No civil rights infringements with this handsome investigator!

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He didn't need to, the Enterprise had all the internal and external sensors to do it for him.
- You can just ask the ships computer where anyone is at any time. Seems like a big privacy violation from the get go.
  
  "Computer, locate Ensign Boimler"
  "Ensign Boimler is in the Emergency Medical Crisis Lavatory on Deck 4."
  
  Part of the difference is that most Starfleet officers have the discipline to not do such things. A point that was brought up in TNG s1e26 "The Neutral Zone":
  PICARD: I'm Captain Picard.
  RALPH: Excellent. Now, maybe we'll be able to get some things straightened out.
  PICARD: We may indeed. Those comm. panels are for official ship business.
  RALPH: If they are so important, why don't they need an executive key?
  PICARD: Aboard a starship, that is not necessary. We are all capable of exercising self-discipline. Now, you will refrain from using them.
  
  There are still plenty of foreign visitors on the Enterprise, not to mention all the literal children living there. I always found the reasoning provided by Picard there rather silly.
  
  I don't think "reasoning" is the right perspective to examine Picard's comment from. He's not making a debate point, Picard is politely telling Ralph that he's acting like an assclown and that it WILL stop.
  
  Plus the computer can figure out who is using it, and lock them out as necessary. "Hero Worship" has Data point out to a child that he couldn't have blown up a starship by leaning on the console, because it can detect that, and not register the controls. And we know that there are ship functions that are keyed behind an authentication code, like the self-destruct system.
  But he probably doesn't need to explain that to Ralph, since it'd not be that relevant. What'd be more important in that moment to get him to stop causing trouble.
  
  The rod was still firmly crammed up his chiseled ass at that time. After the Borg and Data's 1st death, he became a touch more grounded and cynical.
  
  Well it's a utopia, not a dystopia. Or so it has been shown to us.
  
  Can you? The only people who we've seen use that feature are people who would be the authority to do so anyway, like the Captain/First officer.

34 comments