Latest / Brian Thomas / Andrew Ferguson - BOOK - Your Data Will Be Used Against You

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Andrew Ferguson - BOOK - Your Data Will Be Used Against You · Brian Thomas

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  Speaker 1: 805 here at 55KRC Talk Station. A very happy Thursday
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  Speaker 1: slash Friday Eve to everybody. Welcome to the 55KRC Morning Show.
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  Speaker 1: Been so looking forward to this conversation. My next guest,
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  Speaker 1: Andrew Ferguson. He's a professor of law at the George
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  Speaker 1: Washington University Law School, and he teaches criminal law, criminal procedure,
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  Speaker 1: and evidence, which is important because of the topic of
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  Speaker 1: his book we're going to be talking about here in
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  Speaker 1: a moment. National expert on predictive policing, facial recognition, video analytics,
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  Speaker 1: big data surveillance, Internet of Things. as well as the
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  Speaker 1: Fourth Amendment, 35 law review articles he's written, along with
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  Speaker 1: four books, award-winning. One of them, back in 2017, his book,
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  Speaker 1: The Rise of Big Data Policing, won the Association of
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  Speaker 1: American Publishers 2018 Prose Award. Today, he's joining the 55KRC
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  Speaker 1: Morning Show to talk about his new book, which you
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  Speaker 1: can get at 55KRC. iheart. com. Your data will be used against you,
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  Speaker 1: policing in the age of self-surveillance. Andrew Ferguson, welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the 55KRC Morning Show. It's a pleasure to have you
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  Speaker 1: on this morning.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.
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  Speaker 1: Well, having been through law school and since you're a
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  Speaker 1: law professor, I just got to ask you, in this
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  Speaker 1: technologically crazy world we live in with artificial intelligence coming out,
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  Speaker 1: I observed earlier one of the big concerns about the
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  Speaker 1: elimination of jobs with AI. Just indulge me for a
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  Speaker 1: moment on this one because I want to know what
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  Speaker 1: your students are saying. I was a first-year law student.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I was a first-year associate at one point, right?
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  Speaker 1: And I'm willing to admit that when you graduate, you're
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  Speaker 1: really not prepared to practice law. You learn that from
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  Speaker 1: mentoring on the job. But AI can churn out some
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  Speaker 1: pretty gosh darn good first drafts of memorandum, motions for
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  Speaker 1: summary judgment, that kind of thing, eliminating all that back
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  Speaker 1: and forth initial drafting, which is where the learning comes
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  Speaker 1: from for young associates developing to lawyers. Are your students
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  Speaker 1: worried about that kind of development, Mr.
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  Speaker 2: Ferguson? Yeah, they're worried about it, but the law school
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  Speaker 2: is adapting to that. I think, you know, what law
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  Speaker 2: schools have to do in this day and age is
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  Speaker 2: two things. You have to be able to teach students
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  Speaker 2: who come to law school to think like a lawyer.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, really, the reason why you hire a lawyer
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  Speaker 2: is to solve a problem that doesn't really have an
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  Speaker 2: answer yet.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: You have to be able to have. the core set
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  Speaker 2: of knowledge and take those principles and apply it to
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  Speaker 2: a new question that may not even be thought of.
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  Speaker 2: The lawyers today are solving problems of AI that we
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  Speaker 2: weren't even thinking about five, 10 years ago. And so
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  Speaker 2: that's a skill set. But then, of course, when you
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  Speaker 2: go into that law firm job, you do have to
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  Speaker 2: know how to use AI. You need to save your
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  Speaker 2: client's money by doing things more efficient and faster. And
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  Speaker 2: if you go back and you reflect on those first
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  Speaker 2: sort of days as an associate, like there's a lot
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  Speaker 2: of time where you might have spent, you know, in
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  Speaker 2: a big warehouse going through discovery and like reading things
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  Speaker 2: and wasting. I mean, like there's a lot of time
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  Speaker 2: that like probably wasn't worth the billable hours that we
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  Speaker 2: can do better. And you're so right. Right. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I think, I mean, we have e-discovery of all this
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  Speaker 2: stuff that has already developed and changed it. And I
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  Speaker 2: think what's going to happen now and what we've seen
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  Speaker 2: happening now is law firms are recognizing that the value
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  Speaker 2: of lawyers still exists. Law school enrollments have gone up,
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  Speaker 2: hiring has gone up, and even though we have this
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  Speaker 2: game-changing power of AI, I think it's just going to
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  Speaker 2: change what lawyers do. I think there's going to be
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  Speaker 2: less of you as an associate writing a draft that
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  Speaker 2: the partner looks at and throws out because it really
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  Speaker 2: isn't that helpful because they've been doing this for 30 years.
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  Speaker 2: It was a great learning experience for you, but maybe
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  Speaker 2: not what everyone needs. We will develop ways to get
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  Speaker 2: students or get now lawyers, former students, to be more
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  Speaker 2: effective and efficient with the time and money of their clients.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad to hear the note of optimism, sir, because,
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  Speaker 1: you know, based on my personal experience now, rather old,
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  Speaker 1: I'm still thinking along the lines of then and not
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  Speaker 1: appreciating the fact that AI is a positive development in
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  Speaker 1: some ways. So fair enough. And I'm glad I asked
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  Speaker 1: you the question. Pivoting over to your data will be
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  Speaker 1: used against you. Policing in the state of self-surveillance. Flock cameras,
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  Speaker 1: and I saw that, I think it was Josh, yes,
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  Speaker 1: Senator Josh Hawley's opened a probe into flock cameras. Flock
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  Speaker 1: seems to be the default label for all things, you know,
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  Speaker 1: license plate scanners. It's like Kleenex is the default for tissue.
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  Speaker 1: But flock under a lot of scrutiny these days because
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  Speaker 1: of the abuse of these systems by members of law enforcement.
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  Speaker 2: Fine.
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  Speaker 1: But there's a lot of good that goes along with
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  Speaker 1: these cameras, too, because they've been able to solve very
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  Speaker 1: quickly a lot of crimes that might not have even
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  Speaker 1: been solved because we have all this video everywhere. The
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  Speaker 1: genie's out of the bottle, the camels are literally everywhere,
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  Speaker 1: but this also poses some significant civil liberty issues and
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  Speaker 1: concerns over our constitutionally protected rights. Does the good outweigh
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  Speaker 1: the bad? Are there solutions for the problems we're facing
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  Speaker 1: right now? Andrew Ferguson.
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  Speaker 2: That's actually why I wrote this book. It's about how
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  Speaker 2: we have developed systems of surveillance, whether we're talking about
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  Speaker 2: sort of democratically mediated systems of surveillance like automated license
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  Speaker 2: plate readers like Flock or real-time crime centers with thousands
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  Speaker 2: of video cameras recording the streets and being able to
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  Speaker 2: track people where they go. we have developed a world
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  Speaker 2: where we are watching ourselves in a new way where
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  Speaker 2: we've kind of flipped the default. Right now, everyone is
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  Speaker 2: under surveillance all the time. It used to be the
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  Speaker 2: case that you were under surveillance if you kind of
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  Speaker 2: did something to draw the attention of the authorities. And
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  Speaker 2: then we had systems like warrants and individualized suspicion that
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  Speaker 2: would cause people. And we've kind of reversed that default
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  Speaker 2: where we make it all too easy. So there's an
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  Speaker 2: old chapter in the book about how our cities have
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  Speaker 2: transformed into surveillance networks. There's also the reality that almost
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  Speaker 2: everything you do in a digital age, whether it's your smartwatch,
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  Speaker 2: your smartphone, your computer, your car that's basically a computer
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  Speaker 2: on wheels, is also tracking you and also is revealing
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  Speaker 2: data that the police can obtain with a warrant and
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  Speaker 2: sometimes without a warrant. And so the book basically takes
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  Speaker 2: the problem set of recognizing that this data is both
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  Speaker 2: helpful for us in our own consumer personal lives. There's
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  Speaker 2: a reason why you need a GPS on your car
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  Speaker 2: to get from point A to point B. It's helpful.
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  Speaker 2: But it also opens us up in this vulnerability where
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  Speaker 2: it is also available to the government to go see
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  Speaker 2: where you've been and where point A was and where
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  Speaker 2: point B was and where whether that's suspicious or not.
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  Speaker 2: And the book sets out this problem of how our
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  Speaker 2: physical world, our cities, our homes, our bodies, the things
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  Speaker 2: we do online are now available to the government and
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  Speaker 2: then tries to offer some solutions about what we can
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  Speaker 2: do with it. And I take some heart that there's
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  Speaker 2: a bipartisan interest now in these cameras, these ALPR cameras.
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  Speaker 2: And again, Flock is just one of several companies that
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  Speaker 2: sells the same technology that basically is able to track
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  Speaker 2: you wherever you go throughout a city.
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  Speaker 1: Well, as I understand it, a private company acting alone
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  Speaker 1: and not in concert with government doesn't have an obligation to, say,
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  Speaker 1: protect your Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable
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  Speaker 1: searches and seizures. You're giving them the data. They've got
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  Speaker 1: the data. They created it. They stored it. And then, therefore,
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  Speaker 1: they make it a commodity and sell it off to
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  Speaker 1: the world who are doing research and analysis about people's
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  Speaker 1: buying habits, putting together these dossiers. But as with Flock,
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  Speaker 1: and maybe this is the reason Senator Hawley opened up
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  Speaker 1: a probe into the storage of data, they are working
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  Speaker 1: in concert with government.
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  Speaker 2: This creates sort of a.
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  Speaker 1: Quasi-private government relationship here. Does that not transform Flock into
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  Speaker 1: basically a government entity that would have to honor our
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  Speaker 1: constitutional rights and liberties?
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  Speaker 2: I think so. I mean, Flock isn't, you know, I
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  Speaker 2: guess Flock has two business ideas. They do work with
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  Speaker 2: private companies like hospitals, like casinos and other stuff, like
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  Speaker 2: your casino. You might want to know like when the
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  Speaker 2: high roller drives in. But when they're doing their government facing,
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  Speaker 2: their police facing ALPRs, they are working with the police.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, their stated policy is that this is not
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  Speaker 2: our data. This is the city's data. It's the police data.
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  Speaker 2: And guess who's paying for it? We are. And that's
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  Speaker 2: part of what the book is about is that we,
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  Speaker 2: you can put this on a company and But it's
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  Speaker 2: our tax dollars that are paying for flock cameras, axon cameras,
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  Speaker 2: and the rest of it. We as citizens, through our
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  Speaker 2: democratically elected leaders, have given the green light to this
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  Speaker 2: new world of surveillance. And then if we are uncomfortable
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  Speaker 2: with it, we can change that. I think it's too easy.
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  Speaker 2: The book is really actually about our complicity in this.
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  Speaker 2: It's not to blame us, but we're the ones putting
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  Speaker 2: cameras on our front door. We're the ones now surveilling
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  Speaker 2: ourselves and putting cameras in our homes to watch our
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  Speaker 2: pets when we go away. We did that. The government
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  Speaker 2: didn't do that. We're the ones who put the cameras
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  Speaker 2: on our streets. We're the ones who invested millions, if
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  Speaker 2: not billions of dollars in video analytics systems in our cities.
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  Speaker 2: And so if we are uncomfortable, guess what? We get
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  Speaker 2: to change it. That's a democracy.
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  Speaker 1: Well, does this, I mean, is this a legislative solution
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  Speaker 1: that we need to look for? Because, you know, again,
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot of neighborhoods that had flock cameras. They're waking,
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  Speaker 1: they're awakening to the reality that it can be abused.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe they're concerned about personal privacy or whatever. Then they
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  Speaker 1: get rid of them. But is there a broader need
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  Speaker 1: for a layer of legislation over the top of all
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  Speaker 1: of this to maybe, I don't know, save us from ourselves?
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  Speaker 2: I think so. And I think that that layer of
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  Speaker 2: legislation can be at the federal level. Obviously, there are
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  Speaker 2: now senators and congresspeople who are speaking about flock again
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  Speaker 2: as a sort of a metaphor for the larger issues
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  Speaker 2: of mass surveillance. But you also can change this at
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  Speaker 2: a local level. It's not the case that there are
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  Speaker 2: the same level of cameras in every city or jurisdiction.
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  Speaker 2: And jurisdictions might actually be differently comfortable. Like some jurisdictions
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  Speaker 2: might actually want more. Some might want less. I think
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  Speaker 2: it's an interesting kind of it doesn't track in your
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  Speaker 2: general like red state, blue state world because there are
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  Speaker 2: lots of libertarians out there that don't like the idea
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  Speaker 2: that the government is watching them at every moment. There
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  Speaker 2: are lots of progressives that are concerned about how the
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  Speaker 2: governments might misuse this in terms of immigration enforcement or
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  Speaker 2: abortion targeting. And so there's actually a strange bipartisan agreement
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  Speaker 2: that this might be a concern. But the decision might
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  Speaker 2: be different. It could be a case that a city
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  Speaker 2: council or chief of police convinces the people who vote
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  Speaker 2: for it and pay for it that this is worth
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  Speaker 2: the while. And it might be the case that they
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  Speaker 2: fail in that case. attempt to convince people.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and that's where I'm always concerned with the whole
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  Speaker 1: concept of one size fits all legislation, because as you illustrate,
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  Speaker 1: some communities want them and happy and are happy that
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  Speaker 1: these cameras are there and others do not. So what
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  Speaker 1: are I know you put some of the concrete suggestions
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  Speaker 1: in your book. Your data will be used against you.
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  Speaker 1: for legislators, judges, and communities to respond to this. What
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  Speaker 1: type of response do you embrace in order to deal
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  Speaker 1: with these challenges?
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  Speaker 2: I think you have to have an all-of-the-above approach. I
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  Speaker 2: do think that we need courts to, you know, you
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  Speaker 2: mentioned the Fourth Amendment, to recognize that there are Fourth
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  Speaker 2: Amendment issues implicated in this new world of sort of
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  Speaker 2: self-surveillance and maybe upping the warrant requirement to get access
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  Speaker 2: to some of the data. It's actually pretty easy to do.
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  Speaker 2: You know, the Supreme Court just decided a case this
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  Speaker 2: last term, Chaudhry v. United States, about whether the police
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  Speaker 2: need a warrant to get your Google geofence data. Basically,
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  Speaker 2: if you have a Google-enabled phone, you were giving up
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  Speaker 2: your location where you were, and police were going out
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  Speaker 2: to get a warrant to get that information when they're
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  Speaker 2: investigating cases. The question before the court was, do they
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  Speaker 2: even need a warrant? The US government went before the U.S.
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  Speaker 2: Supreme Court and said, we don't need a warrant. We
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  Speaker 2: can get any data that you gave to a third
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  Speaker 2: party without a warrant because you gave it to Google.
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  Speaker 2: Why can't we get it? And the Supreme Court pushed
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  Speaker 2: back on that. It said, no, you need a warrant, which, again,
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  Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily change the status quo because the police were
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  Speaker 2: getting a warrant anyway, but does say that the Fourth
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  Speaker 2: Amendment still has something to say about this. So take
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  Speaker 2: that idea that your location data has some Fourth Amendment
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  Speaker 2: protections and then put it to a network of ALPRs
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  Speaker 2: that can track you wherever you go. So at a
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  Speaker 2: certain density, a certain level of camera tracking where you
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  Speaker 2: can be followed, where you go through the camera systems,
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  Speaker 2: it's the same problem set. So courts might recognize that
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  Speaker 2: the Fourth Amendment has something to say. Legislators have an
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  Speaker 2: easy job. Again, I think we have seen almost no
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  Speaker 2: legislation focused on this idea of self-surveillance, be it in
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  Speaker 2: our cities or our lives. And again, adding a warrant
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  Speaker 2: requirement or even something more stronger than a warrant requirement,
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  Speaker 2: not easy to do politically, but easy to do and
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  Speaker 2: that you can put pen to paper and actually do
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  Speaker 2: it and people will follow it because that's what laws do.
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  Speaker 2: And we kind of hope in a democracy that legislators
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  Speaker 2: will lead rather than follow.
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  Speaker 1: It's a brave new world we're in and we're looking
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  Speaker 1: at a reality that George Orwell couldn't even think up
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  Speaker 1: had he even given him some suggestions. Andrew Ferguson, he's
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  Speaker 1: the author of Your Data Will Be Used Against You.
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  Speaker 2: And I.
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  Speaker 1: This stuff kind of freaks me out, Andrew. I really
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  Speaker 1: wish there was no such thing as AI, but this
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  Speaker 1: is the world we find ourselves in. You can't fight it.
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  Speaker 1: You need to be able to be on top of
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  Speaker 1: it and control it, which is why I have no
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  Speaker 1: problem with the data centers. We can deal with those challenges.
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  Speaker 1: I'd rather the United States be in a position to create,
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  Speaker 1: if there is, blanket legislation or controls in place rather
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  Speaker 1: than leaving that to some other foreign power. But here
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  Speaker 1: it is. You've got to cope with it. Get a
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  Speaker 1: copy of the book. Your data will be used against you.
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  Speaker 1: It's been a pleasure having you on the program, sir.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time today. We've made
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  Speaker 1: it real easy for my listening audience to get your book.
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  Speaker 1: It's at 55KRC. iHeart. com. So I'll encourage my listeners to do that. Andrew,
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  Speaker 1: thank you very much for your time again. Have a
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  Speaker 1: wonderful day, sir.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you. My pleasure.
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  Speaker 1: It's coming up at 8.19. 55KRC Talk Station. I heard
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: media aviation expert Jay Ratliff waiting in the wings. Looking
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  Speaker 1: forward to having him on, as I always am, on
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  Speaker 1: a Thursday. Don't go away.
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  Speaker 2: I'll be right back.