Abstract
Much has been written about the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning applications and how the current Fourth Amendment law has been unable to mitigate the privacy harm that these tools produce. This article explores how the development and usage of AI and machine learning models is dependent on the originalism principles of Fourth Amendment Law. Utilizing Critical Surveillance Studies and Anticolonial Theory, I posit that the Fourth Amendment is a surveillance technology that categorizes conduct, persons, and places to impose the material conditions for the subjugation of historically minoritized communities within the United States. Furthermore, this article explores the interplay between the Fourth Amendment and these new technologies and how together, they scale the systematic harms for which the Fourth Amendment was intended to cause.
Recommended Citation
Diego H. Alcalá Laboy,
The “Founder’s Gaze”: How the Fourth Amendment is a Surveillance Technology that Enables AI to Scale Control Over the Subaltern,
30
Mich. J. Race & L.
215
(2026).
Available at:
https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl/vol30/iss2/3
Included in
Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Commons, Fourth Amendment Commons, Law and Race Commons, Privacy Law Commons