The Shift We Need to Stop Mass Surveillance | Albert Fox Cahn | TED

We all know we're tracked everywhere we go.

But as a lawyer, a technologist and anti-surveillance activist,

I'm here to tell you two things:

the threat is way worse than you realize

and the solutions simpler than you think.

And no, it's not wearing a tinfoil hat.

(Laughter)

You may know that advertisers can record every link you click

and every place you've been,

but you may not realize the government can buy that data, too.

If the NYPD wants to track a BLM protest, they can buy the data.

If Texas wants to watch an abortion clinic,

they can buy the data.

And when the IRS wants to know

if your Florida company is really doing work in California,

they don't need to buy the data.

They already did.

Millions of our location records.

And what the government can't buy, it can take by force,

crudely wielding our 18th century constitution

against 21st century technology.

With a geofence warrant,

companies are forced to hand over our location data -- not for one person,

but everyone, every single user in a geographic area,

whether a single room or an entire city.

In one Virginia case, police cast a digital dragnet

far beyond the crime scene,

forcing Google to identify everyone nearby,

even those at a church,

even though they weren't even suspects.

It's not only Orwellian, it's bad policing.

Search widely enough

and someone's movements will always look suspicious.

Like an Arizona man wrongly arrested for murder miles away

simply because someone was logged into his Google account.

Or a Florida man connected to a crime scene

for biking around the neighborhood.

Look, I don't know about you,

but I find it hard enough to work up the energy to work out

without worrying that my Fitbit is going to land me in jail.

(Laughter)

Technology makes tracking possible,

but it's our laws that give it force,

posing a deeply discriminatory danger to BIPOC communities,

LGBTQ individuals and undocumented families.

We can't continue to watch officers shred the Fourth Amendment safeguards

against search and seizure.

We can't wait for the Supreme Court to act.

We must ban geofence warrants and other surveillance abuses today.

(Applause)

For years, privacy advocates have fought how companies collect our data.

And we failed.

Maybe we should have tried the tinfoil hats after all.

But we can stop mass surveillance

if we change the problem we're trying to fix.

Shifting our focus from how companies collect our data

to how governments abuse it.

In America, our default rule is

that every smartphone, computer and Internet-enabled toaster oven

is a police tool in the making.

Officers can seize our devices and wiretap Alexa,

but they don't control the contours of our Constitution.

It's our decision, our democratic decision,

whether our data can be used for undemocratic ends.

We can create new firewalls to protect our information --

not computer code, but legal codes

that shield us from having our data used against us in a court of law.

Legal firewalls are already becoming a reality in New York.

At the pandemic's height,

we feared how police and ICE

might misuse data from new contact tracing apps

that monitor everyone nearby.

So we worked with the New York Civil Liberties Union,

doctors, grassroots organizers

to create the first ban on police access to contact tracing data in the country.

No one should fear that they'll be arrested

because of public health data,

but that remains a risk in 49 states.

Legal firewalls let us have our technology and our Constitution too,

enabling innovation by outlawing oppression.

We see glimmers of Beltway bipartisanship,

but state and local governments are our brightest hope.

That's because it can take millions of people

to enact a national statute,

but just a handful of committed activists can make changes in their community.

And we already see a deluge of state and local protections,

including a bill I helped write,

New York's first in the nation ban on geofence warrants.

(Applause)

Thank you.

And even some courts agree.

Just last month, a federal judge struck down

that sprawling Virginia geofence,

calling on state lawmakers to enact bills like my own.

As a teenage protester, NYPD camcorders shoved in my face,

I saw surveillance as a threat,

and people thought my fears were something out of science fiction.

Today, they increasingly think that surveillance is inevitable

and that privacy is the fantasy.

But I'm actually more optimistic than ever.

It had to get this bad for the denial to break

and for the public to act.

I know we can push back that looming dystopia.

I know we can protect everything

that technology might make possible tomorrow,

but only if we ban surveillance abuses today.

Thank you.

(Applause)