Unique approach? (Is there an algorithmic version of mens rea?)
https://www.atlantis-press.com/proceedings/icsliai-26/126022002
When AI Breaks the Law: Rethinking Mens Rea in the Age of Autonomous System
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has quickly shifted to the periphery of fantasy and the core of human decision-making of humans, challenging the very principles by which criminal law has always been built. The crux of this interference is mens rea, the presence of a guilty mind on which intention, awareness, and moral agency are assumed. The AI systems, however, lack consciousness or emotion. Thus, their independent actions may cause damage in the real world, where the human agent cannot be easily identified. This conflict reveals a growing fault line in the law: how can a system built to judge human culpability respond when the culpability is of the algorithm?
The paper examines how the disturbances caused by the rise of AI affect the traditional principles of criminal liability under Indian laws, especially the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. It examines the hypothetical impossibility of assigning mens rea to machines, the practical ineffectiveness of the existing laws, and the dangers of uncontrolled and unregulated autonomy. Basing its arguments on the comparative experience of other jurisdictions, the paper finds a way forward in reform, including the clarification of AI-specific definitions, the creation of risk-based negligence standards, and the development of accountability models that focus on human accountability and not on constraining innovation. Finally, it argues that the criminal justice system in India needs to develop wisely without sacrificing fairness, accountability, and the rule of law in a world in which algorithms are defining the destinies of humans more and more.
Our AI rights…
https://digitalcommons.law.mercer.edu/jour_mlr/vol77/iss2/7/
From Phone Booths to Digital Booths: Rethinking Fourth Amendment Privacy in the Age of Open Source Intelligence
The use of Open Source Intelligence (“OSINT”) by the U.S. intelligence community marks a paradigm shift in national security practices, leveraging vast troves of publicly available and commercially acquired data. Yet this shift raises urgent constitutional questions regarding the applicability of the Fourth Amendment’s protections in the digital age. As OSINT practices increasingly rely on sophisticated aggregation techniques and artificial intelligence tools, the line between publicly available information and constitutionally protected privacy interests begins to blur. This Article critically examines whether certain forms of OSINT collection and analysis, particularly those that aggregate digital data at scale or use predictive algorithms, may constitute an unreasonable search or seizure under the Fourth Amendment.
Relying on an evolving body of caselaw, this Article argues that the long‑standing Third Party Doctrine is increasingly ill‑suited for the realities of the modern digital age. It explores how the aggregation of seemingly public data can reveal deeply private patterns, behaviors, and insights, thereby implicating a reasonable expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment. To help courts, the intelligence community, and policymakers navigate this complex legal terrain, this Article introduces a three‑part framework to assess when OSINT practices risk constitutional infringement: (1) whether the government obtains aggregated data, including commercially available information, of a type and volume that implicates a reasonable expectation of privacy; (2) whether advanced technologies are employed to extract digital information that would otherwise be unknowable through conventional means; and (3) whether such technologies are used to enhance insights into areas where courts have recognized a reasonable expectation of privacy. This Article concludes by urging a more balanced approach that reflects both the operational needs of the intelligence community and civil liberties. As technology evolves and OSINT capabilities grow courts, the intelligence community, and policymakers must act to ensure that the Fourth Amendment remains a meaningful safeguard, not an obsolete artifact, in the digital era.
The first AI war?
Algorithmic Warfare in the Iran Conflict: AI-Driven Decision Compression, the Erosion of Human Oversight, and Accountability Gaps in Contemporary Military Operations
Introduction/Background: The joint United States–Israeli military offensive against Iran commencing on February 28, 2026, Operation Epic Fury/Operation Roaring Lion, produced an unprecedented operational tempo: nearly 900 strikes within the first twelve hours. What made this possible was not merely superior firepower but the deep integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into every phase of the kill chain. The Iran conflict has thus emerged as the first large-scale armed confrontation in which AI functioned not as a supporting analytical tool but as a core operational component of military decision-making, compressing targeting cycles from days to minutes and systematically marginalizing substantive human deliberation.
Methods: This article employs a critical analytical framework drawing on OSINT based investigative reporting on Operation Epic Fury, the academic literature on AI-enabled military targeting, documented AI deployments in prior conflicts (Gaza, Ukraine), emerging scholarship on the Iran-Israeli confrontation, international humanitarian law, and analysis of corporate governance tensions between leading AI developers and defense establishments.
Results: The Iran conflict demonstrates three interlocking phenomena: first, AI-driven decision compression that reduced multi-day planning cycles to hours; second, the structural transformation of human oversight into a performative 'rubber stamp' - a formal authorization with no substantive deliberative content; and third, the collapse of corporate AI ethics under competitive military procurement pressure, illustrated most sharply by the simultaneous events of February 28, 2026, when Anthropic was blacklisted by the Pentagon for refusing to remove constraints on autonomous weapons, while its model was already embedded in Iran strike operations and OpenAI immediately assumed its defense contracts.
Conclusions: Current governance frameworks are structurally inadequate to address the accountability gaps created by AI-assisted targeting. The Iran conflict has rendered urgent the development of binding international instruments that operationalize meaningful human control not as a nominal designation but as an enforceable behavioral standard, anchored in minimum deliberative time requirements and technical transparency mandates for AI-DSS used in lethal force decisions.
(Related)
‘It means missile defence on datacentres’: drone strikes raise doubts over Gulf as AI superpower
It is believed to be a first: the deliberate targeting of a commercial datacentre by the armed forces of a country at war.
At 4.30am on Sunday morning, an Iranian Shahed 136 drone struck an Amazon Web Services datacentre in the United Arab Emirates, setting off a devastating fire and forcing a shutdown of the power supply. Further damage was inflicted as attempts were made to suppress the flames with water.
Soon after, a second data centre owned by the US tech company was hit. Then a third was said to be in trouble, this time in Bahrain, after an Iranian suicide drone turned to fireball on striking land nearby.
… Millions of people in Dubai and Abu Dhabi woke up on Monday unable to pay for a taxi, order a food delivery, or check their bank balance on their mobile apps.
Whether there was a military impact is unclear – but the strikes swiftly brought the war directly into the lives of 11 million people in the UAE, nine out of 10 of whom are foreign nationals. Amazon has advised its clients to secure their data away from the region.
An Iranian hack or normal government incompetence?
https://www.theverge.com/policy/890904/trump-administration-cbp-tariff-refunds-technology-issues
The Trump administration says it can’t process tariff refunds because of computer problems
The US Customs and Border Protection says it currently can’t comply with an order to process billions of dollars in refunds stemming from tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump. In a filing on Friday, CBP executive director Brandon Lord says the agency’s digital import processing system is “not well suited to a task of this scale,” as reported earlier by CNBC.
The CBP’s admission comes after the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs imposed by Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) last month. This week, the International Trade Court ruled that importers impacted by the tariffs are entitled to refunds with interest. The CBP estimates that it collected around $166 billion in IEEPA duties as of March 4th, 2026.
