Google’s leaders leveraged First Amendment claims as legal shelter for surveillance inventions

Evidence

The neoliberal zeitgeist also favored Google’s leaders, and later their fellow travelers in the surveillance project, as they sought shelter for their inventions beneath claims of First Amendment rights to freedom of expression. This is a complex and contested arena in which constitutional law and political ideology are thoroughly entangled, and I point out just a few elements here in order to better understand the habitat that nurtured the new surveillance market form. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 349

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: US courts interpret the First Amendment to protect data gathering as corporate free speech. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 550; Google legally framed public spaces as unauthorized surveillance territory — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 444; Google’s patents explicitly aimed to circumvent users’ decision rights over their data — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 249 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Privacy matters beyond secrecy because surveillance of legal acts chills free expression #complicates (0.85) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 619