Technology and liberty: Enriching the conversation

Abstract

Technological advance has long held a privileged position in the United States under a series of regimes of crisis (e.g. World War II, the Cold War, the “crisis” of global competitiveness). Framed in terms of putative (mostly market surrogate) majorities, with “cost effective” advances commonly restrained only when they would pose an undue risk to life or limb, new developments in technology have, as a result, been little examined for their impacts on the rights and freedoms intended to be guaranteed under our Constitutional tradition. This paper outlines several ways in which the advance of technology could be seen to infringe upon traditional rights and liberties. Specific arguments are constructed from human dignity as a basis for human rights, from Constitutional freedoms of religion and of expression, and from Ninth Amendment guarantees of liberty. Presented in a brief and preliminary form without detailed attention to all of their possible implications, these arguments may, in isolation, be unconvincing for many readers. Collectively, however, they are indicative of possible intrusions by the advance of science and technology into protected areas of individual rights. As such, they suggest a need to move beyond majoritarian standards to a much richer political conversation, balancing the property and other rights of inventors and developers of new science and technology against the sometimes conflicting rights of other citizens.