They’re trying to juice up their stats for advertisers. More registered users = more surveillance capitalism.

It’s more efficient, certainly. But telling someone pretrial in 2023 they can’t use a computer isn’t realistic.

Computers are remarkably efficient but at the dawn of the Gutenberg press, you could have made similar observations. For the first time with paper, it was possible to commit crimes in the privacy of your own home merely by writing things down and sending them to a publisher.

Absolutely.

In 1950, if you were told as a pretrial release condition, you weren’t allowed to use paper because your alleged crime involved a book, no one would have thought that reasonable. Today, devices are the equivalent of paper.

Prosecutors and judges really need a reminder of the concept of innocent until proven guilty.

The day her husband was released on bond, Hannah sat down with their kids and tried to explain how all of their devices were going to be monitored: The probation department would see anything they looked at on their phones and assume it was their father using the device. The constant surveillance had an immediate impact on the family, Hannah says.

And:

In near real time, probation officers are being fed screenshots of everything Hannah’s family views on their devices. From images of YouTube videos watched by her 14-year-old daughter to online underwear purchases made by her 80-year-old mother-in-law, the family’s entire digital life is scrutinized by county authorities. “I’m afraid to even communicate with our lawyer,” Hannah says. “If I mention anything about our case, I’m worried they are going to see it and use it against us.”

Any reasonable person would describe that as not just a punishment, but a pretty severe one.

And one that affects children. Having a teenager know that a person she never met, who she has no way to contact, is looking at her activity every minute isn’t just punishment in fact. It’s victimization.

Thus, I think we can conclude from this that the Monroe County, Indiana prosecutors office is victimizing children. Full stop. Time to make some arrests.