Perspective.

https://pogowasright.org/geofencing-high-tech-surveillance-and-the-future-of-the-fourth-amendment/

Geofencing, High Tech Surveillance and the Future of the Fourth Amendment

Jon L. Mills and Alexandra Williams write:

Several years ago, Zack McCoy became a criminal suspect simply for riding his bike. His crime? Using a fitness app that placed him near the scene of a burglary. While McCoy was eventually cleared, his story illustrates a troubling reality: emerging surveillance technologies pose unprecedented threats to our constitutional rights.

Emerging technologies like geofencing and artificial intelligence can be powerful tools for law enforcement in solving crimes. And society’s increasing reliance on and integration of technology into our lives enhances the ability of these technologies to gather data that can be used in investigations. But we should be wary of giving up our constitutional protections against government surveillance in favor of convenience.

Currently there are dueling circuit court opinions on geofencing and the constitutionality of this investigative tool. This conflict presents an opportunity to redefine two fundamental issues of Fourth Amendment doctrine: What is the role of the broad third-party doctrine in the modern age and are certain surveillance technologies so intrusive that they constitute an unreasonable search which creates a “permeating police presence” that is the equivalent of an unconstitutional general warrant?

Read more at Law.com.

Keeping up.

https://pogowasright.org/state-comprehensive-privacy-law-update-march-7-2025/

State Comprehensive Privacy Law Update – March 7, 2025

Wilmer Hale has published a State Comprehensive Privacy Law Update. You can read it online or download a .pdf file (11 pages).

Finding human hallucinations?

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00648-5

AI tools are spotting errors in research papers: inside a growing movement

Late last year, media outlets worldwide warned that black plastic cooking utensils contained worrying levels of cancer-linked flame retardants. The risk was found to be overhyped – a mathematical error in the underlying research suggested a key chemical exceeded the safe limit when in fact it was ten times lower than the limit. Keen-eyed researchers quickly showed that an artificial intelligence (AI) model could have spotted the error in seconds.

The incident has spurred two projects that use AI to find mistakes in the scientific literature. The Black Spatula Project is an open-source AI tool that has so far analysed around 500 papers for errors. The group, which has around eight active developers and hundreds of volunteer advisers, hasn’t made the errors public yet; instead, it is approaching the affected authors directly, says Joaquin Gulloso, an independent AI researcher based in Cartagena, Colombia, who helps to coordinate the project. “Already, it’s catching many errors,” says Gulloso. “It’s a huge list. It’s just crazy.”

The other effort is called YesNoError and was inspired by the Black Spatula Project, says founder and AI entrepreneur Matt Schlicht. The initiative, funded by its own dedicated cryptocurrency, has set its sights even higher. “I thought, why don’t we go through, like, all of the papers?” says Schlicht. He says that their AI tool has analysed more than 37,000 papers in two months. Its website flags papers in which it has found flaws – many of which have yet to be verified by a human, although Schlicht says that YesNoError has a plan to eventually do so at scale.