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Nathan Fried-Wessler

Deputy director of ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project; privacy and surveillance litigation attorney who argued Carpenter v. United States before the U.S. Supreme Court

Aug 15, 2026

14:26
So could you just summarize those for us shortly?
14:30
Yeah, you know, we often say that this is technology that's dangerous when it doesn't work and dangerous when it does.
14:36
What I mean by that is that this is an algorithmic technology, basically a variant of AI, that's making a best guess about whether an input image might be a match to images in a database.
14:48
But it often gets it wrong.
14:50
And when it gets it wrong, we've seen it turn people's lives inside out over and over.
14:55
We now know of at least 15 publicly known cases of wrongful arrest in states across the country after police relied on incorrect results from this technology.
15:03
This technology also has been shown in audit testing over and over to get it wrong more often with darker-skinned people, so people of color and Black people, which can accentuate biases in policing.
18:21
Number two is, what about finding a balance between law enforcement and the goals of keeping the public safe and protecting society? Can we find that balance?
30:32
If you could talk about what this ruling means and explain what a habeas petition is.
30:39
Yeah, a habeas petition is one of the oldest forms of legal process we have.
30:42
It dates from the 1200s in England as a way to... to give judges the power to release people from unjust or unconstitutional or illegal detention.
30:52
Immediately after Mosen was seized by immigration agents last year, his legal team filed a writ of habeas corpus in federal court.
30:59
And within just a couple weeks, a federal judge looked at the case and ordered him released, saying that there was strong reason to believe that this detention was in violation of his First Amendment rights.
31:10
That's critical, because otherwise what the government wants... is to be able to hold people, non-citizens, in immigration detention facilities for months or years while the very slow immigration court process plays out.
31:24
To silence people by putting them behind bars just because the Secretary of State or some other high-level official doesn't like what they say.

9 MINS LATER

40:15
Your thoughts on this?
30:32
If you could talk about what this ruling means and explain what a habeas petition is.
30:39
Yeah, a habeas petition is one of the oldest forms of legal process we have.
30:42
It dates from the 1200s in England as a way to... to give judges the power to release people from unjust or unconstitutional or illegal detention.
30:52
Immediately after Mosen was seized by immigration agents last year, his legal team filed a writ of habeas corpus in federal court.
30:59
And within just a couple weeks, a federal judge looked at the case and ordered him released, saying that there was strong reason to believe that this detention was in violation of his First Amendment rights.
31:10
That's critical, because otherwise what the government wants... is to be able to hold people, non-citizens, in immigration detention facilities for months or years while the very slow immigration court process plays out.
31:24
To silence people by putting them behind bars just because the Secretary of State or some other high-level official doesn't like what they say.

9 MINS LATER

40:15
Your thoughts on this?

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