Are We Trading Our Humanity for Technology? Your Data, Your Dignity & the Future of Freedom with Martin Adamian

Technology connects us, informs us, and makes life more convenient—but what are we giving up in return?

Michael Fishman sits down with professor, author, and former civil rights attorney Martin Adamian for a powerful conversation about privacy, artificial intelligence, human dignity, attention, creativity, democracy, and the future of human connection.

Martin, author of Privacy and Property: Rethinking Rights and Dignity in an Age of Technology, explains why privacy is about far more than hiding information. It shapes our autonomy, relationships, safety, identity, and ability to decide how we are known.

Together, Michael and Martin explore how smartphones, social media, algorithms, AI, wearable technology, and data brokers are changing the way we think, learn, communicate, and understand one another. They discuss why boredom may be essential to creativity, how technology can weaken attention and problem-solving, and what happens when the world can research, rate, and define us before ever meeting us.

Michael also shares his personal experiences with online misinformation, identity theft, public scrutiny, threats, and fighting to protect his children’s private information.

The conversation expands into political polarization, digital surveillance, biometric data, freedom of speech, civil rights, qualified immunity, governmental accountability, and the growing power of corporations to profit from our personal information.

This is not an anti-technology conversation. It is a call to use technology intentionally, protect human dignity, reclaim our attention, and preserve the relationships and critical thinking that keep communities strong.

Because before we give away another part of ourselves, we should ask whether we can ever get it back.

Links for Martin Adamian:

LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-adamian-5434495

Book — https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/privacy-and-property-9781666981117/

Full episodes can be watched as well on YouTube @alighthouseinthedark channel.

For more connection and exclusive content please subscribe to the official @alighgthouseinthedark Substack.

Additional content is available across social media @alighthouseinthedark

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome back. And today I have a special guest, a professor at Cal State, Los Angeles of Political Science, somebody who knows about technology and the inner dynamics of both politics and also law. He's a former civil rights lawyer, one of the smartest people I've met. So I'd like to welcome to a lighthouse in the dark, Martin Adamion. Welcome.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

I have so many questions. Like, I know technology is a big thing. I kind of want to lean towards you before we dive into like the technology for the world part. What is the thing that just lights you up on a daily basis?

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Great question. Well, uh, I'm one of the things uh, and and I think uh it does relate to a certain extent about to technology. Um I think technology changes the way we live our lives uh in so many ways. Uh we think about computers and wearable devices and and of course cell phones. You know, we we live our lives very differently than we do without those those things. And so um it seems to me that technology has, of course, lots of promise, uh, but also comes with lots of problems and lots of new challenges for us as a species. So um I think particularly, you know, with my uh uh research and writing, you know, I've been fascinated by the ways in which it does uh change who we are as human beings. And and part of that is trying to understand exactly that, who we are and what's really important. And uh in order to figure out what part of uh our lives and behaviors is worth holding on to and and and what's worth sacrificing in uh the interests of uh the latest uh little fad uh you know, scrolling or or games or whatever the the case may be. And give me the whole the whole title so people know. Privacy and property, rethinking rights and dignity in an age of technology.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

Now, it's such a huge topic. And for me in particular, having kind of lived in the technology sphere and in a very public life, I'm very fascinated by this, especially because I I spent 26 years working with kids as a coach. So I've watched the impact on young people. What prompted you to write the book and what was the surprising thing that started to come out of it?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

So, in terms of my interest in privacy, one of the biggest things uh happened when I met my wife. Um, and uh it was uh really interesting how differently we viewed privacy. She is a very private person. And historically, I never really thought of myself as a private person. I didn't, I don't think too much of privacy. I always thought uh, you know, I'm an open book, I I wear my my feelings, my, you know, who I am on my sleeve. I I just I've always thought that, you know, hiding things is too hard and and uh it's not uh genuine or or you know there's something that's lost when you try and uh hide behind something. And so I also always at least strive to uh you know be very open about who I am and to accept my uh limitations and things like that. So when I met uh my wife, Anna, uh she was very private. And as a sort of reaction to that, I started thinking about um, you know, should I be more private? Should I be concerned? And and that kind of prompted me to think about it not only personally, but um intellectually. And uh with my background in the law, I started thinking about privacy laws. And um of course, again, you know, it's kind of a big issue, you know, the the the technology is changing the way we live our lives, and it affects more than anybody. It affects kids and young people that really don't know any different. You know, I feel like uh one of the blessings I feel like I have, and and you too, I suppose, is you know, we grew up in a time where there wasn't computers and technology. We know what it's like to be bored. And I feel like these kids don't really know what it's like. There's corporations and scientists and and designers that are their sole goal is to figure out how to capture their attention and not let them go. So um it's not it's not their fault that they're uh playing video games for hours and sometimes days on end. There, there's a a lot of really smart people that design these things so they can't put them down. Um, and so that that really fascinated me and and also has um sort of kept me up at night thinking about what's going on today. And and you know, especially, you know, every day it's a it's a a new day with technology. So things like AI obviously are just changing exponentially by the by the hour almost. And so um, you know, is this something to be feared? Is it something that's that's uh liberating and exciting to embrace, uh, and and probably a little bit of both, um, I think. So I I've I've just been fascinated by that. And and uh in my own research, I've I've kind of been uh really interested in figuring out a way of understanding it that can be useful to somebody to think about and to understand where to draw those lines, which we all have to do.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

I I want to dive back into parts of this, and I'm gonna kind of deconstruct it. So if you'll go with me and then and then educate me because you've done so much research. I want to go back because I think you look at things in a very specific way, because you have a psychology background and a law background. So I think it gives you a unique way. I think there's a part of you that looks from a structure standpoint and then a big scope as to where it goes, but also there's almost the scientist part of you that kind of deconstructs things. When you think about technology and the impact it's having, where do you start from your thought process?

SPEAKER_00 6:32

I guess I I probably think about um my own life and and the way those uh tools or or devices um sort of fit in. You know, I I um I every so often I feel like I sort of wake up and realize that all of a sudden I'm doing things very differently than I did a couple of years ago. Uh and so, like I said before, you know, I lived, I grew up in a time where we sat in a long car ride and stared out the window. Uh, and our imagination sort of took over. You know, I remember pretending like I was riding a bike next to the car or whatever the case may be. And and um and now I feel like when I think about technology, I think about when I get caught in some sort of, you know, scrolling or game or uh even the more productive things that I do, maybe as a professor, with Excel spreadsheets and emails that are just constantly part of almost everything I do. Um, and so I I feel like for me, I I've I've started with this idea that boy, this is different. This is really different in very meaningful ways. And um I did have a major in psychology and and political science, and then of course, my legal background. Um, I also have studied, particularly in in grad school, I had a minor in philosophy, but also very interested in political theory and philosophy. And so I've I guess part of that too is made me wonder a little bit about kind of you know, what is uh really important in terms of um our human existence. And um and and is is there you know something that uh that might be lost? So, you know, why not just think of it as fun, uh a distraction, uh uh something that we use to fill in those those times that maybe aren't as enjoyable as others. So driving in a car is a lot more fun with a uh a cell phone, and you can do all the things that, you know, whatever you want almost in a certain sense. Um so I I that seems to me that there's something that's lost, and then understanding that um has been a big part of this past project and how I've thought about privacy.

SPEAKER_03 9:10

I'm curious here as a parent, right? We're both parents, yeah, but also we're both people who work with young people.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:17

So we see the dynamic. What are the big shifts you see both as a parent, but also like as a professor, as an educator in attention spans?

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Yeah, attention is really it. Um, you know, people uh seem to be very distractable. Um that they are used to things that uh everything moving very quickly. And so the ability to really focus in on any one thing and devote your your attention, but also your your energy, like your you're you're not only just the focus, um, but kind of like everything you do, you you know, getting absorbed into something. Um, I find that I I feel like that's really difficult for young people today. And and for old people today, too, of course. We're not immune from this, but young people are at a point in their lives, uh, certainly where I see them, and and I would assume you saw them as a coach, where they're developing. Uh, and that's very important to where they end up. Um you know, I'm I'm developed, and so being distracted by technology may not be a big deal in terms of where my life goes. But for young people today, I feel like um they are very easily distracted. They're very um they lack that focus, which really prohibits them from getting into things at uh a certain depth that um allows them to see what they can get out of it. I don't even know that they they realize um what you can get out of uh uh being really focused on a project, devoting yourself and then seeing what happens as a result. Like that final project is magic. And I think that kind of perpetuates that willingness, that curiosity in life. And so I think that is a huge loss uh that they have. And um, you know, I always think of myself as a lifelong learner. You know, I'm fascinated. I love learning things. I I love picking up a book or something, you know, get it doing research into something that I don't know about. Um, and I I feel like that's really hard for young people today. Um, and so I I I feel for them because, like I mentioned earlier, I don't think it's their fault. It's it's not a a matter of an unwillingness. They just don't have the capacity. Um, and and and I even hesitate to say it in those terms because it's not clear to me that they can't do it. Um, it's just uh I don't think that that process has been reinforced.

SPEAKER_03 12:09

I think there's this interesting thing, and I'm gonna sound like an old person in this moment, but there is this thing of like, there was a power that I don't think you realize in youth about boredom. That's right. Right? Like there was a power that came to us from being bored and the creativity that you were forced to use because I didn't have something that could make everything in my hands. I had to make everything myself, right? You had to make everything. And I worry that kids are losing that aspect of things. Um, and I think they're losing the connective portion of it. And I think that's a big part of it. Talk about boredom. Because I think, I think I realized later in life that boredom is kind of a superpower because how you handle it means everything.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

It does, and it gives you that space to start sort of looking within. You know, if if uh if you're not told what to do or not provided with um programs or or a mechanism for understanding what's fun, then you have to come up with it quite literally. The old person idea that, you know, when I was a kid, we just had a box and a stick and a piece of, you know, piece of tape and we figured something out.

SPEAKER_03 13:20

Which was true. Yeah, which was true. Like it was you went to, especially when you went to older people's houses, it was like, don't touch this, don't touch that. Right. That corner has a couple of things or like there's a box of stuff that you can go make something out of in the garage.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

And we didn't, unlike now with cell phones or even any other group of things, you know, when very often when we travel as parents, we bring a little kit, you know, it it includes very often electronics and our phones and things. Um, but it's like here, don't be bored. Uh, play one of these things. And and almost immediately every kid wants to turn to, well, let me have your phone, let me play on the phone. Um, and yeah, literally, I remember that too. I remember, you know, my fondness about dogs, for example, that we've talked about. And uh, you know, that really stemmed from being at friends' houses who had dogs and having literally, absolutely not a single thing to do. And as you pointed out, kind of don't touch this, don't touch that, and just playing with the dog, learning about dogs and developing a relationship and coming up with something that we could do. So I I really do feel like uh boredom serves a purpose. You you start to figure out what's uh what's important to you and and um you start to experiment in ways. And I really feel like when you come up with a solution, um, whether it's you know that relationship with the dog, or um, you know, I remember boxes and sticks turned into um little worlds that we would put uh bugs and snakes and and uh grasshoppers into, and we would, you know, make up um literally almost like the the videos and things that they see today. We would make up our own world and they would sort of speak to us. You know, we would I remember building a um a little world uh uh in a box and having a a pull-up bar for a snake. Yeah, snakes can't use a pull-up bar, but in my mind, I'm thinking, well, he's he wants something to do. He doesn't want to be bored. Right.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

How can I help him not have the boredom? I there's an interesting thing because I think creativity is a superpower.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:39

But I worry that we're losing some of it, right? And like creativity is literally the lifeblood of what I do. And I don't know that I would have had that without having some of the boredom and some of the limitations growing up on a set. I had to find things to do, and I was like the only kid a lot of times. So I had to find ways to connect and play and like you make up games, but also in that environment, you can't make noise, right? Right. So trying to figure out how to play with people without making noise was a whole different thing. Or I remember being a little kid, um, and I I'm sure most people play this, but like you play like either the lava game or whatever it is where you can't touch the floor. It's like we're gonna jump from thing to thing. And largely that was because we didn't really have anything else to do. So we had to raise the stakes of what we were doing and make some kind of competition. I think there's magic in that that I worry that young people are losing.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Absolutely. And and that reminds me of of several things in my youth. I remember playing that sort of lava game and and uh using beanbags and diving, you know, across the room. And and eventually later in life, I ended up uh getting put in a class with my sister, which um I did not want to uh to do. So I uh went to the uh guidance counselor and ended up in a gymnastics class. And I and you know, the the first gymnastics I remember was just jumping on those beanbags. And then all of a sudden I was doing it more. And I think even that, even that uh physical activity, I mean, there's an element of of creativity and and there's there, you know, there's so much that you get out of it. But I I I think boredom is um really important. I mean, I really think that uh it it shouldn't be underestimated the ways in which we develop in those moments um and think about things that we wouldn't otherwise do. I mean, we it's it's a it's a space for our mind to expand in some ways.

SPEAKER_03 17:42

We I this is gonna sound ridiculous. My kids played um Minecraft.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 17:48

And so there was a point in Minecraft where they had to get across, literally like a lava pool. And as a kid, it was me and my cousins. So we used to throw books on the ground. My dad would be horrified when he hears this story. I'm gonna get in so much trouble because we took them out of the little library area and we would use the books to stay off the ground. But you would put one to the one you already had and then slide out with your feet. So when we're playing with my kids, my kids are like, we can't get across this thing, there's no way to jump, we can't really build over it, we don't have enough blocks. I'm like, why don't you just lean over and connect it to this one? And my kids are like, What made you think of that?

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Right.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

That thing I did 20 years ago in my youth to maybe 30 years to solve the problem is the same problem solving because problem solving is transferable. And I think that skill we're outsourcing a little with technology.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Absolutely. Especially today with AI. Um, you know, this is something I think a lot about in in higher education, especially. But I think that um, you know, a lot of young people, I mean, it's almost universal. Every uh all of my students are using AI in some capacity, and it's changing the nature of of their work um in very clear ways. But um, you know, one one one way uh it was uh I saw it described is that um AI will not be able to make the jump from a a candle to a light bulb. It just can't that it it that creativity isn't there. It might make that candle a little better, or you might be able to feed it enough information to understand how the candle works or or to to develop that. But to make those sorts of leaps to be able to come up with something new uh is is is something very unique. And yeah, I think um problem solving is is probably you know one of the things that's most at risk. We we we're not gonna be able to do that. And so I think that reliance on technology is it really has the potential to reduce our capacity for critical thinking, problem solving. Um and I, you know, and even on a personal level, I think that's that's that's really scary because you know, these are tools that we use constantly. Uh almost every day, every moment we're um trying to figure out how to navigate the world and um you know, throwing a book down or or uh coming up with something or or uh using a thought process that is worked in other contexts to be able to understand how to think about something in a different way and therefore to come up with a solution to a new problem really you know can hold us back if if we we can't do that.

SPEAKER_03 20:45

Yeah, one of my my concerns with AI is because it's kind of regurgitating our own technology and concepts, it it has the potential to like reiterate things faster, right? So we can speed through some of that process. But I think exactly what you said is it's not it's not gonna make those big giant leaps because it's not designed to imagine something that isn't here. You know, I I think back to being kids, we talked about like we're at a point in our lives, but I think for most people, if you started with a home phone that was anchored to the wall, right? Right, cell phones weren't even a thing, right? So every time the phone rang, you didn't know who it was for and you didn't know who was calling.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:29

And then also it meant socially in your house, conversations weren't totally private, which also I think made you be very aware. But I also think it meant that you had to share information in a unique way, right? Or you had to schedule a time. I'm gonna call you at this time. So you knew the right person would answer the phone, or you knew the person was gonna be home. Now we kind of just take that for granted and we're always plugged in. What's the psychological impact on people always being connected?

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Yeah, I and that's something I think we're really just starting to understand. Um I feel like there uh when we are constantly connected, I feel like we do um lose or or or fail to appreciate maybe um the extent to which uh that uh um control over our information and um our conversations um might have some bearing on who we are. Um you know, and some of the research in regards to privacy that that I found really fascinating, um, there's kind of a line of scholarship that describes privacy uh as necessary to intimacy and love. Um and so um that control over information uh for some scholars is something that then allows us to develop relationships where we can decide who we want to turn that information over to. And so when we're constantly connected, uh and when everybody's got our data, uh, we lack the ability to control how we develop relationships. Uh we really um lose the capacity for um sharing, uh, you know, selective sharing with other people. Um we hold on to some of it, so maybe they don't see us without our clothes, but um they very easily have access to our social media, uh different things about us that might um make them or or at least give them the impression that they understand us and who we are. And that's uh I think another thing we lose is that we're very quickly judged based on very little information.

SPEAKER_03 23:54

Um and public information. It's a very interesting thing. This is this is actually a place where I thought you and I might disagree. And it's funny because now that I'm listening to this, I hadn't thought about the intimacy thing. So I I definitely want to go back to that. But I live largely my whole life has been public. So it's fascinating to watch the rest of the world kind of move into that space. Right. But at the same time, there were elements as we're talking about this of privacy and freedom that I didn't even totally grasp that I did have that were the same, right?

unknown 24:26

Right.

SPEAKER_03 24:27

And social media is a very interesting one because now people research you essentially before they ever meet you, and they almost write a script for who they think you are, and then try to fit you in that or fit into how they feel you're gonna fit into their life, and all of that is feels very transactional.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Yeah. Yeah, I I went on a date one time and she uh plugged my name into some database and right there in front of me and uh started pulling out things about my past, um, much of it was actually inaccurate because as we know, technology isn't always uh reliable. I used the Wikipedia example. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

My Wikipedia is a nightmare for me. It's been a nightmare for like 25 years. So if anybody's out there in Wikipedia who can actually help me, because I tried one time and then I got blocked for not acknowledging my own bias, right? Um for like a 15-year period, somebody told the world that I was Cuban and that my parents were from Cuba, but that was an elaborate um identity theft thing that somebody had done on the internet, but I couldn't get it changed.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Right. Right. And that's that control over the information. Without that control, you really lose that ability to under to develop that relationship with somebody else.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

Yeah, somebody created a whole backstory for me so that they could create accounts where they knew a maiden name and all this stuff that wasn't accurate. But as far as the system was concerned, it felt it was accurate. And I think this is an area that we haven't talked about, which is the world isn't realizing that by giving the world your access and your information, the world is now shaping who you are, but also has the ability to manipulate or could be very detrimental for your privacy.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Absolutely. You know, in my own context, um, a lot of people in higher education are familiar with uh rate my professor.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

That's the worst. It's the worst. Like for people who don't know, um people go on, they give you an evaluation. Almost every person I've ever known who's a good teacher, if you make your students do work, there are there are a group of students who like there are two groups. There's the groups who want to learn the most, and then there's the group that want to get through the easiest.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:49

And if you're a good professor, it's very easy to get a bad rating because they're like, oh, that's why for me, Rate My Professor, when I was like looking at things like that and knowing people who teach. What are the complaints? Are the complaints like, oh, it gives a lot of work or has extensive lectures or expects you to read the whole book?

SPEAKER_00 27:09

It's like that that used to be standard. That's right. And to really understand uh a rating on Rape My Professor, you want to know the the context, right? And that's that's the important part the for developing the relationships, to understand the context to be able to uh read that and determine what to share. With Rape My Professor, the way I think of it is that there's there's two groups of students that respond to those things. It's the people that love you and it's the people that hate you. And I feel like, you know, I haven't looked at it in well over a decade. But um I've I noticed that there were descriptions of my assignments that were 100% inaccurate. I didn't assign the the types of assignments that they described. Uh I was described as uh, you know, in ways that I that were demeaning to me. Um and it seemed to me that it served a different purpose, that somebody had something to prove, that maybe they didn't do well in my class or they didn't like the amount of reading. Uh and so they would go on there with a very specific purpose to make me look bad. And and then the others, you know, which was a little easier to stomach, might really have liked it. And that may have been swayed by the fact that they did well. Maybe their brain works similar to mine, and so they uh did uh, you know, they they uh um learned as a result of the style of my teaching. And so they uh spoke very highly of me, and that that was great, but the but the the people that uh had something to prove because they didn't do well in my course or they didn't like me or something um would go to whatever extent necessary to make me look bad. And so uh I just stopped looking at it. It's not a value to me, but I know um and I'm constantly reminded that everybody that takes my class goes through that program or something like it to understand what to expect. And they they come in thinking they know me, that they know that these are this is what he does, and this is who he is. And uh and so I'm very much that rating to them uh until I prove otherwise. And and then the responsibility is on me to to sort of you know break out of the mold. Uh, and again, I don't I don't participate in this game. I don't, I don't, uh, I don't look at the site, um but uh but I uh I'm I I even though I don't do that, I'm constantly reminded that they these people's opinion is very much shaped by something that is 100% out of my control.

SPEAKER_03 29:53

Aaron Powell Well, and it's it's the hard part is we've started to rate human beings.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

And when are people the sociability desirability score in in countries like China takes it in even farther?

SPEAKER_03 30:06

Trevor Burrus, Yeah, which is really scary. And and really you want to talk about rights and and things that could deny you. You know, first of all, who's most likely to go and rate someone is someone who is either mad or has a bad experience, or which no one ever talks about, your competitor. That's right. Because they have an inherent motivation to lower your score in a false way to try and raise theirs. It's like when I go on Yelp or I go on any of these rating sites, right? Whether it be a business, uh like everybody reads reviews now. The problem is, going back to critical thinking, most people don't read what the review is. That's right. The context matters. And all of the context matters. For example, like I when somebody tells me, oh, you know, the person came, but they expected a consultation fee. Like I used to work in construction. There were lots of times, if I'm gonna come and spend a whole afternoon and do a write-up on an entire project, yeah, I charge a minimum amount because otherwise I'm gonna lose my entire business that way. That's an industry standard. It's not like I'm the only one doing it, right? And it's a very interesting thing because people who don't know, this might be their first experience, or somebody else might have said, Well, my cousin doesn't do that. And you're like, Yeah, but your cousin also like builds things that are tilted, and then and there's a reason that you didn't hire his cousin. There's also the part in education, but in everything, right? How I taught in a certain point in time is not always even entirely up to me.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

True.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

We could have certain uh topics that we have to cover as a school or an administration, there could be certain technologies or things that we're trying to incorporate. Things shift over time, pre-COVID, post-COVID, like it's not the same. It's also different subject matters because it's not like you only teach one class.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 32:03

And that's also part of it is like, you know, if I go to a restaurant, if I my favorite example is like there's a Mexican restaurant that I love. The people who have high ratings are all the people I see there all the time who love the place, right? And then I watched and looked at who the negative, one of the negative ones, a perfect example is the person didn't love their hamburger. And I'm like, okay, but you went to a Mexican restaurant and you ordered a hamburger, and again, I would like the hamburger to be good, and I'm sure the hamburger was adequate, but that's not their specialty, right? If I go into an Italian place and I'm like, man, they I was really mad they did not have tacos. Yeah. Like that's not on them. And so when you read people's reviews, it's fascinating sometimes because I'm like, of course that wasn't their specialty, right? Like I went to Mediterranean food and I was really mad that they didn't have burgers. Like, you kind of knew that going in, or you should have.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:00

Or, you know, there was a sushi restaurant recently that I was looking up reviews and the person was really mad because it said it's all fish. I was like, yes, it is. But I also don't have any control over the fact that someone went online to make that complaint if I'm the business owner.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Yeah, and and and to your point, you know, people don't appreciate the context. Not only are some people not going to read that review or or read into the details, if they're even shared, um most of the people that are going to look at Yelp are looking at that number. I don't want to go to a restaurant with a four-point whatever, I want a five point five stars or whatever the equivalent is. And so um, yeah, we we very often take just a slice of that data and use it. And and so even for somebody who might be interested in those details, it's not always provided.

SPEAKER_03 33:57

Now let's talk about that to a social score thing, because you brought up China, right? Which is terrifying to me because I live my whole life in public and like my social media is mostly positive.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Right.

SPEAKER_03 34:09

But there are negative comments, and I get horrific comments. I like I get threats on a daily basis. I I grew up this way. So I I guess I am somewhat I'm not immune, but I would say I'm like um I've grown a pretty good callous and a pretty good resistance, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:27

But for the average young person just starting out in the world, and that's why things like you know, suicide rates, depression, those things have increased in certain populations, um, because I don't think everybody is prepared for that. Uh and I think there's uh something to that anonymity, you know, you can just write comments in the middle of the night, and you know, maybe you get a chuckle out of it, maybe, maybe you just get the slightest bit of enjoyment out of it, but it can affect somebody else so significantly uh that may be more vulnerable or maybe in a in a very vulnerable state as a result of something entirely different. Maybe something else has happened in their life that has has put them in a a state that that is uh easily uh, you know, I guess vulnerable is probably the better word. You know, so suscepti uh sensitive, I guess, is a better word. Uh and so, you know, nobody knows that or appreciates that. They can fire off comments, hundreds of them, in an evening for a little bit of entertainment and and really uh cause some significant consequences.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

Yeah, there's this idea of like I'm gonna go on and troll or I'm gonna have a troll account. And this concept of like that's how you blow off steam. The problem is the person on the receiving end of that may be in a really vulnerable place.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

And I people think they're anonymous. Um in another part of my world, I used to track down fugitives. So like I every once in a while will track down if somebody really just like does it for an extended period of time, those are usually people I send letters, and then they're usually horrified that someone could track them down. We don't nearly have the anonymity that people think they do. Can you talk about that a little bit? That technology, we're not as anonymous as people think they are.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Yeah, and uh um absolutely. I mean, there's so many ways in which our information is tracked. I mean, everywhere we go, both on the internet with uh data brokers and our clicks, uh increasingly even our eye movements, where we shift our eyes in certain contexts. Um, but of course, uh where we go in public, there's cameras everywhere. Um, and so uh it's always interesting to me where we have some sort of mass uh killing or some sort of school shooting or uh, you know, any number of different uh current events. It's always interesting to me that that we have this sort of interest in uh knowing that person very intimately and that that sells newspapers and and gets clicks for news media outlets. And so uh but part that's interesting to me is that we we really have a a very detailed picture of this person's life within a matter of hours sometimes, certainly 24 hours, uh, the media can get access to very private information about a person. Uh, and it's on the national news. Uh and uh so I think, yeah, absolutely. There's uh we really um have turned over a lot of information uh to different sources that are increasingly public. You know, one of the things that's interesting to me from a legal perspective in in terms of privacy is the idea of a right to privacy and to, and a big part of the right to privacy comes out of the Fourth Amendment. And of course, the Bill of Rights only applies to government. Um, most of this information that we're talking about has nothing to do with government. It's social media, it's it's private people's cameras, or uh, so it's not uh even for the government to get access to that information, it may not even require a search warrant in many contexts. Uh and so um, yeah, a lot of this information is um is public in a way that is uh easily manipulated or lacks the type of safeguards from the ways in which it might be used and and ultimately impact us.

SPEAKER_03 38:30

Yeah, I think that's a huge thing. I feel like, and and maybe you can speak to this. Do you feel like we've given away a lot of our privacy and our personal rights and it's almost worse because we've consented?

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Well, that's a bit that yeah, I mean, that's a a really important part of my my book. Um the idea that we can consent to it is uh very much a function of property, uh, our understanding of property and the ways in which uh property works in a very specific economic system, that is capitalism. Uh, we emphasize private property, and and part of the book is this idea that uh privacy and property are are social constructs, legal constructs that have developed over time. And I think we assume, or at least some of the, certainly the the current Supreme Court, many on the current Supreme Court want to argue that the concept of property is more fundamental. And I think for a lot of people that may be somewhat you know intuitive, that they think that you know property is is something that may be more basic and that privacy is something that we understand much later as uh society develops. And um part of what I'm trying to argue is that um this model that uh really is a function of this understanding of property um gives us the impression that when we consent, that that's enough, that we control privacy much like property, that the information is a property right. And much like we might think about a toy or an object, if I consent to it, I'm allowing you to use it. If I consent to you using something, uh then you're allowed to use that. Um but part of you know what was interesting to me when looking at the way Europeans look at privacy, for example, is that it is not at all related to property. It is instead a function of human dignity. Uh one thing that was really interesting looking into the some of the the aspects of European prop privacy law is that um, for example, if you some of some uh of the privacy laws have developed in uh in Europe around the use of like, let's say, nude photos or something like that. Um and when you quote unquote consent to your picture being taken in in uh without your clothes on, um, you have, in at least our understanding of privacy, you have given up that right, and therefore you have no control over that any longer.

SPEAKER_03 41:18

Which is crazy, because in the European concept is because it is your essence, essentially, that's absolutely right.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

That you have a right to who gets it in the future. And even if you were to sell it, for example, uh their laws resp uh understand that you wouldn't possibly give away your human dignity. Right. And that essence uh you still control. And so um there are circumstances in which, and you kind of describe this in in terms of your ability to control that Wikipedia site. Um you you didn't agree with Wikipedia to to put your profile up there. It was a function of maybe uh your notoriety and and uh public uh knowledge, let's say. But um the idea that you have no control over that is very significant to you, particularly as a young person.

SPEAKER_03 42:12

Well, and I'll tell you, for seven years, it took me seven years of weekly fighting with them and trying to change it to get my children's names when they were minors because people were showing up at their school and it was an actual safety and and risk. And it took me seven years just to get them to take my kids' names down and to eliminate where we lived. Somebody had added where, like the city we lived as a resource. And I was like, these are health and safety risks.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

Yeah, that's right. And so um the uh the idea that one might consent to that is inadequate for understanding under what circumstances you should be able to control that. And I think the idea that we currently in the United States, and and this permeates laws both at the federal and state level, uh, accepts this idea that consent is enough. Uh, and so it's very interwoven with concepts very much related to and developed out of property, our understanding of property. Um, yet it fails to recognize what is really important. And in the context you described, this is the the safety of your kids, couldn't be more important.

SPEAKER_03 43:26

Well, and I also think that there's a very interesting thing of we have this concept of it's like property. But we also have this clear understanding, or should at this point, that people are not property. And yet we're treating people like property. And and one of those examples for me in this form is the AI-likeness issue, right? But also how people are using that to create fake porn and and and take people's clothes off that never consented for nude photos, right? That's right. And and that's also an area where technology is out. Pacing our laws.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

Our economic system is based around the idea that we can promote profitability, that we that we that progress is tied to our ability to make productive use of things. And part of what I try and develop in the book is the idea that the Supreme Court and a lot of the basis for American law got very twisted early on with the idea of trespass laws. And so the Olmsted decision is becomes the basis for a lot of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence around under what circumstances search and seizure is permitted. And in Olmstead, the court says that Brandeis, who wrote one of the first uh law review articles on the right to privacy in 1890, Brandeis is on the court and he dissents, but the court basically says that privacy is the right to privacy was not violated in this specific case because tapping of a telephone line was done outside of the home. It did not break into the home. And so that was not a violation of a property right. And what essentially I think was misunderstood at that time was that much of our jurisprudence and much of the Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, even back in England, was developed around Lockean notions of property. And I think that was not fully understood, the extent to which John Locke described a property right as something much broader than that, or broader than the way in which we might use it in the U.S. context or in the legal context. And so then it was the dissatisfaction with the Olmsted decision that eventually leads to the Katz decision, where they not too far from here, they'd attach a listening device to a telephone booth. And that's where the court comes up with a new test, which is incorporate some idea of an expectation of privacy. But part of what's interesting for me is that that sort of faulty foundation now is the context in which the justices are talking about whether or not internet uh cell phone uh location data or internet searches uh violate these same principles. And so uh they failed to really understand the way in which property may have been understood even uh as early as um you know 1800 or or um yeah, uh 1900.

SPEAKER_03 46:45

It's also very interesting to me because you're looking at we're in 2026, right? And you're talking about people who are basing while ideas are good, a lot of these ideas are based on concepts from the 14, 1500, 1600s, right? That's right. Where we're talking about boats and shipping as modes of transportation. This is predating airplanes, this is predating people driving around in cars, it's predating the ability to use listening devices. That's right. And we're talking about, we're applying those as a justification for what it means to be AI or the internet.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:22

Right? Because for those of us who grew up before the internet, we used to have to do the like with that dial-up thing where you had to wait and hope that it went on. For young people, they have it in their phones. So if they think the internet is standard, a lot of them don't even realize the consent they're giving and the rights or privacy that is being exploited because they gave them up before they even realized what was happening.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Yeah. And and some of the early cases, even before Brandeis and Warren were the authors of that initial uh law review article, um, some of the cases before that were about the fine distinction between whether or not when somebody is given permission to use a letter, uh, it is the physical letter, or whether it's the contents of that letter. Uh and so that that sort of a distinction, as you're pointing out, means something very different. Um, you know, we there is no physical object anymore. Uh, you know, we're talking about maybe an email or uh telephone communication or something else.

SPEAKER_03 48:26

And so these or even this, this podcast, whether it be the audio portion of it or the video portion.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

Yeah, and so law develops in a very reactionary way. We we, you know, um intellectual property. When I was in law school, we, you know, that was a very new concept. Uh, and and with intellectual property, I think we're still trying to come up with what is really different and requires new laws. And and incidentally, that's part of what's so troubling about some of the approaches to constitutional interpretation we see on the Supreme Court today. This constant desire to frame everything in terms of tradition and meaning, as it would underst would be understood at the time of the framing. We're talking about a very explicit effort to limit what we do with constitutional law to several hundred years ago. Uh, and of course, we're gonna lose out on the essence of what is really important, not only uh to the framers, but uh to us today and to our children and vulnerable people that are affected by the way these laws either protect or fail to protect uh information.

SPEAKER_03 49:39

I I'm so fascinated by this because like when we look at we we have this battle over the Supreme Court so much, right? It has become so politicized. What are some of the areas for you with your background? Well, you're like, we're doing ourselves a disservice as a nation by not acknowledging being in a very extreme traditionalist form where we're harking back to frame the framers of this country who literally took carts to get to meet, right? Who couldn't meet all the time because they didn't even have light bulbs working in the sense, right? Like the technology that they were dealing with versus what we're dealing with now, where do you see that as like we're doing ourselves a disservice for a country?

SPEAKER_00 50:22

Well, I I mean, I think I I could go in almost any direction with that one. There's so many different examples. I mean, obviously the privacy stuff is really important to me. And that is even more controversial because of the fact that privacy isn't mattered. It's a non-textual right. And I and I certainly could and will would go into that. But um, I mean, one of the areas that I think, you know, uh outside of that that I would point to is things like the First Amendment. Freedom of speech is very much fundamental to democracy. If we're going to have any sort of meaningful conversation about uh what are the politicians and the policies that we expect to represent us in government, then we need to be able to have free and open debate and discussion. We really need to be able to deliberate. Uh, and that requires a freedom to be able to express oneself, but also the ability uh to allow individuals to exchange ideas. And that is very much lacking today. First of all, uh, you know, most of what happens is not in the context of the government restriction. It's it's on social media. So I'm gonna either expose myself to public ridicule, but I I'm not looking, I'm not as concerned that the government's going to come and knock on my door, at least, you know, when I give an opinion about something. Um, if you're gonna announce on social media that you're gonna uh shoot somebody or something, you know, target the president or something, of course they'll knock on your door. And very quickly, incidentally, as we know, that's not private. Right. Um, but nor should it be. Nor should it be. Right. When it comes to just having an open, honest discussion about whether uh whether or not uh ICE should be uh rounding up people at Home Depot, um, that is a loaded conversation. If you say something on social media, you're opening yourself up to not only all those individuals that are disingenuous and trolling just for the sake of trolling, but you're opening yourself up to a bunch of people that uh have a very clear political affiliation and agenda, and they have bought into a line of argument. They're gonna start spitting out to you things that have been told to them by party representatives, by certain uh media outlets, et cetera. And uh you will very quickly be inundated with attacks. This sounds like my life.

SPEAKER_03 52:51

I don't mean to laugh right, but like this is this is literally my dailies. If I say anything, what's fascinating is people will twist it in so many. And part of it is people want to hear what they want to hear. And a lot of people are already being primed for anger and reaction.

SPEAKER_00 53:09

Exactly. Exactly. And that's a function of politics. You know, that's uh we have specific leaders, but it seems to me that it's not just Trump. It's it's something that we've seen throughout history. Politics, politicians uh create some notion of fear, whether it's crime in your local community or whatever, uh, there's some problem, and then they come in to save the day. You know, the here's the problem, and I'm gonna fix it. You should be afraid, and I'm the savior. I'm the solution, right? That's right.

SPEAKER_03 53:40

Because that's what keeps people in power historically. That's right. For for me in that framework, right? What do you think the psychological impact is of people being watched all the time?

SPEAKER_00 53:52

Well, I think one of the things uh that comes to mind is that we just simply do not have the power to be ourselves. You know, we no longer have the ability to uh be silly, to be, to make a comment, let's say, in a conversation, and then read the room, see how that's responded to. You know, part of what John Stuart Mill talks about in terms of free speech is the idea that um by engaging in free and open debate and discussion, that we learn the error of our ideas, that we uh understand as a result of those conversations what doesn't hold up to criticism. And so it's not just my ability to understand the other side of the argument. Somebody else is gonna jump in and say, hey, I don't agree with you, and here's why. And then you say, Oh, okay, you know, maybe you're right. Umadays, first of all, we don't have that exchange for fear that we're gonna be attacked and labeled and and and uh and discriminated against as a result. But when we do, we're not open to the idea that we're wrong. And so more often, debates today, much like any, you know, debates on your social media or anyone else's, uh, people are not actually listening to somebody. They're not suggesting attacking you because they want to learn about your uh the way you approach something. They're yelling past you. Um, you know, they they they want to prove something to the rest of the world or maybe to themselves. Um, but they had, but it's not about a real exchange of ideas. And so we lack that. We we we don't have these conversations. I don't have them. I I teach this stuff. I wouldn't, I wouldn't dare have a conversation online about uh politics. Uh there's I'm not gonna waste my time. That wouldn't be a conversation about politics.

SPEAKER_03 55:45

Well, and what's crazy is as knowledgeable as you are, there would be a benefit largely for people if you could have that conversation. But the threat to your life and your livelihood and professional standing is so egregiously high. And also there's this um cognitive dissidence that I think people have already kind of predisposed themselves to. And it's my worry about the algorithms, yes, is that they're pushing us what we believe already. And so people are just looking past other people. They think they're 100% right because they're being fed constant regurgitation of what they believe because it keeps them online and in place longer.

SPEAKER_00 56:25

That's right. And so that's kind of a uh, you know, touches on a direction that I want to go with with uh a new project, which is uh the politics or has something to do with the politics of attention and the ways in which these algorithms and these programs really uh demand our attention and the effect that has on deliberative democracy. And so there's there there is very clear effect on our ability to deliberate. And so our our freedom of speech, but also uh democracy is really threatened by this. And of course, we see this today uh with authoritarian policies, by uh a government that doesn't like to be criticized. Um, and so you know, I think that our ability to actually be able to come up with real solutions to real problems is being limited by the technologies themselves, but also by uh the policies that that result from an inability to think critically about what really would be uh a better policy or a better way of understanding these issues. People don't want to really have a real conversation. They want to reinforce the fact that they're right.

SPEAKER_03 57:36

Yeah, and then I'm also worried about the consolidation of power in relationship to these organizations and that the majority of them seem to be leaning in a certain political idealized direction. Because one of the things that happens, if you go counterculture or you raise a counterpoint, they literally lead people away from you. That's right. And there's a very interesting silencing that's happening. But when the majority of your media is owned by a small number of people, this has been warned in almost every form of writing throughout history that the consolidation of power and the ability to manipulate that is the biggest threat to liberty and freedom.

SPEAKER_00 58:18

Absolutely. And I think we could look at that on a global scale. Increasingly, we're willing to give up our sovereignty, our power as uh a country to uh other entities in an effort to try and address problems that don't fit neatly within political borders. And so I do think there's uh a threat. And um I do think um uh we really need to be able to think and talk about these problems in order to come up with solutions.

SPEAKER_03 58:48

Yeah, and with technology, taking our biometric data, it's very interesting because like we talked before about Europe, but in Asia, they feel all your biometric and your medical data is sacred, right? Because it's part of you and therefore you own it. So there is no sharing of it, right? It is your personal right to who you share it with. Whereas here in the United States, in particular, that stuff's being resourced in and often being sold to third-party advertisers and things frequently without even your knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 59:22

Absolutely. And that really goes to the alternatives, you know, the idea that a lot of this is a function of design. Things could be designed in a way that allow you to control that information. You don't have to give it up. That's a model that we in our capitalist society have adopted. That's a a way in which a certain understanding of property and privacy has been adopted by corporations uh that are benefiting from this. Of course, they're not going to design these things if they uh in a way that protects that data, if they're able to continue to make money off of it. And so that these data brokers are making incredible amounts of money on a daily basis, an hourly basis, um, trading in this information, whether it's your grocery store buying habits or your uh you know, your wearable health data or anything else. And of course, in the United States, we don't have any protections. We have a patchwork of laws that exist on the federal level and state level that address specific things. And one of the areas where you see some of the strongest protections, but I would argue still uh largely inadequate, is in regards to healthcare data. We do have an idea that your health records uh should be private. But it's really just that record. It's really not too much more than that. And of course, we know that um the point at which you know we uh give up those rights is the point at which we sign that consent form that says it can be used for some other purpose. And so it's very much uh, you know, a function of there there are alternatives, ways we could design technology, ways in which we could um design policies that would uh safeguard those aspects of uh privacy of our data that would be um really important for us to be able to control uh without giving it to corporations. But in the United States, it's it's really pretty much that consent model. Um and and so uh you know, I don't even think we can envision another way of under of approaching these problems.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:43

Yeah, I think it's very interesting. I think for particularly for American citizens, but citizens around the world, I mean, one of the things that is rising is pricing based on on your patterns, right? Is there's this concept, particularly that a number of chains and grocery stores and places are starting to adopt where they're actually keeping track of your eye contact where you're looking. And they're slowly increasing the prices of products that you buy all the time. And there are arguments that have been made by corporations that there should be no price tags on things and that you should scan them and it will tell you what the price is. But that means you could be paying $2 for something that I'm paying $3 for, and that someone is deciding that arbitrarily based on our patterns. I always buy this, so I'm gonna be charged a premium versus you rarely buy this, and we want to get you in so we can get you in the in the hopper.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:38

And just like so many things, yeah, there's maybe a logic that makes sense, but the idea that doesn't make sense is that we all have unequal bargaining power. That we we we can't possibly compete as individuals with a corporation that obviously can make these arguments, that have lobbyists to go to Washington to be able to encourage the government to make these arguments, again, with some some dream or some some promise of uh prosperity, perhaps. Uh uh, but uh ultimately in the end, we as individuals control very little of it. And so uh the power imbalance, I think, is really important as well. We we we once again the individual is powerless to be able to compete, whether it's the the price or the model that we use to determine the price. Uh we as individuals really lack the capacity to be able to do it. And increasingly, we lack the ability to even talk to each other about whether or not it's a good idea. And as the government becomes more authoritarian, um, less and less of that is really within our control, even from a democratic standpoint.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:45

Well, and when you have big stakesholders, when you have huge corporations who have all of this data, not just in one area, but across almost all of your data and start pulling in your biometric data, and then they can pay someone as a representative to give them more access or to continue their advantage, that's a really dangerous place to be because now you're seeing bias on both sides of the legal equation.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:14

That's right. That's right. And and so much of it, and when we think about privacy, we think about you know the idea of a right to privacy. And again, that really is so limited in terms of our relationship with the government. Um and so we, you know, it when you think about the types of laws that are developed on on the federal and state level currently and that are being debated, um, they really fail to address these issues. They just reinforce those those power imbalances that exist in in in favor of corporations. And we currently have a bill in uh that uh has been presented in in Congress or is being debated, um, that really is is worse than than no comprehensive privacy law at all. It's just caving into these corporations and giving them uh power. And uh and you know, so it's it really I think uh is unfortunate that we we aren't even having a conversation about the extent to which things should be protected or the rules should be changed in a way that protects what's important.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:19

Now you're a super active person. So let's segue a little and make this more personal for people. Like you track your biometric data. I do. You track health, you're a very like you're an avid fisherman. You you go out and you bike all the time, both mountain and road, right? Those things are kind of your peace and your escape from the crazy world. How do you, as a privacy expert, do all these things and use technology and then still try to protect yourself and not give away all your data and have privacy?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:50

It's a good question and something that I struggle with at times. Uh on the other hand, as you pointed out earlier, I mean, most of the things, the way I think about these. Issues are really big picture. And so I do track my data and I uh way more than than I would even uh describe um uh because just on a personal level, I have a whole sort of system of uh keeping track of things for my own personal use, but that does uh utilize devices that I know are turning over my data to other people, and I think that there are consequences uh to that. Uh on the other hand, I'm not as interested or I'm not as scared, I guess I would say, about um on an individual level uh how that affects me as I am on a system-wide level or a societal level. I think that the models we use in the way we think about the law in regards to property and privacy are more important than uh what they're gonna be able to do to me specifically as a result of knowing what my heart rate is uh throughout the night or on a certain segment of the you know a bike ride. On the other hand, you know, I know that uh the programs that I use can be used uh in different ways that I think eventually could come back to me. And I um am concerned about that. You know, um you mentioned that I cycle, you know, I I rode bike. Um it was brought to my attention in an article a couple of years ago that the um the data that is gathered about the um from cyclists uh could be used to control speed limit laws. Because you know, if if you can go on to the the program I use is Strava, if you can go on to Strava and you can get all kinds of data from them, and I'm sure they're willing to sell it if you give them the right price, um, they can tell you how many people are exceeding the speed limit. Now, maybe they're not going to send a ticket to me specifically in the mail, uh, but they may increase patrols in that section. They may change policies or rules as it relates to what the speed limit is or what you're allowed to do or what the consequences are. And so it certainly could affect me, but I'm um, you know, even though I feel like at times maybe given what I know, I should be uh more careful, um, there are points at which I simply have decided that um, you know, I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do in in order to uh you know live my life. And it's not so much uh uh an unwillingness to to just kind of off uh loading the problem. It's really because, you know, for me personally, I I really believe that uh the more you um monitor something, the more likely you are to be able to improve. And so for me, with my health, I monitor aspects of my health and my life that I want to keep track of so that I can improve on a personal level. And so for me, it's kind of a trade-off. Uh I see ways in which I benefit individually from that data. Uh, and so I use it very deliberatively, but I do understand that it can be used for other purposes.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:22

Yeah, I think the self-empowerment part of this is really important because I think so many of these technologies were designed for our own self-empowerment. The idea that we don't have safeguards to protect from some kind of overreach, especially in a country that constantly talks about individual liberty and freedom. And yet we're giving that away frequency, like frequently, because we don't even protect our own privacy. I think it's a very interesting dichotomy.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:50

Yeah, I do too. And and and and maybe my uh maybe my layer sort of approach to it isn't uh isn't necessarily the best. I don't know. Um, but I think it is uh reflective of the the the sort of uh dilemma that we all end up in. Um, you know, we may understand that our phones are addictive and that they change the way we live our lives and that they affect other people in different ways. But are we gonna give up the, you know, I mean, what what would it mean? I mean, I know there are people that buy flip phones now, and maybe it's uh fashionable in a in a certain crowd, but you know, maybe that limits what you can do with it. But I think for a lot of people, they still want to have the ability to look something up, to figure out directions to the place they're going, to do any number of things that we've become accustomed to through that smartphone. And uh, and so you know, the you're even though we might know what the the consequences are, I think very few of us are really willing to give up the benefits. And and that goes back to, like I said, I think, you know, really technology, there's a lot of promise, uh, and there's a lot of uh potential harm as well. And so it's something that I think in the end, uh I don't come out necessarily against technology. I feel like um it's important for us to be uh very deliberate in the way in which we engage with technology. And and again, I, you know, there's there's some of that that's out of our control that really comes down to the design. As you pointed out, there uh there are very clearly ways in which we might be able to monitor our you know our cycling data and and uh and use it in ways that also does not allow everyone else, corporations and government to have unlimited access to that information and data. So of course there's ways in which we might be able to develop those products. So I I think you know it really comes down to uh the ways in which we expect government to represent our interests. Uh and currently I don't feel like we have uh adequate mechanisms for being able to communicate those concerns uh to government. Um certainly my vote for a president or a member of Congress doesn't communicate to them the extent to which their policies on uh privacy or their preferences for policies on private privacy um might have swayed my vote. And again, they're beholden to those corporate interests. So I think inevitably, even though we have some facade that that uh our government represents us, uh I think it's very clear that they represent other interests much more substantially than my own.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:57

Okay, to that end, what is a legal practice or a legal norm right now that you think generations from now are gonna look back and be shocked and be just dumbfounded that we allowed?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:12

Well, I almost hesitate to mention, but I mean the right to bear arms is one that I think is is really um something that I think at some point at generations, and I think we're already starting to see it, generations are gonna uh shift our understanding. I mean, you referenced the debates with the the Supreme Court and and uh you know the problems or the the ways in which we view some of the the decisions that have been reached in the politics associated with it. Um I think one of the things that future generations are gonna look back on and and recognize is that the right to bear arms is something that is not uh an absolute bar on the right to bear arms that allows for meaningful restrictions on it. And uh that's been somewhat of a a sacred sort of uh provision that conservatives have held on to. Uh I don't have a problem with with guns and hunting and and certain uh certain policies, but the idea that the right to bear arms is some sacred right that cannot be regulated in any meaningful way, which seems to be increasingly the case, um is uh has very significant consequences. And I think you know, when I see it in my classes, uh the young people today um view that as uh ridiculous, that that we have this unlimited right that is uh so uh clearly harmful to the people that that get in the way of of one of these mass shootings. Uh I I think that uh at some point uh somebody uh on the court, somebody in government is going to start to understand that the Second Amendment um need not be a you know a prohibition on any type of meaningful regulation. And I think we're uh you know gonna come to a a better place with that.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:13

I find myself in this very interesting place because I I thought it was fascinating. There's been this kind of universal hands-off approach from a large section of the conservative base up until Minnesota. And then somewhere in Minnesota, it's like, well, that person had a weapon, and therefore any means are justified. Yeah, and that's an interesting switch that also kind of took me by surprise.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:39

Yeah, and I think that's a a really interesting twist because uh and I think that's kind of what you see when you really have a more open debate about this. I mean, part of it, uh part of that whole sort of nuanced view of the the for the Second Amendment uh happened as a result of backlash, of course, to both ICE, but then to pressure on government uh in regards to their response. And uh you had so many government officials uh that came out and said, well, you couldn't possibly have an unlimited right to have a loaded weapon at a protest. Yet that's what uh the NRA and conservatives have been arguing for for many, many years. And so, yeah, it the the law doesn't make sense if uh um it doesn't fit your purpose.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:33

It's a very interesting, and I don't I don't want to go too far because I don't want to distract everybody as far as we it would take we'd have to do this again, which we very likely will. But it's very interesting from the uh the kind of um deification almost or or hero worship of like a written house, Kyle Rittenhouse, right, versus the vilification of an Alex Predi, right? It's a very good distinction of how politics shape the view of the very similar facts. And that's a very scary thing because going back to the cognitive distance we talked about before, is you're not arguing the merits of the law or a right. You're arguing the political agenda of where you are in the current moment. And that's very scary for the mass of the humanity and a society.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:26

Yeah, and and you know, from looking at the Supreme Court, the idea that somebody is going to reach a decision on uh what the Second Amendment means, that's somehow going to be uh, you know, divorced of their own understanding about the way the law should be, um, is silly. You know, the the we're we're I think that that's something, you know, in a lot of my classes, I I feel like I am always holding on to this idea that um that the courts are not just political actors, which of course is uh uh a topic that we we see debated in in lots of different contexts today. And I want to hold on to the idea that the courts uh do something uh that is not simply politics. And um and the court, of course, uh lots of justices are called institutionalists at times. Uh that is the idea that they're institu in in interested in the integrity of the institution. Um and yet it seems very plain to my students that these are political issues, uh, that you know, something like abortion or affirmative action uh is being decided by a court that really just simply does not like people of color or um does not uh believe that women should have control over their own bodies. Uh and while I don't think it's quite that simple, um, it's hard to avoid the uh idea that politics is in there somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:08

I will say, from my perspective, it's very hard when you talk to young people, especially like really thoughtful young people, because they ask you questions you really can't explain or justify at times, right? Because I'm like, yeah, technically, yeah, that is ridiculous. And and I I can't explain to you why it's this way. Or they're like, well, purely this is just political, because they are coming from a place of somewhat innocence, and they're not they're not so invested in the system yet that they just assume it's not going to change or that it that it's a universal right, right? They're like, no, that doesn't make sense with this other thing. And you're like, yeah, it doesn't. Like they ask great questions, and I think it challenges our ideals if you let it.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:52

Yeah, absolutely. And and so I do feel like there's some uh critical nature. I mean, increasingly, uh or at least in the last couple of election cycles, we've seen uh significant uh voter turnout for younger Americans, and uh that is encouraging. Um, you know, I I don't always feel like they're really interested in or participating in my uh class discussions about politics, but um, you know, not not very long ago, a couple weeks ago, I challenged them on that, and they insisted that they think that high voter turnout is gonna continue to be the case, and it's because people care about politics. Um, so I don't necessarily see it in my classroom. Um, but you know, that might go back to technology because for them, a lot of them get their politics from the internet in one way or another. So social media or something. Um, and uh, you know, they also don't really look at me as an expert. They think, you know, I'm just as much of an expert because, you know, I know what I think, and I know what I think about the the Second Amendment or abortion or whatever the case is. And so uh that creates uh an awkward position where I'm I'm just trying to pretend like I'm an expert about things that we all have opinions about.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:15

That's a fascinating point that I had not considered is because they have a litany of experts in their phone that they scroll through all day, that the teacher in many ways, I would imagine that they almost discount some of your knowledge because they have a million other people who will already agree with them. Or if you take a middle space, then you're neither.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:37

That's right. So, I mean, I do have to walk that line a little bit. I mean, you know, there are colleagues and others who believe that academic freedom means that they can express themselves in whatever context they or with it with whatever uh ideas that they think is most appropriate. And um, you know, even in a state like California, Southern California, you know, I need I have to be very careful. I don't, you know, I I have always taken the position that it's really not that hard to figure out what a professor's politics might be. Um, but I don't need to ram it down their throats, you know, and uh I don't talk in a way prohibits the idea that I can be wrong and that others are right. And I think that's really important to recognize that none of us are. I think we need to increasingly uh approach conversations, you know. I unfortunately I feel like we've gotten to a point with politics where family and friends are disowned if they don't agree with you. Uh, and so the way I approach my teaching is in a similar way. I want to be able to have a conversation with them. I want to meet them uh where they're at. And uh so I don't really think of myself as trying to convince them of a certain p political position or anything like that, even something like civil rights or privacy, where I obviously am very uh, you know, have very strong ideas about that. Um, I'm not trying to convince them that my way of understanding it is right. I want them to be better thinkers and be better at understanding the types of tools that might be useful uh to being able to come up with their own opinions about that and inform uh their opinions and who they vote for and what they think is uh the way they should approach uh problems uh as opposed to just adopting what I tell them. You know, I don't want them to reiterate what I say. I want them to be better able at uh to think about it those issues on their own and come up with their own ideas because they start from a very different place. They have very different experiences.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:48

I think that's a very important point that we forget is that everybody comes from a very unique background. And that colors the way you see things. It shapes your prism by which you see the world. There's this very interesting part of this, which is I feel like politics has almost become like sports, is we have picked teams and we're gonna we're gonna root for our team no matter what, right? And we're all in on the team. And it's like, no, just because I like a team doesn't mean I universally like every player. It doesn't mean that I root for every single person the same, and it doesn't mean that I don't ever question. I actually think it should be the opposite, which is I want to keep the part that I agree with as clean as possible and as moral as possible, because that's the goal for me. Is I see us as we're supposed to be teammates who may have different opinions on the same goal of creating a better unified country. And but I think we've abandoned that in a lot of ways and made it very hit or miss or however you want to say, blue or red, like like we've made like the country's largely gray or purple, depending on how you want to look at it.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:53

Yeah, I I totally agree. I mean, I think that we uh really need to recognize that we are all on the same team. That, you know, and I think that's one of the things that we see desperately lacking today. Uh what Robert Putnam called social capital, the idea that we have connections with our community, that we um increasingly don't know our neighbors, uh, we increasingly don't participate in different forms of uh interactions, whether it's uh community groups or uh clubs, you know, so we don't interact with each other, we don't have that same team mentality to use the other term. We don't, we we we lack that community. And and while I think that technology and the internet have promises in terms of connecting people, um, I think that largely the uh consequence is that we interact less with any community, that we don't have those meaningful interactions. And and that's part of what I think is really lacking, and we need to come back to is the idea that we are on the same team, that we uh exist within communities, and that we're all just trying to figure this out.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:07

Yeah, that's been part of my goal in this is to build community, to connect people, to have conversations where we may or may not necessarily agree. Um, and I think that this is a big part of it to me is this concept of we have all this technology that should bring us together. We actually should be able to hear more people in the community and have a bigger community. And what we've really done is isolate ourselves largely for monetary gain. To that end, as we kind of wrap up, let me ask you these questions. If you get to be in charge for a day, Martin, you get one policy for privacy and one policy for civil rights that you get to change that or enact, what would be the the one for each?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:51

Well, I think in terms of privacy, I think um we really need to rethink that relationship. I don't think uh our current model works. And so uh I would really abandon uh some of the uh ways in which we understand privacy, that necessary connection uh between property and privacy. I would uh seek to take it out of that sort of capitalist mode and try and come up with a way of understanding privacy that is more relational and a function of our interactions, our community, um, and the relationships between people. So uh protecting privacy, not not simply prohibiting the use of data, but but figuring out ways that we can create policies that are gonna protect what's important about it and give us uh that autonomy in terms of uh our private information and data. Uh in terms of civil rights, uh I think uh one of the things that is probably most significant, and I and I s I think we see this in In other contexts, which I can mention too. But one of the things that I think that immediately comes to mind that I ran into as a civil rights attorney was the concept of qualified immunity. The idea that government and police officers are immune from prosecution, that they are only going to be held liable when they violate clearly established laws and the courts increasingly narrowly construe what that means. And so essentially, you know, don't allow lawsuits to move forward. Every lawsuit that I filed against police officers in police brutality cases, the first thing that happened is the government would ask for the case to be dismissed on summary judgment based on qualified immunity. And some of the time that's exactly what happened. And the trade-off, I think, is accountability. The police officers, particularly at that point, knew that they weren't accountable, that there was nothing that was going to happen. People would ask me, uh, well, what else can they do? Um, the idea that the police are going to police the police is a is a ridiculous notion. And so without lawsuits and litigation, uh, there really isn't an incentive for police to make sure that they are not violating individuals' rights. Uh, and so I think uh rethinking qualified immunity would be a significant step in the right direction. Yet, as we've seen at the federal level in regards to the president, uh the Supreme Court has interpreted the president to have absolute immunity. Uh, and I think that that too creates a situation in which we lack real accountability. And so, you know, I think governmental immunity serves an important purpose. Uh, I think there are ways of understanding what should be and should not be considered official acts and ways of the courts being able to reason through what things might be part of one's official duties. Um, but I also think that those ideas about immunity should be significantly limited and should allow for accountability when government officials, including police officers, abuse their power and break the law. And I think that the way we currently think about qualified immunity or presidential immunity fail to hold those individuals accountable.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:30

Yeah, I'm I'm I have so many good connections with law enforcement. And I think what people don't realize is how many good law enforcement officers want this to be fixed and cleaned up. Because the reality is no one wants the group that they're in to commit crime and to do negative things. The problem is there's no real form of oversight for one, for the for the good cop to be able to get rid of those who abuse their power. Absolutely. And I agree with that. Yeah. And going back to the president, it defeats the purpose of having a citizen government and having a representative who is from the people, who is a citizen of your country, if suddenly you become immune to all the laws and any responsibility by becoming that role. You don't suddenly stop being a citizen and stop being part of the whole, because then there's no incentive for you to behave properly and there's no incentive for you to take care of the fellow citizens. And I think that's a very strange thing that has been a relatively new decision or vision of what the policy is. And I think that's very scary. And I think it's something we really need to rein in before it gets, if it hasn't already gotten too far out of control.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:42

Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. I agree in regards to police officers, uh, 100%. I think that we all have uh uh an interest in having um good police, uh, good government, good good politicians, good presidents. I think you're absolutely right. I I I don't uh mean to suggest that they shouldn't have some form of immunity, but I think the uh frequency with which uh that immunity is provided really deincentivizes uh what we really expect from those representative bodies. Yeah, 100% agree.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:18

And I have two quick ones on the way out. First one is three words to describe you, Martin.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:25

I guess if I were to try to describe what I hope I might be, I would I would say deliberate, uh present, and playful.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:38

Yeah, I think I think all three of those having known you are great. And I hope that the world kind of saw that in this. And then I'm gonna leave us and our audience on one thing, which is what is the legacy you want your loved ones to take from your life?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:53

That's a that's a really tough one to to think. I can't I can't say that I've spent too much time thinking about uh a legacy. Sometimes I think it's enough to just try and um you know get through each day and and make the appropriate decisions. But I guess uh I might be thought of as as being um honest and and uh in some meaningful way sort of contributing to that community that we've mentioned at different points.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:23

I think you've absolutely done that. If I could tell you, being a professor is inherently community-oriented, whether students don't always grasp that, and sometimes you have to get far enough away. And I think if anybody thinks about some of the teachers they had in their life, sometimes it's the ones that you didn't fully understand or that you felt were challenging you, you realize later they were giving you the greatest gifts. Then, but that's hard to remember when you're in front of the classroom, having worked in classrooms. Um but I really do think that people who meet you have that connection and feel that warmth. And as a friend, um, playfulness definitely always comes through. And I think your family benefits from it. So thanks for coming today.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:02

Thank you.