Read the full transcript of career public defender Eliza Orlins’ talk titled “Universal Surveillance Is Here—How Do We Fight Back?” at TEDxHCCS Youth, August 2, 2025.
Listen to the audio version here:
The New Reality of Digital Surveillance
ELIZA ORLINS: Have you ever sent a direct message on Facebook or Instagram? What about uploaded a photo with friends or family members? Have you ever checked your local weather on your weather app before heading out? What if I told you that those seemingly innocent acts could one day be used against you and not by hackers, but legally by your own government?
I’m Eliza Orlins, career public defender for 15 years in Manhattan. Today I’m here to talk about digital privacy and the erosion of our fourth amendment rights. Because what you don’t know can and will be used against you.
A few years ago, a fellow public defender argued that the location data that was being used to place her client near a crime scene should be suppressed because no warrant had been issued. The prosecution’s response, “Your honor, we didn’t need a warrant because we didn’t seize anything. We bought it.”
How Law Enforcement Has Changed
When I started my career, searches were physical. Officers came to your door or stopped your car or patted you down on the street. And the rules were clear without a warrant or probable cause or certain exceptions, evidence was suppressible. Now just to be clear, what probable cause means, it means evidence that’s legally sufficient that a reasonable person would believe that a crime has been or is being committed.
But that world is gone. By 2013, my colleagues and I were litigating purchased phone records. By 2017, it was social media data. And by 2020, we were litigating cases where police had purchased access to facial recognition databases, matching our clients to surveillance footage without ever obtaining a warrant. What had changed wasn’t the Fourth Amendment, but how law enforcement bypassed it.
Understanding the Fourth Amendment
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution says, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized.”
The Fourth Amendment is what protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures and requires warrants based on probable cause. But what happens when that search occurs digitally, invisibly?
Your Digital Life Is No Longer Private
Well, let’s start by talking about social media. Everything you’ve ever uploaded, every like, every comment, even disappearing stories and your private messages legally no longer belongs to you. And what about AI chatbots or ChatGPT? Every conversation you have is being recorded and could one day be used against you in a court of law. Your late night curiosities or hypothetical scenarios, well, they could be misunderstood and misrepresented against you.
But it’s not just social media because apps like Venmo make your financial transactions public by default. Imagine you pay someone and are linked to them on Venmo and they go on to commit a crime and you are somehow implicated in a conspiracy without your knowledge and intent just because of a connection on Venmo.
Then there’s your biometric data, your face, your fingerprints and your DNA, which are increasingly vulnerable. Sites like 23andMe promise insight into your genetic heritage and yet that data is now being sold to the highest bidder and sometimes to law enforcement.
Location Data and Its Dangerous Uses
Fitness trackers or apps like Strava, which track your bike rides or your runs, are also tracking your location data and so is the weather app. Just by checking your local weather, you could be placing yourself at a protest, at the scene of a crime. This data is even being used to place people at abortion clinics in states where that is increasingly dangerous. Your location data is being used against you.
A colleague of mine had a case where she moved for suppression because the evidence that was being used against her client was purchased from a data broker and the judge said even though this data is being used without a warrant, this evidence is legally admissible because your client voluntarily gave this data over.
The Third Party Doctrine Problem
Now that is because of something called the third party doctrine. This doctrine is established by courts, which says that if you give away data, your information to a third party, then that information can be used against you. You’re giving up your constitutional protection over it. However, even though that made sense in the days of phone numbers dialed or bank records, it makes much less sense in a day like today where virtually everything we do is being tracked by a third party.
My clients, as a public defender, can’t afford to opt out of digital life. They use their smartphones for work. They can’t afford to pay for apps, so they use the free apps because they’re free. And what are you giving away then? You’re giving away your data.
When Data Creates False Connections
Another case that a colleague of mine had where a client was implicated in a conspiracy because five times in one week his phone and someone else’s phone were in the same location. This data looked as though they were co-conspirators, accomplices. This looked like association. However, the reality was quite different. The reality was that they happened to live within a four block radius. They happened to frequent the same coffee shop, and they happened to be standing at the same busy intersection waiting for a light to change all within one week.
But to prosecutors, this data looked like causation and correlation, and it looked like evidence against our client. However, this data was purchased and therefore was not suppressible. So innocent explanations are gone when you’re just looking at algorithmic data.
The Abortion Data Surveillance Crisis
Another very troubling recent development is there are states where abortion is no longer legal.