Welcome to the Snooper Bowl

Big Brother came to Super Sunday, setting off a new debate about privacy and security in the digital age

Happy, yelling faces. Red, drunken faces. Faces painted blue. Faces painted purple. Tens of thousands of faces--accompanied by plastic horns and giant foam hands--pouring into Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay last Sunday, ready to watch the biggest football game of the year. Meanwhile, someone--or rather, something--was watching them.

In a move that has been both hailed and decried, the Tampa Bay police department used the occasion of Super Bowl XXXV to conduct a high-tech surveillance experiment on its unsuspecting guests. In total secrecy (but with the full cooperation of the National Football League), the faces of each of the...

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