JohnClayton's Journal

Hi Professor and I hope you had a good spring break.

In addition to our work in class, I am interning this semester with the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, which focuses on reforming police surveillance practices in New York City and state (the founder, Albert, mentioned he worked for you before, I believe at the SFLC). Accordingly, I’ve been thinking about the role of state- and municipal-level reform efforts in vindicating Fourth Amendment values. It seems noteworthy that a number of cities have been successful in enacting ordinances that ban certain police surveillance practices (e.g., use of facial recognition) or establish community oversight over the use of certain surveillance technologies. This work seems extremely worthwhile, but it also primarily targets means of direct citizen surveillance by local law enforcement. I’m curious if you think states and localities can (or should) also seek to limit the ways in which law enforcement can access and use third-party data for surveillance purposes. For example, I know that New York has proposed a ban on the use of geofence warrants. Obviously a patchwork of state laws cannot alone solve the problems posed by the merger of private and government surveillance. But it seems like there is an opening for local action, at least until momentum for federal legislation accrues and/or until the use privacy-protecting technologies becomes more widespread.

On an unrelated note, I just wanted to confirm that a few weeks ago I uploaded revised drafts of my essays for Law & the Internet Society. Thank you again for the extension on those, and I look forward to any additional feedback you may have.

-- JohnClayton - 08 Mar 2021

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