Category
Theoretical Proposal
Description
Artificial intelligence (AI), commercial data brokerage, and administrative data fusion have advanced more rapidly than constitutional doctrine and public policy have adapted. This presentation argues that certain forms of identity-linked data, including biometric, genetic, geolocation, behavioral, and health information, should not be treated as constitutionally available to the state simply because they are commercially available in the market. Such data disclose intimate features of embodied life, relational identity, and personal vulnerability, placing personhood itself within the reach of procurement and administrative power.
The analysis begins with three contemporary developments: the Pentagon’s coercive pressure on Anthropic after the company refused unrestricted military use of its systems, Palantir’s integration of commercially acquired and government-sourced data into operational enforcement platforms, and Oracle’s large-scale identity-graph infrastructure. Together, these cases reveal a recurring pipeline in which private actors aggregate intimate information, government accesses or compels those data through procurement leverage, and administrative systems convert those data into tools of surveillance, classification, and enforcement.
In response, the article develops a covenantal non-alienability doctrine grounded in original public meaning (OPM) and illuminated by Christian anthropology. It argues that the Fourth Amendment constrains governmental acquisition of aggregated and inferential personal data, while the Fourteenth Amendment constrains data-driven systems that impose unequal burdens of scrutiny, suspicion, or intervention. The article then proposes the Identity Personhood Protection Act (IPPA) as a statutory framework for treating identity-linked data as a protected incident of personhood rather than a frictionless input for administrative power.
From Procurement to Personhood: AI Governance, Constitutional Order, & the Human Person
Theoretical Proposal
Artificial intelligence (AI), commercial data brokerage, and administrative data fusion have advanced more rapidly than constitutional doctrine and public policy have adapted. This presentation argues that certain forms of identity-linked data, including biometric, genetic, geolocation, behavioral, and health information, should not be treated as constitutionally available to the state simply because they are commercially available in the market. Such data disclose intimate features of embodied life, relational identity, and personal vulnerability, placing personhood itself within the reach of procurement and administrative power.
The analysis begins with three contemporary developments: the Pentagon’s coercive pressure on Anthropic after the company refused unrestricted military use of its systems, Palantir’s integration of commercially acquired and government-sourced data into operational enforcement platforms, and Oracle’s large-scale identity-graph infrastructure. Together, these cases reveal a recurring pipeline in which private actors aggregate intimate information, government accesses or compels those data through procurement leverage, and administrative systems convert those data into tools of surveillance, classification, and enforcement.
In response, the article develops a covenantal non-alienability doctrine grounded in original public meaning (OPM) and illuminated by Christian anthropology. It argues that the Fourth Amendment constrains governmental acquisition of aggregated and inferential personal data, while the Fourteenth Amendment constrains data-driven systems that impose unequal burdens of scrutiny, suspicion, or intervention. The article then proposes the Identity Personhood Protection Act (IPPA) as a statutory framework for treating identity-linked data as a protected incident of personhood rather than a frictionless input for administrative power.
