The Tech Policy Press Podcast

A wave of lawsuits in the Unites States is targeting tech firms for their product design decisions. Lawyer Carrie Goldberg has played a role in establishing the product liability theory that underlies them. As the founder of C.A. Goldberg, PLLC, in 2017, her firm brought a lawsuit that sought to apply product liability theory to a tech platform — Herrick v. Grindr — arguing that a dangerous app design, not just user behavior, was the source of harm. In 2022, Goldberg was appointed to the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in the federal social media multidistrict litigation. She’s led cases against Amazon, Meta, and Omegle, has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on child safety issues, and is the author of Nobody's Victim: Fighting Psychos, Stalkers, Pervs, and Trolls. Justin Hendrix spoke to her from her offices in Brooklyn about what she's learned over the last decade, and about some ongoing litigation that remains in dispute.

"Operation Metro Surge" — the massive immigration enforcement operation playing out right now in Minnesota — was billed as a targeted effort to apprehend undocumented immigrants. But what it has exposed goes far beyond immigration enforcement. It has pulled back the curtain on a sprawling surveillance apparatus that incorporates artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and other novel tools — not just to enable the raids that have turned violent and, in some cases, deadly; but also to silence dissent, to intimidate entire communities, and to discourage people from even watching what masked federal agents are doing in their own neighborhoods.
To discuss these events and the prospects for reform, Justin Hendrix spoke to Irna Landrum, a senior campaigner at Kairos Fellowship and author of a recent piece on Tech Policy Press, "How ICE Uses AI to Automate Authoritarianism," and Alejandra Montoya-Boyer, vice president for the Center for Civil Rights and Technology at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which has called for reforms at the Department of Homeland Security and its component agencies.

In his forthcoming book, Your Data Will Be Used Against You, George Washington University Law School professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson explores how the rise of sensor-driven technologies, social media monitoring, and artificial intelligence can be weaponized against democratic values and personal freedoms. Smart cars, smart homes, smart watches—these devices track our most private activities, and that data can be accessed by police and prosecutors looking for incriminating clues. What should legislatures, courts, and individuals do to protect civil liberties?

The killing of 37-year old nurse Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis was filmed from multiple angles by residents of the city, and local government officials have implored the public to share evidence of immigration enforcement agents committing acts of violence with investigators. But what are the challenges of using such artifacts in the pursuit of accountability? And what is there to learn from other efforts to use video, including from social media platforms, as evidence when seeking justice for crimes by state actors? Inequality.org managing editor and Tech Policy Press fellow Chris Mills Rodrigo joins Justin Hendrix to discuss these questions and more.

Today's guest is Jennifer Lind,  an associate professor of government at Dartmouth, a fellow at Chatham House London, and the author of the new book Autocracy 2.0: How China’s Rise Reinvented Tyranny, just out from Cornell Press. The book introduces the concept of 'smart authoritarianism,' a strategy that seeks to preserve political dominance while minimizing the economic damage of repression. It’s a sharp and unsettling argument—and one that is worth considering as a wave of autocratization continues to sweep across the globe, increasingly enabled by new technologies.