Coronavirus
Disease Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment
Alan Z. Rozenshtein Tue, Apr 7, 2020, 1:54 PM
With the right safeguards, aggressive disease surveillance is likely permissible under the Fourth Amendment.
Surveillance
Hustvedt / Cncplayer (background)
With the rise of modern technologies, the scope and scale of government surveillance has exploded. The use of digital communication has made communication more efficient, but also much more vulnerable. Governments, meanwhile, are increasing their capacity to exploit these vulnerabilities, and companies, their ability to thwart them. Both the PATRIOT act and the Snowden disclosures pushed the issue to the front of the national conversation. Today, the legal and policy debate—over what kind of surveillance tools are acceptable, against whom, and with with whose authorization—continues in full force.