Matthew Tokson (University of Utah – S.J. Quinney College of Law) has posted Artificial Intelligence and Near-Total Law Enforcement (Nebraska Law Review, forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Imagine, in the future, that police have access to powerful surveillance systems that can detect virtually all crimes committed outside of the home. Such systems would radically transform the practice of law enforcement, enabling near-total crime deterrence while also threatening privacy harms and authoritarian abuses on an unprecedented scale. This promising and unsettling future, once purely hypothetical, increasingly resembles current law enforcement practice. Countries around the world, including the United States, now employ networked camera systems that use artificial intelligence to monitor cities and detect crimes and other unwanted behavior. As these systems grow more ubiquitous and capable, they will ultimately reshape law enforcement itself.
This keynote Article examines the legal, theoretical, and political implications of near-total law enforcement. It describes how fully automated surveillance systems may circumvent existing Fourth Amendment restrictions on pervasive surveillance. It analyzes the political process effects of law enforcement that targets everyone rather than a narrow set of politically disadvantaged suspects. It weighs the potentially enormous benefits and risks of near-total law enforcement. The Article then considers how near-total enforcement destabilizes the theoretical foundations of Fourth Amendment law, and it seeks new justifications for a judicial role in governing universal surveillance. It concludes with a set of proposals for regulating advanced law enforcement systems to secure many of their benefits while mitigating their risks. The themes explored in the Article are relevant to today’s cutting-edge surveillance systems, and will be increasingly urgent over time as law enforcement moves gradually along the spectrum from partial to total.
Highly Recommended!
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