City of Glass

The next camera will not look like a camera. It will look like a feature update.

At 3.20 in the morning in January 1992, a federal agent stood outside Danny Kyllo’s triplex in Florence, Oregon, with a thermal imager. The device showed no faces and no rooms. It showed heat, which was enough for the government to wonder whether high-intensity lamps were operating inside, an indicator of an indoor marijuana factory.

The intrusion looked…