sight -- the doctor, the designer of the
program, the company that sold it, the hospital that bought it, etc.
The designer of the program and the company that sold the program point
to the dozens of other versions of the program that have worked fine
for years and argue the design is sound. The hospital says that it
maintained the machine as required and it did not malfunction, in the
sense that it was working as designed. The doctor says that he was relying
on the advice of a bona fide expert, and hence the expert is responsible
(a well established tenet of medical malpractice law). The conclusion
Willick claims a judge would be forced to reach is that the program itself
was responsible for the death. God knows that it doesn't help Doe's
family (the program has no assets), but it saves the doctor, the hospital
and the software house (or their insurance companies) a huge amount of
money. Hard as it is to admit, this is a possibility.
To my mind, someone (or some group of people) is always going to be
responsible for damage mediated by technology. The problem we have to
worry about is responsible individuals hiding behind the technological
complexity of a disaster, thereby evading justice.
Larry Hunter
HUNTER@YALE.ARPA
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From: Dave Taylor (The Moderator)
Date: Sunday, Feb 23rd, 1986 at 6:15pm MST
Subject: Another Brief Foray into Societal Class Issues
In recent issues of the digest we've talked about a lot of issues,
especially ethical and moral ones. For a bit of a change of pace, and
perhaps to spark some wild discussions, I'd like to discuss one of the
subjects originally proposed in the group - societal classes.
Since the beginning of history societies have been fragmented into
the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. Even the bible talks about slaves and
rulers, the powerful and the powerless, as it were.
In modern times we've strived (reasonably) to lessen this dramatic
difference between people who are all supposedly 'created equal'. We've
made some significant steps; slavery is illegal everywhere I've heard of,
for example. On the other hand, there are certainly still classes and
different levels of societal membership! A glance at Botha and the rest
of South Africa is enough to convince us of this.
What does this have to do with technology? Simple - those of us
in the information age, dealing with information on a day to day basis,
are becoming a new elite power class in society.
Consider the message earlier in this issue from a person falsely
arrested due to an inadvertent computer error. One of the more interesting
implications of this is that someone could maliciously alter the data in a
system such as the NCIC (National Crime Information Centre) computer and
wreak untold havoc on a persons life.
A few years ago a reporter for "Time" magazine wrote a rather harsh
article about teenage hackers, labelling them immature children and so on.
After the article was published, the author began to be harrassed by the
hackers that felt it was unfairly harsh. But this was no ordinary sort of
harrassment - the hackers got into various computer databases and the
reporter found his bills increased manyfold, and his credit rating plummet,
so much that his credit cards were requested back by his banks.
[this is all from memory, so if someone has the actual article(s) about this
please submit a more factual commentary!]
The significance here is that the situation was akin to a peasant
telling the rulers that he didn't like them...and being oppressed by the
dominant class (it seems obvious that peasants couldn't easily oppress a
member of the royal family, although precedent does exist!). In the same
way, this incident, and the potential of the false arrest incident, demonstrate
that the computer-knowledgable clique is becoming a more powerful class than
initially seems.
In the coming "Information Age", those people with access to information
of any sort, and more especially, those that have the ability to ALTER crucial
information are going to be the in control, either overtly or covertly...
Part of the reason is that computers are the first technology that
is easily obtainable, and, for various sundry reasons, are also relatively
easy to break into.
It's happening around us today ...
[more on this subject next issue]
-- Dave
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