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Thermostats, Locks and Lights: Digital Tools of Domestic Abuse

posted by CoolHand on Tuesday June 26 2018, @12:09PM   
from the my-thermostat-is-holding-me-hostage dept.

SomeGuy writes:

The New York Times reports a disturbing increase in the use of "smart" devices in domestic abuse cases:

In more than 30 interviews with The New York Times, domestic abuse victims, their lawyers, shelter workers and emergency responders described how the technology was becoming an alarming new tool. Abusers - using apps on their smartphones, which are connected to the internet-enabled devices - would remotely control everyday objects in the home, sometimes to watch and listen, other times to scare or show power. Even after a partner had left the home, the devices often stayed and continued to be used to intimidate and confuse.

Connected home devices have increasingly cropped up in domestic abuse cases over the past year, according to those working with victims of domestic violence. Those at help lines said more people were calling in the last 12 months about losing control of Wi-Fi-enabled doors, speakers, thermostats, lights and cameras. Lawyers also said they were wrangling with how to add language to restraining orders to cover smart home technology.

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Original Submission

• Re: wrangling with how to add language (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 27 2018, @12:15PM

  by khallow (3766) on Wednesday June 27 2018, @12:15PM (#699251) Journal

  The law however regards it as speech protected under the first amendment.

  And it is. But when it's part of a pattern of harassing behavior, other rules kick in which have nothing to do with restricting the speech itself.

  What they want is for there to be standing for individual cases, but allow judges to still simply declare that in corporate cases, citizens have no plausible standing. Which defines the boundary clearly demonstrating that corporate speech is actually more valued by the state that citizens speech. Of course that is unconstitutional in about a dozen ways. But it has, and will continue to find a foundation in SCOTUS decisions, like the third party doctrine, corporate speech, and their other bizarre nonsensicle incantations.

  That's ridiculous. Corporations aren't marrying and then abusing human spouses. It's not even remotely relevant to bring in corporate law. And the threshold to show standing and harassment in a business environment is not that onerous (harassing someone through their thermostat isn't going to be different enough from harassing them through more mundane approaches like in person or via phone). Boilerplate in abusive relationship restraining orders isn't going to generate a lot of precedence for corporate-person lawsuits.
  
  What good boilerplate can do is close off this avenue of abuse without invalidating the restraining order. Think about that. You don't want the abuse to continue because you missed a loophole. Nor do you want the judge to throw out the restraining order because it was too broad. It's an expensive to go in and correct these problems. But being boilerplate that would be added to possible hundreds of such cases, they need not exist in the first place. Finally, I admit to some curiosity over what sort of standing issues you claim are a problem and how that is relevant to corporate versus personal speech. Perhaps, you could enlighten us?

  Parent