Hashtags, handcuffs, and hush money: inequitable application of the Fourth Amendment in electronic surveillance

Authors

Karina Devi Etminani

Abstract

A wealthy executive buries misconduct behind corporate nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) and encrypted devices. Nearby, police wield geofence warrants to sweep the digital footprints of peaceful protesters demanding racial justice. Both scenarios hinge on the same Fourth Amendment but reveal a coin with two faces. For powerful abusers, privacy protections can conceal assault, intimidation, and corruption. For Black activists, rapidly emerging surveillance tools—including biometric scanners, phone “pings,” and social media mining—intensify a long legacy of racially targeted policing. As Jeannie Suk Gersen notes, two recent social movements– #MeToo and Black Lives Matter–reveal that “too much deference to privacy serves male entitlement, on the one hand, and insufficient deference to privacy serves white supremacy, on the other.” Juxtaposing these realities, #MeToo reveals how constitutional protections can shield the privileged from accountability, while Black Lives Matter (BLM) reveals how those same doctrines can enable hyper-surveillance of Black communities. The digital era brings the troubling split into crisp focus: encryption and legal secrecy for those with privilege versus wholesale data sweeps for those without. This Note argues that acknowledging the disproportionate and often intersectional impacts of race, gender, and economics on Fourth Amendment applications is essential for transforming lofty constitutional promises into genuine safeguards against technologically amplified oppression.

Recommended Citation

Karina Devi Etminani, Hashtags, handcuffs, and hush money: inequitable application of the Fourth Amendment in electronic surveillance, 22 Hastings Race & Poverty L.J. 281 (2025).
Available at: https://repository.uclawsf.edu/hastings_race_poverty_law_journal/vol22/iss2/4