Government usage of modern surveillance technologies threatens constitutional rights.
“Your phone is always listening;” “your camera is always watching;” or “your location is always being tracked.” Everyone has heard it, and everyone has dismissed it. Your private information is being sold to government agencies—so what? The dangers of such monitoring feel dystopian, and the abstract term “privacy” is often thrown around without much weight. Yet, government surveillance has become increasingly advanced and expansive, with more complicated AI algorithms and growing archives of information to draw from. In many ways, law enforcement has been using such tools to keep people safe. Detectives have solved child-trafficking, abduction, theft, and homicide cases with surveillance devices such as Ring doorbell cameras and facial recognition software. However, law enforcement agents have used the same technology to monitor innocent citizens without their consent or, more importantly, a warrant. Americans worry whether such investigative work is constitutional under the First and Fourth Amendments, which establish citizens’ right to free speech and privacy. If abused, this surveillance could be used to spy on and limit the freedoms of the American people. Even if this surveillance is used to protect the public, the government is overstepping its constitutional powers by monitoring U.S. citizens’ personal devices without their consent.
In the past decade, AI systems and other advanced technologies have expanded surveillance capabilities, and federal and state law enforcement agencies continue to purchase data from private companies to investigate crimes. Security footage taken from public cameras is now collected and analyzed more effectively. Depending on the situation, the government may obtain footage from Ring doorbells, Tesla car cameras, and similar devices, as well as public CCTV cameras. With this footage, law enforcement can track vehicles and individuals through AI-assisted software. Specifically, facial recognition programs have recently become significantly more developed, with AI now able to sort through billions of photos of people in seconds. Clearview AI, a company founded in 2017, is a facial recognition system with a database of over 70 billion photos—it can identify any individual as long as a photo featuring them is available online. This also includes photos with the individual only in the background—photos that were taken and posted without the individual’s consent. The mass collection and analysis of publicly available images raises serious privacy concerns, especially given how photos may be posted without the individual’s knowledge. Without stricter regulations, this level of surveillance could become a major breach of security.
In addition, location and device tracking technologies have evolved to be more extensive and overreaching. Companies such as Google collect extensive search history and location data that can later be accessed by law enforcement through warrants or third-party brokers to aid in both state and federal police investigations. This method of investigation is called a reverse warrant, when the police know about a crime and use these surveillance technologies to narrow down suspects. Controversy around reverse warrants arises from the fact that, for the method to be possible, law enforcement first accesses the private information of countless innocent people. Many have classified this as an “unreasonable search and seizure,” something citizens are protected against by the Fourth Amendment. In addition, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents use reverse warrants to search for undocumented immigrants. Critics argue that using location tracking and facial recognition on individuals before obtaining solid proof contributes to racial profiling. Additionally, there have been reports of ICE “using a broad web of surveillance tools to monitor, apprehend, and intimidate both the people it seeks to deport and the U.S. citizens critical of its policies.” Many view ICE’s actions as a violation of First and Fourth Amendment rights, and have claimed that the agents are abusing the surveillance technology beyond its original purpose.
As these technologies continue to develop and become more accessible to government agencies, there needs to be concrete policies that adequately restrict the surveillance methods. Currently, there is little that effectively keeps government surveillance in check. In 2015, Congress banned the domestic bulk collection of data, and in 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that cellphone location tracking requires a warrant. Yet, law enforcement agencies exploit a loophole that allows them to buy civilian data without going through a formal legal procedure, by instead going through data broker companies, such as Ventell, Babel Street, and Penlink. Lawmakers have attempted to pass a law called the “Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act,” which would disallow the purchasing of data records. In 2024, it passed in the House of Representatives but was stalled in the Senate. The bill is currently in committee, and there are no confirmed dates for when it will be reconsidered.
Government surveillance, while framed as necessary for protecting public safety, has overstepped its original purpose and now infringes constitutional boundaries and threatens individual privacy. The growth of advanced technologies and inadequate policies addressing their usage has created a system where personal data can be accessed without accountability or formal procedure. As this becomes more normalized, broader civil liberties and freedoms are put at risk. Surveillance available to this extent is still relatively new, so Congress must, now more than ever, fulfill its responsibility and protect citizens’ constitutional rights.
