GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Acts of government surveillance — from increasing use of closed-circuit televisions and global positioning systems to an array of sophisticated technologies that can access records about our activities — represent an insidious assault on the freedom of Americans that the law has failed to respond to, according to a new book from a University of Florida law professor.

“The Supreme Court of the United States and the court system generally are not involved in overseeing this new surveillance, not so much because of a power grab by the executive branch, but because the courts themselves have taken the judiciary out of the game,” said UF Levin College of Law professor Christopher Slobogin, author of “Privacy at Risk: The New Government Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment” (University of Chicago Press).

In his book, Slobogin writes, “The assault comes from government monitoring of our communications, actions and transactions. The failure results from the inability or unwillingness of courts and legislatures to recognize how pervasive and routine this government surveillance has become.”

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To ensure that the government’s use of these powerful tools is not abused, Slobogin argues, something equally powerful — the Constitution, and in particular the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution — must stand guard. Slobogin’s book focuses on new developments in the government’s use of technology designed to observe our daily activities through physical surveillance and to peruse records of those activities.

While some of these technologically enhanced investigative techniques have been around for years, most are recent in origin, and their use by law enforcement officials has increased dramatically since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Since Sept. 11, the Bush Administration has pushed aggressively in two areas — camera surveillance and data mining. The government has provided millions of dollars to cities and municipalities for the purpose of setting up sophisticated camera systems, which allow the police to zoom in on street activity at night as well as during the day. Significant resources have also been poured into establishing data mining programs, where dozens of government agencies use the power of the computer and the ability to access records through the Internet and through commercial data brokers to obtain personal information about U.S. citizens as well as foreigners.

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