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my summary:

Millions of people got paid because of an unsafe feature of face book where some people could illegally harvest and view tons of peoples public information. Since then Facebook has had some updates to try and stop the harvesting. Cambridge Analytica collected data from millions of users but has relied on the London-based firm to delete the information. Now they directly delete the info. The 'This Is Your Digital Life' app was what allowed so many to get their hands on personal info.

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my sources:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43649018

https://www.the-independent.com/tech/facebook-settlement-payments-cambridge-analytica-b2826708.html

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The social network says that one million of the people affected are thought to be UK-based.

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The chilling effect of surveillance on political participation and dissent

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The chilling effect of surveillance on political participation and dissent

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Even in the United States, where freedom of speech is a First Amendment right, mass surveillance can still create a chilling effect on journalists and reporters, and influence their articles. When someone is being surveilled, they are much more likely to not post any unpopular ideas. This could one day create a “dossier society” where people may base their decisions and behavior to enhance their recorded image in the eyes of those who have will access to it in the future.

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Chilling Effects of Surveillance – Freedex

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The relationship between surveillance and authoritarianism

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The relationship between surveillance and authoritarianism

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Many authoritarian regimes use mass surveillance in order to manage their citizens. In the United States, while we do have a democratic government, we are involved in a phenomenon known as “surveillance capitalism.” This is where corporations collect users’ data which the government can then use. While this can be beneficial, as it helps track illegal aliens and other criminals, it can also be a massive invasion of privacy to law-abiding citizens.

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The FBI is struggling with suspects' devices being encrypted to the point they aren't able to use surveillance. This is called "going dark" and it means that even if the investigators have gotten legal warrants from the courts to do surveillance on a suspect, they can't always access the data they need. They are worried that it is a public safety concern because of how strongly devices can be encrpyted.

An example of this is Apple. They take their customers' privacy very seriously and have gone to court over this after refusing to give the government access to an encrypted phone. The government is hoping that Apple will create a "back door" code to crack a phone. Apple's argument was that it was against their freedom of speech rights to be forced to do this and also if they did create ways to break into their phones, they could be used by hackers who aren't just trying to track down criminals. They were also concerned that if they did this once, it would create a precedent and allow government agencies to use technology companies to do what they want, when they want.

1. https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/case-study/fbi-apple-security-vs-privacy

2. https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/speeches/going-dark-are-technology-privacy-and-public-safety-on-a-collision-course

3. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-privacy-vs-security-battle-reignited

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In December 2015, the FBI attained the iPhone of one of the shooters in an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California. As part of the investigation, the FBI attempted to gain access to the data stored on the phone but was unable to penetrate its encryption software. Lawyers for the Obama administration approached Apple for assistance with unlocking the device, but negotiations soon broke down. The Justice Department then obtained a court order compelling Apple to help the FBI unlock the phone. Apple CEO, Timothy Cook, publicly challenged the court in an open letter, sparking an intense debate over the balance between maintaining national security and protecting user privacy.

Apple and its supporters, including top technology companies such as Google and Facebook, made the case on several fronts that the court order threatened the privacy of all individuals. First, according to Apple, the order effectively required the company to write code, violating its First Amendment right to free speech by forcing the company to "say" something it did not want to say. Previous court cases had already established computer code as legally protected speech. Second, such a backdoor, once created, could fall into the wrong hands and threaten the privacy of all iPhone owners. Finally, it would set a dangerous precedent; law enforcement could repeatedly require businesses such as Apple to assist in criminal investigations, effectively making technology companies an agent of government.

Representatives from both sides of the political aisle offered several arguments in favor of the Justice Department's efforts and against Apple's stance. Their central claim was that the U.S. legal system establishes constraints on the government's access to private information which prevent abuse of search and surveillance powers. At the same time, the law still allows authorities to gain access to information that facilitates prevention and prosecution of criminal activities, from terrorism to drug trafficking to child pornography. Critics of Apple also rejected the slippery slope argument on the grounds that, if Apple cooperated, it could safeguard the code it created and keep it out of the hands of others, including bad actors such as terrorists or criminal groups. Moreover, Apple was accused of being too interested in protecting its brand, and even unpatriotic for refusing to comply with the court order.

Ultimately, the FBI dropped the case because it was able to circumvent the encryption on the iPhone without Apple's help.

Discussion Questions

Bibliography

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The FBI & Apple Security vs. Privacy - Ethics Unwrapped

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In December 2015, the FBI attained the iPhone of one of the shooters in an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California. As part of the investigation, the FBI attempted to gain access to the data stored on the phone but was unable to penetrate its encryption software.

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Minorities and Immigrants Are Spied On More

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Minorities and Immigrants Are Spied On More

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According to the ACLU, minorities and immigrants are more negatively impacted by surveillance than White people are. Across the country, police have the right to use surveillance tech in secret and not get permission. The ACLU has been working to help make sure the citizens of communities are the ones who decide how much and if they are subject to police surveillance. The laws they have gotten passed in Detroit, Michigan, and Dayton, Ohio, are called Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS), and they are working to expand.

ProPublica is another company trying to make sure that minorities are not unfairly targeted by surveillance technology. There are computer programs used to predict whether someone will commit a crime and it is often wrong, predicting that the minority will commit a crime and the White person will not. ProPublica studied the results of these programs and how accurate they were, and learned that only 20% of the people predicted to commit violent crimes actually did, and that Black people were predicted to commit crimes more than twice as often as White people.

1. https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/the-people-not-the-police-should-decide-if-and-how-surveillance-technologies-are-used-in-their-communities

2. https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing

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The People, Not the Police, Should Decide If and How Surveillance Technologies Are Used In Their Communities | ACLU

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Dayton and Detroit just passed CCOPS’ 20th and 21st laws nationwide — a milestone for surveillance tech transparency and empowering communities.

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If I have done nothing wrong, why is my privacy being violated?

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If I have done nothing wrong, why is my privacy being violated?

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The dangers of living in a surveillance society are that when the government does mass surveillance, it violates our Fourth Amendment rights, which require probable cause for searches. It also violates our First Amendment rights of freedom of expression.

As of April 17th, 2026, the Senate passed an extension on FISA Section 702. This act allows the government to surveil non-Americans electronic communications without getting permission from the court. The problem is that it gets many Americans' data as well, and that raises concerns for lawyers around the country.

1. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2015/04/7-reasons-why-ive-got-nothing-to-hide-is-the-wrong-response-to-mass-surveillance/

2. https://www.npr.org/2026/04/14/nx-s1-5768270/what-to-know-about-section-702-surveillance

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When we launched #UnfollowMe, our campaign to end governments' use of mass surveillance, the Amnesty Facebook and Twitter feeds were swamped. A lot of people told us: "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear". The reasoning goes that if you've done nothing wrong, it doesn't matter if governments want to collect all your data, emails, phone calls, webcam images and internet searches, because they won't find anything of interest. It's an attractive argument, but it's not right - and here's why.

A lot has been written about this issue, but for answers we looked through the responses of Amnesty supporters on Facebook. We've used your comments to explain why "nothing to hide" is the wrong way to respond to governments' use of mass surveillance.

1. "Privacy should be a right unless something is done that arouses legitimate suspicion." Karine Davison

Usually, governments conduct targeted surveillance, when they monitor a person or group for specific, legitimate reasons. For this, they'll need to get permission from a judge, for example to monitor the internet use of someone they suspect of criminal activities. If surveillance is indiscriminate, our communications are being monitored without any reasonable suspicion that we might be doing something dodgy. Governments are treating us all like criminal suspects, and every detail of our personal lives as suspicious. And there are few laws to control what they're doing.

2. "So no problem with a webcam in your bathroom or your bedroom either?" Ulf Carsson

You may not think you care about your privacy but the chances are you probably do. Every day we do things in our homes that we wouldn't do in public. It's not because we have something to hide, but just that there are parts of our lives we'd rather keep private. John Oliver, host of US TV show Last Week Tonight, asked people in New York how they felt about governments looking at their personal, sexual pictures (although he put it a little more crudely). Unsurprisingly, people feel less comfortable when they think of government agents looking at their most private images.

3. "BTW wanting my privacy is NOT equal to have something to hide." James Earl Walsh

Mass surveillance is an unprecedented intrusion into the privacy of ordinary people. At no point in history have we accepted that governments should be able to monitor everything we do to keep us safe. Imagine if we were told they wanted to install cameras in our living rooms, or microphones under tables in coffee shops, to ensure they could catch criminals. This is the physical-world equivalent of online mass surveillance. It's a huge overreach of government power and we consent to it every time we say we have "nothing to hide". Instead, we should say to governments: "I have nothing to hide and my private business is none of yours".

4. "Nothing to hide - as long as you agree 100% with the outlook and policies of your government." Emily Kate Goulding

Much like the right to protest, our privacy is something we notice more when it's taken away. Throughout history, seemingly innocent information about people has been used to persecute them during moments of crisis. You may trust your current government to look for criminals and not do anything dishonest with your data. But what if it changed and shifted dramatically to the left or the right? In these situations, authorities could gather data to find and crackdown on groups they disagree with. They could use the information to target journalists, persecute activists and discriminate against minorities.

5. "The premise is that the ones behind the cameras will have the best interests of the people at heart." Roland van der Sluijs

You may think you have done nothing wrong, but that puts blind faith in the people looking at your data to think the same way. As NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden told us: "These people are looking for criminals. You could be the most innocent person in the world, but if somebody programmed to see patterns of criminality looks at your data, they're not going to find you - they're going to find a criminal."

6. "Do you really want to live a life of mindless repetition, obeying everything?" Jia Hengjian

Evidence suggests that knowing you are being monitored changes your behaviour. And, as we become more aware of the computer algorithms and databases used to predict criminal activity, we will become more wary of what we say and do online. We will start to avoid saying or doing anything controversial, in case it is misconstrued. As a result, societies will become very conformist, with no-one willing to challenge the status quo.

7. "If we have nothing to hide, why are we under surveillance?" Jake Lawler

In a nutshell, the best response to "I've got nothing to hide" will always be: "If I have done nothing wrong, why is my privacy being violated?"

Here's a selection of some of your other responses to the 'nothing to hide' debate:

"Privacy is NOT for hiding, never was; privacy is for protecting, period."
Sam Isatlacc

"Man, you must be living the most inane kind of life possible if you really have nothing to hide from anyone."
Mitxel Moriana

"Just because you're not doing something wrong doesn't mean you shouldn't be allowed privacy."
Trilogy Gunby

"We have a RIGHT to privacy. If someone is suspected of some kind of criminal activity, then a court order for surveillance should be obtained."
Amy Rouby

"When any kind of dissent from the status quo becomes illegal, resistance becomes nearly impossible. As long as you never question anything those in power do, you'll be safe. Hurray."
Roland van der Sluijs

"Whether you like it or not, we have the right not to be spied on without probable cause."
Mary Shepard

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7 reasons why 'I've got nothing to hide' is the wrong response to mass surveillance

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When we launched #UnfollowMe , our campaign to end governments' use of mass surveillance, the Amnesty Facebook and Twitter feeds were swamped. A lot of people told us: "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear".

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John Edgar Hoover was born on January 1, 1895 in Washington DC. He received a law degree at George Washington University in 1917, and became involved in the mass deportations of Bolsheviks in 1919. In 1924, at the age of 29, Hoover became director of the Bureau of Investigation (later the Federal Bureau of Investigation). Over the next few decades, he amassed hundreds of damaging files on government officials that he used as leverage to stay in power. He was vehemently anti-communist, and against radicals of every kind, which led him to investigate everything from the Ku Klux Klan to Martin Luther King Jr. He remained director of the FBI for 48 years, until his death on May 2, 1972, at the age of 77. The official cause of death was a heart-attack, but many have suspected otherwise due to his history of underhanded dealings.

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J. Edgar Hoover, in full John Edgar Hoover, (born January 1, 1895, Washington, D.C., U.S.-died May 2, 1972, Washington, D.C.), U.S. public official who, as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1924 until his death in 1972, built that agency into a highly effective, if occasionally controversial, arm of federal law enforcement.

Hoover studied law at night at George Washington University, where he received a bachelor of laws degree in 1916 and a master of laws degree in the following year. He entered the Department of Justice as a file reviewer in 1917, and two years later he became special assistant to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, in which post he oversaw the mass roundups and deportations of suspected Bolsheviks (communists) after World War I. He was named acting director of the Bureau of Investigation (as it was then called) in May 1924 and confirmed as director seven months later. Finding the organization in disrepute because of the scandals of Warren G. Harding's administration, he reorganized and rebuilt it on a professional basis, recruiting agents on merit and instituting rigorous methods of selecting and training personnel. He established a fingerprint file, which became the world's largest; a scientific crime-detection laboratory; and the FBI National Academy, to which selected law enforcement officers from all parts of the country were sent for special training.

In the early 1930s the exploits of gangsters in the United States were receiving worldwide publicity. Hoover took advantage of this to publicize the achievements of the FBI in tracking down and capturing well-known criminals. Both the FBI's size and its responsibilities grew steadily under his management. In the late 1930s President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave him the task of investigating both foreign espionage in the United States and the activities of communists and fascists alike. When the Cold War began in the late 1940s, the FBI undertook the intensive surveillance of communists and other left-wing activists in the United States. Hoover's animus toward radicals of every kind led him to aggressively investigate both the Ku Klux Klan and Martin Luther King, Jr., and other black activists in the 1960s. At the same time, he maintained a hands-off policy toward the Mafia, which was allowed to conduct its operations nationwide practically free of FBI scrutiny or interference.

Hoover habitually used the FBI's enormous surveillance and information-gathering powers to collect damaging information on politicians throughout the country, and he kept the most scurrilous data under his own personal control. He used his possession of these secret files to maintain himself as the FBI's director and was apparently able to intimidate even sitting presidents by threatening to leak damaging disclosures about them. By the early 1970s he had come under public criticism for his authoritarian administration of the FBI and for his persecution of those he regarded as radicals and subversives. He retained his post, however, until his death at age 77, by which time he had been the FBI's chief for 48 years and had served 8 presidents and 18 attorneys general.

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J. Edgar Hoover | Biography, FBI, & Facts

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J. Edgar Hoover, U.S. public official who, as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1924 until his death in 1972, built that agency into a highly effective, if occasionally controversial, arm of federal law enforcement. Learn more about Hoover in this article.

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Edward Joseph Snowden was born on June 21, 1983 in North Carolina. He dropped out of high school in 1999, and studied at a community college until 2005. Despite this, he never got a college degree. He had a natural talent for computers, and because of this, he was hired by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2006. He transferred to the NSA in 2009, where he gathered intelligence on dozens of classified government programs. In May of 2013, Snowden leaked these files to a news organization in Hong Kong. He was charged with espionage by the U.S. Government, but fled to Russia, where he obtained citizenship in 2022, and resides to this day.

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Edward Snowden (born June 21, 1983, Elizabeth City, North Carolina, U.S.) is an American intelligence contractor and whistleblower who in 2013 revealed the existence of secret wide-ranging information-gathering programs conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA). The case highlighted a host of issues, including the secret use of government power, privacy in the digital age, the ethics of whistleblowing, and the role that the Internet and anonymous browsers on the dark web such as Tor can play in facilitating such whistleblowing.

Snowden was born in North Carolina, and his family moved to central Maryland, a short distance from NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, when he was a child. He dropped out of high school and studied intermittently between 1999 and 2005 at a community college; he completed a GED but did not receive a college degree. He enlisted in the army reserve as a special forces candidate in May 2004, but he was discharged four months later. In 2005 he worked as a security guard at the Center for Advanced Study of Language, a University of Maryland research facility affiliated with the NSA. Despite a relative lack of formal education and training, Snowden demonstrated an aptitude with computers, and he was hired by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2006. He was given a top secret clearance and in 2007 was posted to Geneva, where he worked as a network security technician under a diplomatic cover.

Snowden left the CIA for the NSA in 2009. There he worked as a private contractor for the companies Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton. During this time, he began gathering information on a number of NSA activities-most notably, secret surveillance programs that he believed were overly broad in size and scope. In May 2013 Snowden requested a medical leave of absence and flew to Hong Kong, where during the following month he conducted a series of interviews with journalists from the newspaper The Guardian. Footage filmed during that period was featured in the documentary Citizenfour (2014). Among the NSA secrets leaked by Snowden was a court order that compelled telecommunications company Verizon to turn over metadata (such as numbers dialed and duration of calls) for millions of its subscribers. Snowden also disclosed the existence of PRISM, a data-mining program that reportedly gave the NSA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Government Communications Headquarters-Britain's NSA equivalent-"direct access" to the servers of such Internet giants as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple.

On June 9, 2013, days after stories were initially published in The Guardian and The Washington Post without revealing the identity of their source, Snowden came forward, stating that he felt no need to hide because he had done nothing wrong. In a subsequent interview with the South China Morning Post, he claimed that the NSA had been hacking into Chinese computers since 2009 and that he had taken a job with Booz Allen Hamilton expressly to obtain information about secret NSA activities. The U.S. charged Snowden with espionage on June 14, and Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder, began negotiating with authorities in Hong Kong in an attempt to initiate extradition procedures. The Hong Kong government declined to act, and Snowden, with the assistance of the media organization WikiLeaks, flew to Moscow, where his exact whereabouts became the source of intense speculation. Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin confirmed that Snowden, whose passport had been revoked by the U.S., remained within the confines of the international transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.

Putin resolutely stated that Russia would take no part in his extradition to the United States, and Snowden applied for asylum in some 20 countries, including Russia. Putin also made clear that he did not wish for Snowden's presence to damage relations with the United States, and he said that if Snowden wished to remain in Russia, "he must stop his work aimed at bringing harm to our American partners." After having spent more than a month in the Sheremetyevo transit zone, Snowden was granted temporary refugee status by Russia, and he left the airport in the company of a WikiLeaks staffer.

Although U.S. Pres. Barack Obama was critical of Snowden's methods, in August 2013 he announced the creation of an independent panel to examine the U.S. government's surveillance practices. That panel's findings, published in December 2013, recommended that the mass collection of telephone records be suspended and advised greater oversight of sensitive programs, such as those targeting friendly foreign leaders. Obama acted on a number of these suggestions and recommended congressional review of others, but the role of the NSA and its data-collection efforts remained a bone of contention between the intelligence community and privacy advocates. In April 2014 The Guardian U.S. and The Washington Post were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for public service for their roles in reporting on the NSA leaks. Snowden characterized the award as "a vindication" of his efforts to bring the secret surveillance programs to light.

In August 2014, as Snowden's grant of temporary asylum expired, the Russian government awarded him a three-year residence permit (effective August 1), which would allow him to leave the country for up to three months. The permit was extended in 2017, and Snowden was granted permanent residency in 2020. In September 2022 Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin granted Snowden Russian citizenship.

In September 2019 Snowden released the memoir Permanent Record. On the same day, the U.S. Justice Department sued him to recover all of his earnings from the book, claiming that he had violated his nondisclosure agreements with the CIA and NSA by not submitting the work to them for a prepublication review.

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Edward Snowden | Education, Biography, Russia, & Facts

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Edward Snowden, American intelligence contractor who in 2013 revealed the existence of secret wide-ranging information-gathering programs conducted by the NSA. He was charged with espionage and subsequently sought refuge in Russia. Learn more about Snowden's life and career.

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https://www.govexec.com/technology/2008/04/roots-of-surveillance-standoff-go-back-decades/26741/#:~:text=In%20the%20summer%20of%201994,%2D%2D%20to%20stare%20members%20down.ations

CALEA, act passed in 1994, required all telecommunication carriers and manufacturers to make sure that they could comply with any surveillance requests required by legal personal/government. Meaning, the government required them to make sure that the FBI or other government officals could do a wire tap if they wanted.

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Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act

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(My name wasn't listed twice and Part 2 had a empty slot so I just did this one. Hope that was okay)

The email privacy act passed on April 27, 2016. The bill amended or updated the Electronic Communications Act that was passed in 1986. It clarifies that prohibitions or exceptions apply even if the content is held in storage or read. It also says that the government must have a warrant to get the communications of a third party provider. It also states that the a governmental entity can tell a provider to not tell (for up to 180 days) that they have been required to disclose communications and records.

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When one sends a message, the sender's device encrypts it, and the receivers device decrypts it. This protects the contents of the message. However, this can cause some issues as the messages can't be monitored for criminal activity or harmful content.

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Major tech companies use data they collect to build profiles on each individual. They take things like your search history to build profiles about what you'll buy and what your life looks like. This helps ad companies target specific areas of your life. They also can take information from your location. Occasionally apps will ask for you to share your location. When you do so, they also use this information to learn more about you and your habits. There is also biometric data. They can find out what your fingerprint, iris, and face look like when you download that data on to your devices. Finally, they can gather information from your workplace. Keystroke logging, emotion recognition and off-work social media monitoring are all things they can do or take from your workplace.

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How companies make money tracking you - TechEquity Collaborative

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Companies aren’t surveilling us just to violate our privacy and make us feel unsafe. They’re surveilling us to make money. This is how.

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Global Data Protection Regulation or GDPR is a law made by the EU (European Union) it is supposed to push the use of protection for personal data by fining companies a percentage of their turnover (up to 4% sometimes!) if not used. It also benefits businesses and organizations. 40% of businesses and organizations have seen positive returns on this investment.

The EU created two acts to help with GDPR negatives, one of the goals is to create a safer digital space in which all fundamental rights are protected.

The impact of GDPR is widespread across more than the EU shaping strong standards for global security, and helping keep things secure in case of hackers. (Although it may be made obsolete in a few years with rise of quantum computing)

Links:

https://gdprlocal.com/global-data-protection-regulation-how-gdpr-sets-the-international-standard/

https://www.cloudi-fi.com/blog/the-impacts-of-gdpr-on-global-organizations-after-6-years-of-implementation

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Global Data Protection Regulation: How GDPR Sets the International Standard - GDPR Local

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The GDPR is leading the way in protecting data, and we are in the midst of a worldwide data protection revolution.

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Was the one who created "Pretty Good Privacy," or PGP, which was supposed to give people privacy without government interference. This led to a heated political fight, and Zimmermann was facing potential jail time. Zimmermann's fight with defined the early "Crypto Wars," The government was slowly implementing ways to listen in on conversations between people. Zimmermann believed these holes could be used by crimes, or foreign governments .This caused many to join the side of Philip Zimmermann. Phil charges were eventually dropped and he continued living as a programmer and civil liberties activist.

Links:

https://www.internethalloffame.org/inductee/philip-zimmermann/

https://hiddenheroes.netguru.com/philip-zimmermann

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The Five-Eyes Organization is an intelligence alliance between the U.S., Canada, the U.K., New Zealand and Australia. They have agreed to exchange intelligence, knowledge and methods in order to promote cooperation and transparency between the countries. Five Eyes emerged from the success of the U.K. and U.S. intelligence relationship during WWII and expanded to include Canada in 1948 and Australia and New Zealand in 1956. This alliance operates with extreme secrecy, so much so that the general public did not know about it until 2010 when details were officially disclosed. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the Five-Eyes due to their involvement in the Snowden Leaks and other private citizen surveillance and communication interception initiatives they have run.

https://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article/25/1/101/115125/Why-the-Five-Eyes-Power-and-Identity-in-the

https://www.dni.gov/files/ICIG/Documents/Partnerships/FIORC/FIORC-Charter-2025.pdf

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How Does the Government's Watch on Us Affect How We Behave?

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How Does the Government's Watch on Us Affect How We Behave?

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The government monitors our devices and social media, and it has a strange effect on public speech. When people know the NSA monitors them, they are far less likely to post less popular beliefs. The monitoring also causes Americans to be less active on their devices for fear of being tracked.

The importance of privacy comes up a lot. The government is trying to protect us, but the effect on the average person is hard to ignore.

Karen Gullo. (2016, May 19). Survellance Chills Speech-As New Studies Show-And Free Association Suffers. EFF. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/05/when-surveillance-chills-speech-new-studies-show-our-rights-free-association

Harsha Panduranga and Emil Mella Pablo. (2022, February 9). Federal Government Social Media Surveillance, Explained. BC. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/federal-government-social-media-surveillance-explained

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Surveillance Chills Speech—As New Studies Show—And Free Association Suffers

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Visiting an art exhibit featuring works about the U.S. war on terror or going to a lecture about Islam wouldn’t be cause for worry—unless you found out that the government was monitoring and keeping track of attendees. At that point, some people would be spooked and stay away, sacrificing their…

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The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), is an act passed by the European Union in 2016 and implemented by 2018. It is considered to be the toughest data privacy and security law worldwide. It puts regulation and obligation on organizations not just within the EU, but around the globe. If a company is targeting or collecting data related to people in the EU, they will have to abide by the GDPR. Penalties for not complying can reach tens of millions of Euros.

The GDPR expands on the 1995 European Data Protection Directive (a basic data privacy and security standard for the EU). To name a few of the many topics it covers, the GDPR has clear guidelines on consent regarding the gathering of data, especially regarding children, and has laid out a set of privacy rights for data subjects (users of the internet). It also requires certain kinds and sizes of companies to hire a DPO (Data Protection Officer). This is a person who is responsible for managing and protecting data, fixing problems and answering questions regarding data and privacy.

https://www.gdpr.eu/what-is-gdpr/

The EU AI Act is the first regulation on AI, to be passed by a major legislative group. It was first presented to the EU in 2021 and was passed in 2024. It contains a risk factor classification system (different risk levels require different compliance regulations) and ensures that “AI systems used in the EU are safe, transparent, traceable, non-discriminatory and environmentally friendly.” The EU AI Act also specifies that AI programs should be run and overseen by humans to prevent harmful outcomes.

Under this act, the EU has banned several types of AI, including real time biometric identification, such as facial recognition in public spaces and cognitive behavioral manipulation (the example given was voice activated kids' toys that encouraged dangerous behavior). Some AI systems that fall into the high-risk category are critical infrastructure (specifically management and oversight), education and vocational training, law enforcement, legal interpretation and migration, border control and asylum. Systems deemed high-risk go through assessments before being put on the market and during their operational lifetime. Generative AI, like ChatGPT, is not considered high-risk. However, it does have to abide by transparency laws. These laws mandate that AI created content is disclosed and clearly marked, illegal content can’t be generated and the companies behind these AI’s must publish summaries of copyrighted data used to train their systems.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20230601STO93804/eu-ai-act-first-regulation-on-artificial-intelligence

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In the following cases, the government was sued for violating the Fourth Amendment.

In the case Katz v. United States, a man was arrested for giving someone information to gamble. He argued that the government had no right to listen in because of the Fourth Amendment, which states that your belongings cannot be searched without a warrant. The government argued that because they didn't physically enter anything it was not a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The court ultimately decided that it was a violation without a warrant. This also decided that people should assume they have privacy in anything they own, including a phone booth, where they own it and have privacy from the second they pay.

In the case Smith v. Maryland, the police station had installed a pen that records numbers that a petitioner had dialed, and he pushed back on it and said it was an invasion of privacy. Maryland denied it and said it did not violate the Fourt Amendment. The petitioner was convicted and Maryland won.

In the case United States v. Jones, a man was convicted by tracking his GPS without a warrant. The government argued that it was not a violation of the Fourth Amendment because it was in the public, but they lost.

In the case Riley v. California, a police officer stole a man named Riley's phone, searched it, and found a street gang. Riley was charged for being involved in a shooting, and arrested. It was then decided that police also need a warrant to search a cell phone.

In the case Carpenter v. United states, suspected robbers were arrested from their CSLI. The court ordered that evidence be provided that a search was necessary. They eventually decided that data requires a warrant to search.

In the case Clapper v. Amnesty, the NSA had permission to track foreign intelligence outside of the US. However, individuals in the US who communicate with individuals outside of it who are being tracked, are likely to be tracked themselves. This case limited the power of surveillance.

Is privacy or safety more important? It may be a debate until the end of time.

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Facial recognition can be prone to errors, as it is known for having less accurate results depending on the gender and skin color of the face being scanned. With such a large margin of error, this can lead to very strong security issues.

Sources: https://www.eff.org/aboutface

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_recognition_system

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Encryption's Prevention of Law Enforcement Investigations

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Encryption's Prevention of Law Enforcement Investigations

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The link below is the FBI's description and take on the topic stated above.

https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-investigate/lawful-access

The link below is an essay from UC Berkley Law, which delves deeply into the topic stated above.

https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/archive/2019/10/Kerr-Encryption-Workarounds.pdf

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In today's world, criminals can plan and carry out their crimes almost entirely through electronic communications. Accordingly, access to digital evidence and online threat information is critical for law enforcement to stop threats, arrest criminals, and protect victims.

What is lawful access?

The term "lawful access" refers to law enforcement's ability to obtain evidence and threat information from digital service providers and device manufacturers, as authorized by lawful court orders.

Lawful access to digital evidence and threat information is rapidly eroding-fast approaching a tipping point-because digital service providers and device manufacturers are increasingly deploying and aggressively marketing warrant-proof encryption features.

Warrant-proof encryption prevents anyone other than end-users or device owners from seeing readable, decrypted digital content.

Because of warrant-proof encryption, providers are often unable to deliver information to law enforcement about illegal and egregiously harmful activity when they are compelled by court-authorized legal process.

What are the consequences for public safety?

Warrant-proof encryption is a major public safety problem with real-world impacts to American families.

In effect, warrant-proof encryption has created lawless digital spaces where bad actors are sexually exploiting children, conducting human trafficking, sharing terrorist propaganda, and distributing drugs like deadly fentanyl while evading law enforcement detection.

Victims of crime whose rights have been violated may be deprived of justice if evidence for their case is out of reach due to warrant-proof encryption.

Law enforcement will have to rely on alternative investigative methods to keep communities safe. These alternative methods can be dangerous, can come at great expense to the taxpayer, and are often not scalable or timely substitutes for legal process.

Is the FBI against encryption?

No. The FBI is a strong advocate for the wide and consistent use of responsibly managed encryption-encryption that providers can decrypt and provide to law enforcement when served with a legal order.

Protecting data and privacy in a digitally connected world is a top priority for the FBI, and promoting encryption is a vital part of that mission. The FBI does not want encryption to be weakened or compromised so that it can be defeated by malicious actors. Rather, the FBI along with federal, state, and local law enforcement colleagues, want providers who manage encrypted data to be able to decrypt that data and provide it to law enforcement only in response to U.S. legal process.

Don't take our word for it:
"It is heartbreaking to know that victims' voices may never be heard as evidence of child molestation, human trafficking, and murder are physically in our hands, but we can' open the suspects' encrypted devices, even with a search warrant."
- Law enforcement partner from California
Hear more from our partners.﻿

﻿Myths vs. reality:
Myth: Law enforcement opposes strong encryption.

Reality: Law enforcement supports strong, responsibly managed encryption. This encryption should be designed to protect people's privacy and also managed so U.S. tech companies can provide readable content in response to a lawful court order. Learn more.

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Lawful Access | Federal Bureau of Investigation

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Because of warrant-proof encryption, the government often cannot obtain the electronic evidence necessary to investigate and prosecute threats to public and national safety, even with a warrant or court order.

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The link below is a study of the case from Santa Clara University.

https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/business-ethics/resources/apple-vs-fbi-case-study/

The link below is a a letter from Apple to its customers on their intentions moving forward in regard to the case.

https://www.apple.com/customer-letter/

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Business & government struggle over encryption’s proper place.

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Link one: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Policing – Police and Security News explains how AI tools can help police although, they do raise concerns over bias, accuracy, and responsible oversight. link two: Predictive policing and algorithmic fairness | Synthese | Springer Nature Link is very similar to link one in the sense that it to raises concerns over bias, accuracy, and responsible oversight. One statistic that stands out (this stat comes from ProPublica’s COMPAS investigation) is that 85% of people with highest security score were black males. That appears to be an extremely high number, to put that into perspective, out one hundred people who have been assigned a high security number, 85 of them are black males. Final link: How We Analyzed the COMPAS Recidivism Algorithm — ProPublica

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Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Policing – Police and Security News

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This link to one of CBS's articles explains what Section 702 is and why it is so important to national security by tracking threats to the American public. https://www.deseret.com/politics/2026/04/17/fight-over-fisa-personal-security/ explains the arguments for and against Section 702. It also explains how the main argument is how 702 gives intelligence officials lots of authority in regard to collecting communications without a warrant.

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Controversial surveillance program faces uncertain future ahead of House vote

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The spy tool, known as FISA Section 702, expires Monday. But it currently has opposition from several House factions.

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The crypto wars is the event of the government of the US and various allied countries attempting to limit the use of cryptography that is too strong for them to decrypt. This would make it easier for them to preform mass surveillance, and thwart any intentions which they deem as being bad.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars

https://news.law.fordham.edu/jcfl/2023/03/31/the-crypto-wars-and-the-future-of-financial-privacy/

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Part 6 – The Role of Technology Companies

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Part 6 – The Role of Technology Companies

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Source 1

Microsoft – Government Requests for Customer Data Report https://www.microsoft.com/transparency Summary: Shows how Microsoft handles government requests for user data, including what information they release, what they refuse, and how they protect encryption. The report highlights transparency practices and the balance between user privacy and lawful investigations.

Source 2

Stanford Internet Observatory – How Tech Companies Handle Government Requests https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/how-tech-companies-handle-government-requests

Summary: Analyzes how major tech companies like Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft respond to government demands for user data. It explains transparency reporting, legal standards, and the tension between privacy protection and cooperation with law enforcement.

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Part 2: Key Legislation & Legal Developments

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Part 2: Key Legislation & Legal Developments

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Source 1

New America – Doomed to Repeat History? Lessons from the Crypto Wars of the 1990s https://www.newamerica.org/oti/reports/doomed-to-repeat-history-lessons-from-the-crypto-wars-of-the-1990s/

Summary: This source explains the 1990s “Crypto Wars,” when the U.S. government pushed for backdoors in encryption through policies like the Clipper Chip and CALEA. The report shows how privacy advocates and technologists resisted these efforts and how those early battles shaped today’s surveillance and encryption debates.

Source 2

EFF – The USA FREEDOM Act Explained https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/06/effs-guide-usa-freedom-act

Summary: This source breaks down how the USA FREEDOM Act (2015) reformed surveillance after the Snowden leaks. It ended the NSA’s bulk phone‑metadata program, increased transparency, and required more targeted data collection, while also noting the limits of the reforms.

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A few Supreme Court cases have played a major role in how much the U.S. government can legally surveil its citizens and people abroad. One of the first of these, at least for the digital era, was United v. Jones, which decided that putting a GPS tracker (which was the reason why the case occurred) on somebody was considered a search under the fourth amendment to the American constitution, which bans unwarranted searches and seizures. In this case the police had gotten a warrant for putting a GPS track on somebody's car (Antoine Jones), however it exceeded the warrant's powers, so what it was used for was ruled unconstitutional. Another supreme court case that only occurred 2 years later was Riley v. California, which ruled that under the 4th amendment, police need a warrant to be able to seize and search through an arrested person's phone.

Sources:

1. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/565/400/

2. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/573/373/

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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 10-1259

_________________

UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. ANTOINE JONES

on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit

[January 23, 2012]

Justice Alito, with whom Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, and Justice Kagan join, concurring in the judgment.

This case requires us to apply the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures to a 21st-century surveillance technique, the use of a Global Po-sitioning System (GPS) device to monitor a vehicle's move-ments for an extended period of time. Ironically, the Court has chosen to decide this case based on 18th-century tort law. By attaching a small GPS device [ 1 ] to the underside of the vehicle that respondent drove, the law enforcement officers in this case engaged in conduct that might have provided grounds in 1791 for a suit for trespass to chattels. [ 2 ] And for this reason, the Court concludes, the installation and use of the GPS device constituted a search. Ante, at 3-4.

This holding, in my judgment, is unwise. It strains the language of the Fourth Amendment; it has little if any support in current Fourth Amendment case law; and it is highly artificial.

I would analyze the question presented in this case by asking whether respondent's reasonable expectations of privacy were violated by the long-term monitoring of the movements of the vehicle he drove.

I

A

The Fourth Amendment prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures," and the Court makes very little effort to explain how the attachment or use of the GPS device fits within these terms. The Court does not contend that there was a seizure. A seizure of property occurs when there is "some meaningful interference with an in-dividual's possessory interests in that property," United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U. S. 109, 113 (1984) , and here there was none. Indeed, the success of the surveillance technique that the officers employed was dependent on the fact that the GPS did not interfere in any way with the operation of the vehicle, for if any such interference had been detected, the device might have been discovered.

The Court does claim that the installation and use of the GPS constituted a search, see ante, at 3-4, but this con-clusion is dependent on the questionable proposition that these two procedures cannot be separated for purposes of Fourth Amendment analysis. If these two procedures are analyzed separately, it is not at all clear from the Court's opinion why either should be regarded as a search. It is clear that the attachment of the GPS device was not itself a search; if the device had not functioned or if the officers had not used it, no information would have been obtained. And the Court does not contend that the use of the device constituted a search either. On the contrary, the Court accepts the holding in United States v. Knotts, 460 U. S. 276 (1983) , that the use of a surreptitiously planted electronic device to monitor a vehicle's movements on public roads did not amount to a search. See ante, at 7.

The Court argues-and I agree-that "we must 'assur[e] preservation of that degree of privacy against government that existed when the Fourth Amendment was adopted.' " Ante, at 5 (quoting Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27 , 34 (2001)). But it is almost impossible to think of late- 18th-century situations that are analogous to what took place in this case. (Is it possible to imagine a case in which a constable secreted himself somewhere in a coach and remained there for a period of time in order to monitor the movements of the coach's owner? [ 3 ] ) The Court's theory seems to be that the concept of a search, as originally un-derstood, comprehended any technical trespass that led to the gathering of evidence, but we know that this is in-correct. At common law, any unauthorized intrusion on private property was actionable, see Prosser & Keeton 75, but a trespass on open fields, as opposed to the "curtilage" of a home, does not fall within the scope of the Fourth Amendment because private property outside the curtilage is not part of a "hous[e]" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. See Oliver v. United States, 466 U. S. 170 (1984) ; Hester v. United States, 265 U. S. 57 (1924) .

B

The Court's reasoning in this case is very similar to that in the Court's early decisions involving wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping, namely, that a technical trespass followed by the gathering of evidence constitutes a search. In the early electronic surveillance cases, the Court concluded that a Fourth Amendment search occurred when private conversations were monitored as a result of an "unauthorized physical penetration into the premises occupied" by the defendant. Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505, 509 (1961) . In Silverman, police officers listened to conversations in an attached home by inserting a "spike mike" through the wall that this house shared with the vacant house next door. Id., at 506. This procedure was held to be a search because the mike made contact with a heating duct on the other side of the wall and thus "usurp[ed] . . . an integral part of the premises." Id., at 511.

By contrast, in cases in which there was no trespass, it was held that there was no search. Thus, in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438 (1928) , the Court found that the Fourth Amendment did not apply because "[t]he taps from house lines were made in the streets near the houses." Id., at 457. Similarly, the Court concluded that no search occurred in Goldman v. United States, 316 U. S. 129, 135 (1942) , where a "detectaphone" was placed on the outer wall of defendant's office for the purpose of overhearing conversations held within the room.

This trespass-based rule was repeatedly criticized. In Olmstead, Justice Brandeis wrote that it was "immaterial where the physical connection with the telephone wires was made." 277 U. S., at 479 (dissenting opinion). Al-though a private conversation transmitted by wire did not fall within the literal words of the Fourth Amendment, he argued, the Amendment should be understood as prohibiting "every unjustifiable intrusion by the government upon the privacy of the individual." Id., at 478. See also, e.g., Silverman, supra, at 513 (Douglas, J., concurring) ("The concept of 'an unauthorized physical penetration into the premises,' on which the present decision rests seems to me beside the point. Was not the wrong . . . done when the intimacies of the home were tapped, recorded, or revealed? The depth of the penetration of the electronic device-even the degree of its remoteness from the inside of the house-is not the measure of the injury"); Goldman, supra, at 139 (Murphy, J., dissenting) ("[T]he search of one's home or office no longer requires physical entry, for science has brought forth far more effective devices for the invasion of a person's privacy than the direct and obvious methods of oppression which were detested by our forebears and which inspired the Fourth Amendment").

Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967) , finally did away with the old approach, holding that a trespass was not required for a Fourth Amendment violation. Katz in-volved the use of a listening device that was attached to the outside of a public telephone booth and that allowed police officers to eavesdrop on one end of the target's phone conversation. This procedure did not physically intrude on the area occupied by the target, but the Katz Court, "repudiate[ed]" the old doctrine, Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U. S. 128, 143 (1978) , and held that "[t]he fact that the electronic device employed . . . did not happen to penetrate the wall of the booth can have no constitutional significance," 389 U. S., at 353 ("[T]he reach of th[e] [Fourth] Amendment cannot turn upon the presence or absence of a physical intrusion into any given enclosure"); see Rakas, supra, at 143 (describing Katz as holding that the "ca-pacity to claim the protection for the Fourth Amendment depends not upon a property right in the invaded place but upon whether the person who claims the protection of the Amendment has a legitimate expectation of privacy in the invaded place"); Kyllo, supra, at 32 ("We have since decoupled violation of a person's Fourth Amendment rights from trespassory violation of his property"). What mattered, the Court now held, was whether the conduct at issue "violated the privacy upon which [the defendant] justifiably relied while using the telephone booth." Katz, supra, at 353.

Under this approach, as the Court later put it when addressing the relevance of a technical trespass, "an actual trespass is neither necessary nor sufficient to establish a constitutional violation." United States v. Karo, 468 U. S. 705, 713 (1984) (emphasis added). Ibid. ("Compar[ing] Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967) (no trespass, but Fourth Amendment violation), with Oliver v. United States, 466 U. S. 170 (1984) (trespass, but no Fourth Amendment violation)"). In Oliver, the Court wrote:

"The existence of a property right is but one element in determining whether expectations of privacy are legitimate. 'The premise that property interests control the right of the Government to search and seize has been discredited.' Katz, 389 U. S., at 353, (quoting Warden v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294, 304 (1967) ; some internal quotation marks omitted)." 466 U. S., at 183.

II

The majority suggests that two post-Katz decisions-Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U. S. 56 (1992) , and Alderman v. United States, 394 U. S. 165 (1969) -show that a technical trespass is sufficient to establish the existence of a search, but they provide little support.

In Soldal, the Court held that towing away a trailer home without the owner's consent constituted a seizure even if this did not invade the occupants' personal privacy. But in the present case, the Court does not find that there was a seizure, and it is clear that none occurred.

In Alderman, the Court held that the Fourth Amendment rights of homeowners were implicated by the use of a surreptitiously planted listening device to monitor third-party conversations that occurred within their home. See 394 U. S., at 176-180. Alderman is best understood to mean that the homeowners had a legitimate expectation of privacy in all conversations that took place under their roof. See Rakas, 439 U. S., at 144, n. 12 (citing Alderman for the proposition that "the Court has not altogether abandoned use of property concepts in determining the presence or absence of the privacy interests protected by that Amendment"); 439 U. S., at 153 (Powell, J., concurring) (citing Alderman for the proposition that "property rights reflect society's explicit recognition of a person's au-thority to act as he wishes in certain areas, and there- fore should be considered in determining whether an individual's expectations of privacy are reasonable); Karo, supra, at 732 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (citing Alderman in support of the proposition that "a homeowner has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of his home, including items owned by others").

In sum, the majority is hard pressed to find support in post-Katz cases for its trespass-based theory.

III

Disharmony with a substantial body of existing case law is only one of the problems with the Court's approach in this case.

I will briefly note four others. First, the Court's reasoning largely disregards what is really important (the use of a GPS for the purpose of long-term tracking) and instead attaches great significance to something that most would view as relatively minor (attaching to the bottom of a car a small, light object that does not interfere in any way with the car's operation). Attaching such an object is generally regarded as so trivial that it does not provide a basis for recovery under modern tort law. See Prosser & Keeton §14, at 87 (harmless or trivial contact with personal property not actionable); D. Dobbs, Law of Torts 124 (2000) (same). But under the Court's reasoning, this conduct may violate the Fourth Amendment. By contrast, if long-term monitoring can be accomplished without committing a technical trespass-suppose, for example, that the Federal Government required or persuaded auto manufacturers to include a GPS tracking device in every car-the Court's theory would provide no protection.

Second, the Court's approach leads to incongruous results. If the police attach a GPS device to a car and use the device to follow the car for even a brief time, under the Court's theory, the Fourth Amendment applies. But if the police follow the same car for a much longer period using unmarked cars and aerial assistance, this tracking is not subject to any Fourth Amendment constraints.

In the present case, the Fourth Amendment applies, the Court concludes, because the officers installed the GPS device after respondent's wife, to whom the car was registered, turned it over to respondent for his exclusive use. See ante, at 8. But if the GPS had been attached prior to that time, the Court's theory would lead to a different result. The Court proceeds on the assumption that respondent "had at least the property rights of a bailee," ante, at 3, n. 2, but a bailee may sue for a trespass to chattel only if the injury occurs during the term of the bailment. See 8A Am. Jur. 2d, Bailment §166, pp. 685-686 (2009). So if the GPS device had been installed before respondent's wife gave him the keys, respondent would have no claim for trespass-and, presumably, no Fourth Amendment claim either.

Third, under the Court's theory, the coverage of the Fourth Amendment may vary from State to State. If the events at issue here had occurred in a community property State [ 4 ] or a State that has adopted the Uniform Marital Property Act, [ 5 ] respondent would likely be an owner of the vehicle, and it would not matter whether the GPS was installed before or after his wife turned over the keys. In non-community-property States, on the other hand, the registration of the vehicle in the name of respondent's wife would generally be regarded as presumptive evidence that she was the sole owner. See 60 C. J. S., Motor Vehicles §231, pp. 398-399 (2002); 8 Am. Jur. 2d, Automobiles §1208, pp. 859-860 (2007).

Fourth, the Court's reliance on the law of trespass will present particularly vexing problems in cases involving surveillance that is carried out by making electronic, as opposed to physical, contact with the item to be tracked. For example, suppose that the officers in the present case had followed respondent by surreptitiously activating a stolen vehicle detection system that came with the car when it was purchased. Would the sending of a radio signal to activate this system constitute a trespass to chattels? Trespass to chattels has traditionally required a physical touching of the property. See Restatement (Second) of Torts §217 and Comment e (1963 and 1964); Dobbs, supra, at 123. In recent years, courts have wrestled with the application of this old tort in cases involving unwanted electronic contact with computer systems, and some have held that even the transmission of electrons that occurs when a communication is sent from one computer to another is enough. See, e.g., CompuServe, Inc. v. Cyber Promotions, Inc. 962 F. Supp. 1015, 1021 (SD Ohio 1997); Thrifty-Tel, Inc. v. Bezenek, 46 Cal. App. 4th 1559, 1566, n. 6 (1996). But may such decisions be followed in applying the Court's trespass theory? Assuming that what matters under the Court's theory is the law of trespass as it existed at the time of the adoption of the Fourth Amendment, do these recent decisions represent a change in the law or simply the application of the old tort to new situations?

IV

A

The Katz expectation-of-privacy test avoids the problems and complications noted above, but it is not without its own difficulties. It involves a degree of circularity, see Kyllo, 533 U. S., at 34, and judges are apt to confuse their own expectations of privacy with those of the hypothetical reasonable person to which the Katz test looks. See Minnesota v. Carter, 525 U. S. 83, 97 (1998) (Scalia, J., concurring). In addition, the Katz test rests on the assumption that this hypothetical reasonable person has a well-developed and stable set of privacy expectations. But technology can change those expectations. Dramatic technological change may lead to periods in which popular expectations are in flux and may ultimately produce significant changes in popular attitudes. New technology may provide increased convenience or security at the expense of privacy, and many people may find the tradeoff worthwhile. And even if the public does not welcome the diminution of privacy that new technology entails, they may eventually reconcile themselves to this development as inevitable. [ 6 ]

On the other hand, concern about new intrusions on privacy may spur the enactment of legislation to protect against these intrusions. This is what ultimately happened with respect to wiretapping. After Katz, Congress did not leave it to the courts to develop a body of Fourth Amendment case law governing that complex subject. Instead, Congress promptly enacted a comprehensive statute, see 18 U. S. C. §§2510-2522 (2006 ed. and Supp. IV), and since that time, the regulation of wiretapping has been governed primarily by statute and not by case law. [ 7 ] In an ironic sense, although Katz overruled Olmstead, Chief Justice Taft's suggestion in the latter case that the regulation of wiretapping was a matter better left for Congress, see 277 U. S., at 465-466, has been borne out.

B

Recent years have seen the emergence of many new devices that permit the monitoring of a person's movements. In some locales, closed-circuit television video monitoring is becoming ubiquitous. On toll roads, automatic toll collection systems create a precise record of the movements of motorists who choose to make use of that convenience. Many motorists purchase cars that are equipped with devices that permit a central station to ascertain the car's location at any time so that roadside assistance may be provided if needed and the car may be found if it is stolen.

Perhaps most significant, cell phones and other wireless devices now permit wireless carriers to track and record the location of users-and as of June 2011, it has been reported, there were more than 322 million wireless devices in use in the United States. [ 8 ] For older phones, the accuracy of the location information depends on the den-sity of the tower network, but new "smart phones," which are equipped with a GPS device, permit more precise tracking. For example, when a user activates the GPS on such a phone, a provider is able to monitor the phone's location and speed of movement and can then report back real-time traffic conditions after combining ("crowdsourcing") the speed of all such phones on any particular road. [ 9 ] Similarly, phone-location-tracking services are offered as "social" tools, allowing consumers to find (or to avoid) others who enroll in these services. The availability and use of these and other new devices will continue to shape the average person's expectations about the privacy of his or her daily movements.

V

In the pre-computer age, the greatest protections of privacy were neither constitutional nor statutory, but practical. Traditional surveillance for any extended period of time was difficult and costly and therefore rarely undertaken. The surveillance at issue in this case-constant monitoring of the location of a vehicle for four weeks-would have required a large team of agents, multiple vehicles, and perhaps aerial assistance. [ 10 ] Only an investigation of unusual importance could have justified such an expenditure of law enforcement resources. Devices like the one used in the present case, however, make long-term monitoring relatively easy and cheap. In circumstances involving dramatic technological change, the best solution to privacy concerns may be legislative. See, e.g., Kerr, 102 Mich. L. Rev., at 805-806. A legislative body is well situated to gauge changing public attitudes, to draw detailed lines, and to balance privacy and public safety in a comprehensive way.

To date, however, Congress and most States have not enacted statutes regulating the use of GPS tracking technology for law enforcement purposes. The best that we can do in this case is to apply existing Fourth Amendment doctrine and to ask whether the use of GPS tracking in a particular case involved a degree of intrusion that a reasonable person would not have anticipated.

Under this approach, relatively short-term monitoring of a person's movements on public streets accords with expectations of privacy that our society has recognized as reasonable. See Knotts, 460 U. S., at 281-282. But the use of longer term GPS monitoring in investigations of most offenses impinges on expectations of privacy. For such offenses, society's expectation has been that law enforcement agents and others would not-and indeed, in the main, simply could not-secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual's car for a very long period. In this case, for four weeks, law enforcement agents tracked every movement that respondent made in the vehicle he was driving. We need not identify with precision the point at which the tracking of this vehicle became a search, for the line was surely crossed before the 4-week mark. Other cases may present more difficult questions. But where uncertainty exists with respect to whether a certain period of GPS surveil lance is long enough to constitute a Fourth Amendment search, the police may always seek a warrant. [ 11 ] We also need not consider whether prolonged GPS monitoring in the context of investigations involving extraordinary offenses would similarly intrude on a constitutionally protected sphere of privacy. In such cases, long-term tracking might have been mounted using previously available techniques.

*  *  *

For these reasons, I conclude that the lengthy monitoring that occurred in this case constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment. I therefore agree with the majority that the decision of the Court of Appeals must be affirmed.

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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________ No. 10-1259 _________________ UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. ANTOINE JONES on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit [January 23, 2012] Justice Alito, with whom Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, and Justice Kagan join, concurring in the judgment.

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Surveillance has notable chilling effects on speech, even if it doesn't technically effect them. This is because since people care about their privacy, when they have even the threat of surveillance they understandably try to self-censor themselves for information they may think puts them at risk of being spied on by the government

Sources:

1. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/05/when-surveillance-chills-speech-new-studies-show-our-rights-free-association

2. https://law.yale.edu/mfia/case-disclosed/aclu-v-nsa-how-greater-transparency-can-reduce-chilling-effects-mass-surveillance

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Surveillance Chills Speech—As New Studies Show—And Free Association Suffers

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Visiting an art exhibit featuring works about the U.S. war on terror or going to a lecture about Islam wouldn’t be cause for worry—unless you found out that the government was monitoring and keeping track of attendees. At that point, some people would be spooked and stay away, sacrificing their…

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Authoritarian surveillance states as cautionary examples. North Korea is a good example of complete surveillance, not only are the country's borders physically guarded but the entire internet is too, North Korean citizens are restricted to the country's own private internet where there are less than 30 websites available. Phones inside North Korea are programmed to create a screenshot every 5 minutes the device is on, used by authorities for mass surveillance. The phones also have an autocorrect system to change or forbid words from being said presumably words that insult or embarrass the country's government.

Links: "what north Korean internet really looks like" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37426725

"North Korean secrets revealed by phone" https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/chinese/features/learning-english-from-the-news_2025/250604

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BBC Learning English - Learning English from the News / North Korean secrets revealed by phone

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A North Korean smartphone has revealed details about how the regime controls its people

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Alan Westin was one of the first people to lay the foundation for the privacy laws to come 40 years before the iphone and 7 years before the first personal computers were sold. Westin believed that every civilian should have ultimate control over their personal information including how much of it is disclosed and to whom. He wrote multiple books on the matter but never engaged in fear mongering, instead saying that the digitalization of records was an efficient and necessary thing but laws needed to adapt to include them. His award winning book "Privacy and Freedom" is still considered one of the leading works in it's field since the publication in 1967. Links: https://iapp.org/about/alan-westin https://www.osano.com/articles/alan-westin

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Alan Westin is the father of modern data privacy law

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Alan Westin Was The Father of Modern Data Privacy Law. How one man defined our right to data privacy before the Internet age

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Technology is changing so fast that new privacy concerns pop up almost every day. AI-powered surveillance and predictive policing use computers to guess where crimes might happen, but this can unfairly target certain neighborhoods and communities. Facial recognition cameras in public spaces can identify you without your permission, and they sometimes make mistakes that can get innocent people in trouble. Even the smart home devices we use every day—like Alexa or Google Home—could be recording our conversations and collecting data about our lives. DNA databases store genetic information that can identify not just you but your entire family, raising huge privacy questions. Law enforcement agencies monitor social media to track what people post online, while drones fly overhead taking pictures and videos from the sky. Biometric data like fingerprints, iris scans, and voice recognition are being used everywhere from phones to airports, but once this information is stolen in a hack, you can't change it like you can change a password. All of these technologies make us ask: are we trading too much privacy for convenience and security?

Source 1: https://www.aol.com/facial-recognition-predictive-policing-tech-110300491.html

Source 2: https://www.eff.org/issues/privacy

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Privacy is more than just keeping secrets—it's actually a basic right that protects our freedom. Think of it like this: the social contract is an agreement between citizens and the government where we give up some freedoms (like paying taxes) in exchange for protection and services. But how much privacy should we give up for safety? Some people believe in utilitarianism, which means doing what's best for the most people, even if it means some individuals lose privacy. Others believe in rights-based ethics, which says every person's privacy matters no matter what. There's also something called the "chilling effect," which means when people know they're being watched, they act differently—even if they're not doing anything wrong! You might have heard someone say "I have nothing to hide," but critics point out that privacy isn't about hiding bad things; it's about having freedom and personal space. Finally, there's the idea of proportionality, which asks: is the amount of surveillance we use actually fair compared to the danger we're trying to stop?

Source 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument

Source 2:

https://www.brennancenter.org/topics/government-power/privacy-rights

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The Brennan Center educates the public about how our personal information is collected, and we challenge overbroad surveillance policies.

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Link/source1-

https://www.security.org/resources/data-tech-companies-have/#:~:text=Google%20collects%20your%20IP%20address,Purchase%20Activity

Link/source2-

https://www.tspa.org/curriculum/ts-fundamentals/transparency-report/what-is-a-transparency-report/

Link/source3-

https://staffsupport.spcollege.edu/hc/en-us/articles/28596305364763-Understanding-End-to-End-Encryption-E2EE#:~:text=End%2Dto%2Dend%20encryption%20(E2EE)%20is%20a%20security%20method,to%20anyone%20without%20the%20proper%20decryption%20key.

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Link 1/source1-

discoursemagazine.com/p/sinking-the-clipper-chip#:~:text=Civil%20liberties%20organizations%20such%20as,sophisticated%20criminals%20and%20foreign%20agents.

Link 2/source2-

https://repository.law.uic.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1714&context=lawreview

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Privacy as a prerequisite for free speech, free assembly, and democracy

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Privacy as a prerequisite for free speech, free assembly, and democracy

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Our rights of free speech, assembly, and democracy allow people to speak their minds about privacy without being afraid of being shut down by the government.

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Technology is a necessity of modern life. People of all ages rely on it for everything from accessing information and connecting with others, to paying for goods, using transportation, getting work done, and speaking out about issues of the day. Without adequate privacy protections, technology can be co-opted to surveil us online and intrude on our private lives-not only by the government, but also by businesses-with grave consequences for our rights.

There is sometimes a misconception that shielding our personal information from this kind of misuse will violate the First Amendment rights of corporations who stand to profit from collecting, analyzing, and sharing that information. But we don't have to sacrifice robust privacy protection to uphold anyone's right to free speech. In fact, when done right, strong privacy protections reinforce speech rights. They create spaces where people have the confidence to exercise their First Amendment rights to candidly communicate with friends, seek out advice and community, indulge curiosity, and anonymously speak or access information.

At the same time, simply calling something a "privacy law" doesn't make it so. Take the California Age Appropriate Design Code Act (CAADCA), a law currently under review by the Ninth Circuit in NetChoice v. Bonta. As the ACLU and the ACLU of Northern California argued in a friend-of-the-court brief, this law improperly included content restrictions on online speech and is unconstitutional. Laws can and should be crafted to protect both privacy and free speech rights. It is critical that legislatures and courts get the balance right when it comes to a law that implicates our ability to control our personal information and to speak and access content online.

Consumer privacy matters. With disturbing frequency, businesses use technology to siphon hordes of personal information from us - learning things about our health, our family situation, our financial status, our location, our age, and even our beliefs. Not only can they paint intimate portraits of our lives but, armed with this information, they can raise or lower prices depending on our demographics, make discriminatory predictions about health outcomes, improperly deny housing or jobs, hike insurance rates, and flood people of color and low-income people with ads for predatory loans.

All this nefarious behavior holds serious consequences for our financial stability, our health, our quality of life, and our civil rights, including our First Amendment rights. Better consumer privacy gives advocates, activists, whistleblowers, dissidents, authors, artists, and others the confidence to speak out. Only when people are free from the fear that what they're doing online is being monitored and shared can they feel free to enjoy the full extent of their rights to read, investigate, discuss, and be inspired by whatever they want.

Yet in recent years, tech companies have argued that consumer privacy protections limit their First Amendment rights to collect, use, and share people's personal information. These arguments are often faulty. Just because someone buys a product or signs up for a service, that doesn't give the company providing that good or service the First Amendment right to share or use the personal information they collect from that person however they want.

To the contrary, laws that require data minimization and high privacy settings by default are good policy and can easily pass First Amendment muster. Arguments to the contrary not only misunderstand the First Amendment; they'd actually weaken its protections.

Laws that suppress protected speech in order to stop children from accessing certain types of content generally often hurt speech and privacy rights for all. That's why First Amendment challenges to laws that limit what we can see online typically succeed. The Supreme Court has made it clear time and again that the government cannot regulate speech solely to stop children from seeing ideas or images that a legislative body believes to be unsuitable. Nor can it limit adults' access to speech in the name of shielding children from certain content.

The CAADCA is unconstitutional for these reasons, despite the legislature's understandable concerns about the privacy, wellbeing, and safety of children. The law was drafted so broadly that it actually would have hurt children. It could have prevented young people and adults from accessing things like online mental health resources; support communities related to school shootings and suicide prevention; and reporting about war, the climate crisis, and gun violence. It also could interfere with students' attempts to express political or religious speech, or provide and receive personal messages about deaths in the family, rejection from a college, or a breakup. Paradoxically, the law exposes everyone's information to greater privacy concerns by encouraging companies to gather and analyze user data for age estimation purposes.

While we believe that the CAADCA burdens free speech and should be struck down, it is important that the court not issue a ruling that forecloses a path that other privacy laws could take to protect privacy without violating the First Amendment. We need privacy and free speech, too, especially in the digital age.

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Elizabeth Gyori, Jacob Snow, Vera Eidelman

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How to Protect Consumer Privacy and Free Speech | ACLU

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Consumer privacy laws should strengthen free speech protections online, and vice versa. Here's how it can be done.

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The relationship between surveillance and authoritarianism

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The relationship between surveillance and authoritarianism

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By allowing a government to surveil us, it can then use that private information to punish people. By letting the government continue to have more surveillance over us, its power continues to grow, and we continue to give up our privacy -- authoritarianism

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Protecting Privacy to Combat Authoritarianism | GW Law | The George Washington University

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Professor Solove’s research explores how surveillance capitalism, in which corporations collect, store and commodify data, can enable authoritarian governments.

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The "Nothing to Hide" argument is a fallacy that states that people should not fear or be against surveillance unless they fear that their wrongdoing will be discovered. They should not be afraid unless they have something to hide, but privacy is more about controlling one's information, personal or not, rather than keeping something wrong a secret.

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The “nothing to hide” argument is a logical fallacy which states that an individual has no reason to fear or oppose surveillance or breach of privacy, unless they are afraid they will uncover their own wrongdoing. This argument is often used to claim that one should not worry about government surveillance as long as they have “nothing to hide”.[1]

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Utilitarianism - what the best thing for the majority of people; focus on happiness --

When it comes to privacy, is it better for the majority for things to be private from the government?

Rights-Based Ethics - this means that no matter the circumstance, our individual rights can not be violated; focus is on right vs. wrong

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Ethics comprises a full range of study that determines what is morally right or wrong in any given situation. There are two fundamental theories that shape ethical discussions, such as Utilitarianism and Rights Ethics. Both theories provide avenues to form and follow ethical decisions, though they are founded upon different doctrines and present alternative routes to confront moral dilemmas.

What is Utilitarianism?

Utilitarianism is a type of consequentialist ethics; an act's morality is measured by its consequences. The primary principle of utilitarianism is the "greatest happiness principle," often summarized in the following sentence:
"An action is right if it promotes the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people."
Utilitarianism was first developed by philosophers like Jeremy Bentham and then elaborated upon by John Stuart Mill, so its focus is on maximizing overall happiness or utility. It doesn't matter how you get there; what's most important is that the consequences achieve the greatest good for the greatest number.
Pivotal Principles of Utilitarianism Consequences Matter:
The morality of actions is determined by their outcomes.
Act Utilitarianism:
It maintains that the best act is the one which maximizes happiness or pleasure for the greatest number.
Act Independently:
All members' happiness are considered equal - no one member's good is considered to be more important than anyone else's

Act vs. Rule Utilitarianism:
Act Utilitarianism: Every action is independently judged by its consequence
Rule Utilitarianism:
Rules are established for maximizing utility; and actions are judged according to the principles of following rules rather than the specific consequence of an individual action.

What is Rights Ethics?

Unlike the theory of utilitarianism, Rights Ethics is therefore based on the assumption that some acts are right or wrong independently of their consequences. In this respect, it is Deontological Ethics, and as bettered by Immanuel Kant, particularly, attaches more importance to individual rights and duties.

According to Rights Ethics, a human being inherently possesses moral rights that cannot be violated for even if the violation of those rights leads to better general consequences. That is, the focus of Rights Ethics is not on the inherent morality or otherwise of acts but on the consequences produced by actions.
Some Critical Principles of Rights Ethics:
Inherent Morality of Acts: Acts are right or wrong dependent upon the compliance or otherwise with moral duties and not with respect to the consequential values.

Human Dignity: Every human being is supposed to have some rights that are respected, like a right to life, freedom, and individual autonomy.

Categorical Imperative: Kantian famous rule, which he formulates as.
"Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
This means, if you act, you should want everyone else in the same kind of situation to do the same.

Respect for Persons: Humans are ends in themselves and should never be used as a means to achieve an end.
Key Differences Between Utilitarianism and Rights Ethics
1. Focus on Consequences vs. Intrinsic Morality
Utilitarianism: The moral value of an action is defined by consequences it will have. Given the consequences, if telling the truth saves lives while promoting the greatest happiness, lying is considered morally right.

Rights Ethics: Some things are inherently wrong or right. Lying is inherently wrong because telling a lie inherently violates the principle of truth, no matter what the benefits of that outcome.

2. Maximization of Aggregate Good vs. Rights of Individuals
Utilitarianism: A few people are sacrificed for maximization of pleasure from the majority. For instance, a utilitarian would argue that some freedom of individual is abmissible if it maximizes overall good.

Rights Ethics: No one's rights may ever be violated, not even if violation would serve to benefit greater outcomes overall. From the viewpoint of a rights ethicist, the rights of everyone must be respected, no matter what this may cost in terms of society.

3. Flexibility vs. Rule-Based
Utilitarianism: It is a very fluid theory that changes with the nuance of the consequences. For example, something that results in bringing the greatest good for the greatest number of people in one instance might not be the right thing to do in another.

Rights Ethics: It is a rule-based and absolute theory. Once the right has been established, say, the right to liberty, for instance, it must always be respected regardless of what the circumstances are at hand.

Pros and Cons of Utilitarianism
Pros:
Practicality: A key practical aspect of this philosophy is focused real-world outcomes and having a desire for causing minimal harm in the process of creating the most happiness.

Equal weight: It gives the same weight to the happiness or misery of all people and, therefore, fosters equity and impartiality.

Versatility: It is flexible with the situation; it can adjust to any situation to provide accommodation when handling complex moral issues.
Weaknesses:
Overlooks Rights: Outcomes-based utilitarianism can lead to indulgence in every wrong thing that violates somebody's right, and this is considered a moral weakness.
Measurement Problem: How do you measure happiness or misery? There's no apparent objective yardstick to measure and compare the happiness of two people, or even a group.
Tyranny of the Majority: Utilitarianism would sacrifice a minority's welfare by allowing it to be dominated by the majority's happiness, to the point of oppression.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Rights Ethics

Strengths:
Respects Individuals: Rights ethics pays regard for the value and dignity of persons, so a person has his rights as an end, not a means to an end for realizing greater purposes.

Morals Clarity: Moral directive is clear in the sense that it does not depend on results but upon good or evil alone; hence, it can be applied very well sometimes.

Universality: Ethics of rights carries along with it a feeling for consistency, since whatever is right must prevail above everywhere, at all times.

Weaknesses:
Rigidity: Rights ethics can be very inflexible. Sometimes strict moral rules (like never telling a lie) will lead to worse or harmful consequences.

Conflict of Rights: What happens when rights collide? For example, the right to free speech may conflict with the right to avoid harm. Rights ethics does not always have clear solutions for dilemmas.

Failure to Consider the Consequences: Which only keeping in view moral duties on the part of rights ethics causes to fail considering practical consequences of an action, which is likely to be bad from a greater good perspective.

Practical example: The Trolley Problem

Let's take a standard ethical thought experiment, The Trolley Problem, to illustrate the practice difference between utilitarianism and rights ethics.

Scenario: A runaway trolley is headed straight for five people tied to a track. You have the ability to pull a lever diverting the trolley onto another track where only one person is tied. Do you pull the lever?

Utilitarianism: A utilitarian would likely say yes. Because it will save five lives and sacrifice one life, this action maximizes the overall happiness and minimizes suffering.

Rights Ethics: A rights ethicist would undoubtedly claim that to intervene in this way with a view to destroying the one person is wrong even if it saves five others. It violates the right of life of the individual involved with the pulling of the lever, and thus, it is morally impermissible.

Conclusion

One is utilitarianism, and the other one is rights ethics-the most varying ethical approaches in making the decision. It is centered on the greatest good for the greatest number, which focuses on respecting individual rights regardless of the consequence. Each has strengths and weaknesses, and which philosophy one finds the most compelling will determine a choice between the two.

In the real world, one has to strike a balance among these theories. Knowing both will give a good path to solving complex moral dilemmas while balancing both the concern of the collective's well-being and the inherent rights of the individual beings.

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Utilitarianism vs. Rights Ethics: A Comprehensive Analysis

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Utilitarianism vs. Rights Ethics: A Comprehensive Analysis Ethics comprises a full range of study that determines what is morally right or wrong in any given situation. There are two fundamental ...