Big Brother is Watching: Government Surveillance v. Right of Privacy

Oral Presentation

The U.S. government in the past two decades increased its ability to access personal online information. Often, government accesses online information without a search warrant or proper court order due to archaic federal privacy laws, sweeping surveillance laws and the third-party doctrine of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. My research examines how the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures applies to cyberspace. Outdated federal privacy laws allow law enforcement in the digital era to access revealing and sometimes incriminating information about people through Facebook, Twitter, email and Internet searches. Federal privacy laws and court decisions have been slow to apply Fourth Amendment protections to cyberspace, threatening the fundamental right of privacy. My research focuses on three federal laws: the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Each law gives law enforcement power to access online information. I also examine the third- party doctrine that allows law enforcement to access information posted to a third-party, such as Facebook, without a warrant or court order. Several members of Congress attempted to update privacy laws last year, but failed. Online privacy rights are not prioritized in Congress because little is known about the archaic laws and doctrines. My research helps inform Internet users about fundamental privacy rights in cyberspace.