Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology
Abstract
This Article argues that AI-driven microtargeting, enabled by large-scale data brokerage and increasingly acquired by government actors, creates a dual constitutional problem. First, it undermines Fourth Amendment protections through what has become known as the ‘data broker loophole.’ Second, it amplifies inequality and civic distortion by segmenting political information flows in ways that evade traditional constitutional checks and statutory privacy regimes. Building on Carpenter v. United States, Riley v. California, and United States v. Jones, this Article proposes a doctrinal framework that treats government acquisition of granular behavioral datasets and model outputs as ‘searches,’ even when intermediated by private actors, and that recognizes democratic harms as relevant to the reasonableness inquiry.
Volume
27
Issue
2
Page
287
Year
2026
Recommended Citation
Susan Tanner,
From Data to Decisions: Why AI Inferences Should Count as ‘Effects’ Under the Fourth Amendment,
27
Minn. J.L. Sci. & Tech.
287
(2026).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mjlst/vol27/iss2/2
Rights
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
Publication Abbreviation
Minn. J. L. Sci. & Tech.
