This is a hugely important issue for not just any specific area but American society in general. One word I don't see come up in Mr. Roeder's otherwise interest

This is a hugely important issue for not just any specific area but American society in general. One word I don't see come up in Mr. Roeder's otherwise interesting article directly is "emergent", as in "emergent effects", but I believe that is at the core of many debates around issues like privacy/surveillance. Certain problems only show up with large enough numbers, ie, they exhibit non-linear scaling effects despite looking linear at small scales, and courts cannot simply draw a straight line and get an accurate reading. Privacy and security are ultimately based on economics, so there are cases where empiricism is unavoidable. To take a single example, the "expectation of privacy in public": historically it's been overall accepted (and seems like "common sense") that an individual fully out in public has minimal expectation of privacy. Anyone randomly going by might see them. And in turn it makes sense that someone (including law enforcement) could review any single point source (like a security camera) without issue. However, as a practical matter there has still historical been a sort of emergent privacy due to resource limits. Nobody can track every single person, and dedicating the resources to surveil any single target/organization imposed natural limitations. Additionally, courts exercised some control via warrants for certain levels of surveillance, including new technology. For example, in Torrey Dale Grady v. North Carolina a few years ago the SCOTUS ruled putting a tracking device on a person or vehicle is a search under the 4th Amendment. But in a world of ubiquitous recording and sufficient storage and computing resources, a lot of point sources can become effectively the same thing as putting trackers on everyone despite each being within existing jurisprudence individually. The nature of "voluntarily" giving up data gets called into question. Combined with other data or alone, where people go, who they meet, and at what times can be used to draw statistical inferences about a tremendous amount of information any reasonable person would believe private. But it's only the number of data points that have changed and the resource feasibility for storing/utilizing that data, not their individual nature. There is no whizbang new tech needed, just "more", "cheaper", and "better math". Are American courts ready for those sorts of questions? What about apportioning responsibility for future externalities whose effects only show up statistically? It'll be a big deal in terms of restraining the new powers major entities are acquiring.