Time Machine

[Clothahump]

Inspired by the thread on the foolproof lie detector (http://giraffeboards.com/showthread.php?t=2215).

You invent a "time machine". It's cheap, easy to operate and allows you to go back and record events that happened in the past. You can't change the past, you can't physically go into the past, you can only place your "lens" at a specific date/time and location and record the events that happened there.

What's the effect on the judicial system? Would it be allowed as evidence? For example, the cops find a body floating in the river. We know where it was found and when. We focus the machine on that place and time, then start moving backwards until we see the body enter the water. We then record everything and everyone around the body and we pick up someone cutting the guy's throat and tossing him overboard. Could we use that to identify, arrest and convict the cutter?

[welby]

I don't think it would stand. How to we know that it's "really" the past? How to we know the machine wasn't tinkered with? What's the certainty of accuracy? I think a good lawyer would have a field day with this.

[Muskrat Love]

Sounds like "The Dead Past" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past)by Isaac Asimov. A guy invents a device just like described in the OP and the government is attempting to suppress it, because it creates a total loss of privacy.

[Phoebe,OrNotPhoebe]

Assuming it was proven to be a "time" machine as such, would there be just one? How would you decide which crimes needed investigating? Would there be a priority for the most needy?

[Fromage A Trois]

Sounds like "The Dead Past" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past)by Isaac Asimov. A guy invents a device just like described in the OP and the government is attempting to suppress it, because it creates a total loss of privacy.

That doesn't sound like any government I know. I've never read it, but I see it was written during the cold war - when I don't imagine the governments of the time would've passed up such an opportunity either. Maybe Asimov had a less cynical view of our governments than I do :(.

[Muskrat Love]

That doesn't sound like any government I know. I've never read it, but I see it was written during the cold war - when I don't imagine the governments of the time would've passed up such an opportunity either. Maybe Asimov had a less cynical view of our governments than I do :(.

His intention was to write a story that turned the whole "evil government suppresses new invention" cliche on it's head. Part of the reason why the information is being suppressed is that the device is not difficult to make - it's been invented more than once and can be made by home hobbyists. I think the government would want to suppress a device that common citizens could use to spy on them.

[Fromage A Trois]

His intention was to write a story that turned the whole "evil government suppresses new invention" cliche on it's head. Part of the reason why the information is being suppressed is that the device is not difficult to make - it's been invented more than once and can be made by home hobbyists. I think the government would want to suppress a device that common citizens could use to spy on them.

Note to self - never judge a book by its synopsis.

[Giraffe]

It's an interesting idea. The problem is that it's effectively equivalent to installing full time planet-wide video surveillance, which has some obvious privacy problems. I could see allowing it for cases like that posited in the OP, e.g. a murder where such a device could clearly demonstrate who did it, but not make any time machine findings admissible for lesser crimes, to avoid a Big Brother like state where the government is constantly monitoring all citizens for any law breaking.

[Muskrat Love]

We can avoid some of the surveillance questions if we put some limitations on the device - make it so that it can only see what happened near the physical point in space it was being used (and ignore the fact that the Earth is moving around constantly). This gets rid of the dilemna of using it to see what went on inside your house, as you'd have to have a warrant or permission to bring the viewer inside and then look through it (it would also make people a lot less likely to move to a new house).

[Sgt. Max Fightmaster]

Time warrants.

No, I'm not joking.

[Mbossa]

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[Fish]

It's true there would be changes to the justice system; depending on the cost of these devices and the time and expertise required to operate it, one would expect this time-lens only to be used on capital crimes, or crimes where the time and expense would be justified. Use it to nab a murderer, sure; use it to nab a guy that took fifty cents from the cash register at Dunkin Donuts, probably not. The state would probably have no interest in using a time-lens to track down a suspected adulterer — but a disgruntled movie star with a wayward husband and a million-dollar estate might, and even so, she'd have to know more than that her husband was banging the help, she'd have to know precisely where and when. Tracking his every move day to day would likely be expensive.

You could've used such a device in the Terri Shiavo case, if Mr. Shiavo could've told the authorities exactly where and when Mrs. Shiavo had reported she hadn't wanted heroic measures to prolong her life.

If you must physically move the lens and recalibrate it temporally each time you use it (along with moving the power source for the lens), it seems awkward to use as a Big Brother device. You'd need three times as many time-lens technicians as citizens just to track everybody's movements, and then who tracks the technicians? No, inefficient. You'd use it for the big things, the high profile cases with a long statute of limitations.

The question is, how would it change crime? You'd want to commit crimes that the lens can't see: cybercrimes would be impossible to detect, because although the lens can see the moment the computer becomes infected with a virus, it can't see where the virus came from, or who wrote it. Any device that could be remotely operated could become a weapon for untraceable crime. If you're going to murder some guy, you make sure you do so in a locked building, which requires the timecops to get a warrant to lens-search; you bring the victim in by windowless vehicle; you dispose of him in such a way to leave little trace (i.e., acid, furnace, piranhas, etc).

Then there's the question of interference. Does the operation of one lens distort the operation of another? Do repeated scannings of a particular time and place cause residue or distortions? Can scanners see each other? (For instance, Abel is in March 2010, scanning backward to the book depository, Dallas, 1963. Beowulf is in January 2136, scanning the same location. Can Abel see Beowulf, or the results of Beowulf's scan? Can Beowulf see Abel, ditto? Do all the multitudes who are scanning Lee Harvey Oswald's marksmanship cause interference with each other?)