Analyze

At the height of the West African Ebola epidemic, West African governments and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) were barraged with requests from international humanitarian and Western data analytics agencies to provide Call Detail Record data. This data could furnish the large-scale ambitions of data modelling to track and predict contagion. Despite its utility in tracking mobility and, as such, disease, CDR’s use raises many privacy concerns. In addition, embedded within a turn towards datafication, CDR technologies for surveillance embed specific ontologies of the data-focused society they emerge from. There is a false equivalence embedded in the relationship between humans and technology. The predominantly Western idea that one phone equals one person underlines the claim that CDR data accurately tracks distinct user movements, encoding a Western “phone self-subjectivity” (Erikson 2018). However, the refusal by some African actors to hand over sensitive mobile data to international agencies was met with forceful rhetoric of Africa’s moral obligation to comply—to forgo privacy rights in the name of ‘safety.’ The Ebola context reflects an emergent digitization of emergencies in the Global South, which is reshaping the way societies understand and manage emergencies, risk, data, and technology. The big data frenzy has seen a rising demand to test novel methods of epidemic/pandemic surveillance, prediction, and containment in some of the most vulnerable communities. These communities lack the regulatory and infrastructural capacity to mitigate harmful ramifications. With this emergence is a pivot towards 'humanitarian innovation,' where technological advancements and corporate industry collaboration are foregrounded as means to enhance aid delivery. In many ways, these narratives of innovation and scale replicate the language of Silicon Valley’s start-up culture. Surveillance of the poor and disempowered is carried out under the guise and rhetoric of care. In this scenario, market ideals and data technologies (re)construe social good as dependent on the “imposition of certain unfreedoms” as the cost of protection (Magalhaes and Couldry 2021). As big data technologies, they foreground a convergence of market logistics and global networks with existing and already problematic international humanitarian infrastructures (Madianou 2019). These convergences create new power arrangements that further perpetuate an unequal and complex dependency of developing countries on foreign organizations and corporations. Pushback against these data demands showcases competing notions of where risk truly lies. While resistance to data demands was at the state level, community responses to imposed epidemic regulations ranged from non-compliance to riots. These resistances demonstrated how the questions of ‘who and what is a threat?’ or ‘who and what is risky?’ and ‘to whom?’ experience shifting definitions in relation to these technologies as global, national, and community imaginaries are reinforced and reproduced as cultural, political, as well as biological units. 

Source

Akinwumi, Adjua. 2023. "Technological care vs Fugitive care: Exploring Power, Risk, and Resistance in AI and Big Data During the Ebola Epidemic." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science.

(MNOs) were barraged with requests from international humanitarian and Western data analytics agencies to provide Call Detail Record data. This data could furnish the large-scale ambitions of data modelling to track and predict contagion. Despite its utility in tracking mobility and, as such, disease, CDR’s use raises many privacy concerns. In addition, embedded within a turn towards datafication, CDR technologies for surveillance embed specific ontologies of the data-focused society they emerge from. There is a false equivalence embedded in the relationship between humans and technology. The predominantly Western idea that one phone equals one person underlines the claim that CDR data accurately tracks distinct user movements, encoding a Western “phone self-subjectivity” (Erikson 2018). However, the refusal by some African actors to hand over sensitive mobile data to international agencies was met with forceful rhetoric of Africa’s moral obligation to comply—to forgo privacy rights in the name of ‘safety.’ The Ebola context reflects an emergent digitization of emergencies in the Global South, which is reshaping the way societies understand and manage emergencies, risk, data, and technology. The big data frenzy has seen a rising demand to test novel methods of epidemic/pandemic surveillance, prediction, and containment in some of the most vulnerable communities. These communities lack the regulatory and infrastructural capacity to mitigate harmful ramifications. With this emergence is a pivot towards 'humanitarian innovation,' where technological advancements and corporate industry collaboration are foregrounded as means to enhance aid delivery. In many ways, these narratives of innovation and scale replicate the language of Silicon Valley’s start-up culture. Surveillance of the poor and disempowered is carried out under the guise and rhetoric of care. In this scenario, market ideals and data technologies (re)construe social good as dependent on the “imposition of certain unfreedoms” as the cost of protection (Magalhaes and Couldry 2021). As big data technologies, they foreground a convergence of market logistics and global networks with existing and already problematic international humanitarian infrastructures (Madianou 2019). These convergences create new power arrangements that further perpetuate an unequal and complex dependency of developing countries on foreign organizations and corporations. Pushback against these data demands showcases competing notions of where risk truly lies. While resistance to data demands was at the state level, community responses to imposed epidemic regulations ranged from non-compliance to riots. These resistances demonstrated how the questions of ‘who and what is a threat?’ or ‘who and what is risky?’ and ‘to whom?’ experience shifting definitions in relation to these technologies as global, national, and community imaginaries are reinforced and reproduced as cultural, political, as well as biological units. 

Akinwumi, Adjua. 2023. "Technological care vs Fugitive care: Exploring Power, Risk, and Resistance in AI and Big Data During the Ebola Epidemic." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

The article is supported by additional articles that examine the constitutionality of Critical Infrastructure Bill in Louisiana. The article is supported in its claim that the statute can be argued as legislativley motivated as the critical infrastructure bills arose after the Dakota Acess Pipeline protest and the Lousiana revised Bill came after the Bayou Bridge Pipeline protest. The article is additionally supported in analysis of additional critical infrastructure bills from other states, such as Texas, Dakota, etc. 

The methods/Theories used to produce claims of violations of First amendment and Due Process from the Revised statute are taken from Modern First Amendment Doctrines and approaches. The article as well utilizes previous court cases and their decisions to guide the analysis.

In terms of the Due Process Clause violation, the article states that any statue is in violation of the Due Process Clause if the statute is so standardless that is encourages or authorizes discriminatory enforcement. 

In terms of the First Amendment, the article estabilishes first how the United States Supreme Court analyzes cases that contest the First Amendment. Their are three theories introduced that support the first amendment, if a law is found to be prohibiting these theories, a case can be made that it violates the First Amendment. These theories include: "self-realization", "marketplace of ideas", and "democratic value". To determine wether the regulation effects a speaker or the marketplace two models are used: "speaker based" and "audience based". These are used to determine wether the statute will effect the public discourse or the individual. In the end, the article argues how each of these three theories are violated and therefore the statute is in violation of the First Amendment. 

The article as well looks at how the Supreme Court uses a "tiered-scrutiny" approach when analyzing the constitutionality of statutes. This allows the court to apply a different standard based on if the statute is content neutral or content based. Any content based statue is unconstitutional as it prohbits a certain type of speech. When a statute is content neutral, the court must provided evidence that the statute was content motivated. 

"The modifications to Louisiana Revised Statutes section 14:61 seem to be a direct response to the Bayou Pipeline protests for four reasons. First, this is evidenced by the addition of pipelines to the definition of "critical infrastructure" protected by the statute, as well as the creation of heightened penalties aimed at deterring those speaking out against the further construction of pipelines within the state. Second, the arrest of protestors were made within weeks of the modification of the statute, supporting the contention that the legislature made these changes to silence protestors. Third, a sponsor could [...] potentially have a personal motive [...] as energy and natural resource companies are his or her leading campaign donor [...]. Finally, the national trend of statutes protecting critical infrastructure which arose after the Dakota Access pipeline protests seems to suggest that the fear of opposition toward pipeline construction is what led the Louisiana Legislature to amend section 14:61" (Pg. 18). 

This quote describes the arguments that can be made in regards to proving motivation behind the legislative revisions. Despite the statute is content neutral, the motivations behind the statute prove that the statute be upgraded to strict scrutiny. 

"By suppressing the speech of those opposing pipeline construction within the state, the government restricts the ability of citizens to articulate their desires, inherently excluding them from the political process of making changes within their community and perpetuating their plight." 

"Though some regulations of conduct are permissible, it is impermissible for the legislature to suppress the expressive conduct of those opposing the Bayou Bridge pipeline construction, as this suppression results in a governmental distortion of public debate and offends the democratic system."

These quotes demonstrate how the statute can be held in violation of the first amendment. 

The main argument presented in the article states that the Louisiana Revised Statute section 14:61 of the Louisiana Critical Infrastructure Bill should be revoked as it is impermissibly in violation with the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Constitution. The article notes the timing and vagueness of the additions to the infrastrutcure bill to be discriminatorily motivated towards silencing a certain type of speech. The Revised Infrastructure Bill included the addition of "pipelines", both in construction and operating as apart of the definition of "critical infrastructure". The revised bill estabilished a strict penalty of jail for no more than 20 years or fine of no more than $25,000. The revision followed the Bayou Bridge Pipeline construction protests. The article argues for the regulation to be held under strict scrutiny under the law as, though it is content-neutral, the legislative motive appears to be content-based. An analysis is appropriate to conduct despite being content neutral. As well, the article argues that the new regulation silences speech, in violation with the first amendment. Noted in the article, First amendment arguments fall into three theories or categorizes: "self-realization" theory, "marketplace of ideas" theory, and "democracy" theory. The article argues that all three theories that enable the preservation of the first amendment are violated through the revised bill sections. The statute distorts the marketplace of ideas as it enforces such a harsh punishment, is standardless, and vague that it has the effect of creating self-censorship. Without access to dissenting ideas in opposition to the pipelines, this deprives the public from the marketplace of ideas but also denies them from self realization in creating their own opinions from the opposining ideas around them. Finally, the statue is argued to deny democracy in that it restricts the publics ability to share their desires for their communties, excluding them from the political process, denying them a democratic process to voice an opinion. The article goes on to propose ways in which the courts can fix their practices in reviewals of Due Process and First Amendment legal cases.