Free for Forum Members!
Wednesday, May 6, 2026
7:00 - 8:30 P.M. in Los Altos, CA
In-person Attendance Only
Limited seating (35 participants)
If you’re interested but not yet a Liberty Forum member, please visit the Membership page to join!
Q2 2026
Who Is Watching You? Surveillance, Privacy, and the Future of Liberty
Join us for the third meeting of the Liberty Forum Book Club — our quarterly discussion series exploring liberty-focused topics through diverse perspectives and critical thinking.
This quarter, we examine one of the most consequential liberty issues of our time: the rapid erosion of personal privacy through surveillance technology. Facial recognition, government data purchasing, and private contractors with intelligence-grade tools have outpaced the laws designed to constrain them — and the Fourth Amendment may not be enough.
Choose your reading:
Your Face Belongs to Us by Kashmir Hill (2023)
How a secretive startup scraped billions of facial images and sold identification technology to law enforcement and corporations with no legal authorization and virtually no oversight.
Means of Control by Byron Tau (2024)
How federal agencies sidestep the Fourth Amendment by purchasing the personal data they cannot legally compel — location, finances, associations — from commercial data brokers.
Inside look at Palantir Technologies and the accountability questions raised when private companies build tools that give government near-total visibility into individuals' lives.
Sample Discussion Questions:
Is there a meaningful constitutional difference between government surveillance and government purchasing of privately collected data?
When a private company builds the tool but the government pulls the trigger, who bears responsibility?
Does the Ring Camera on your neighbor's front door deserve the same legal treatment as a government camera?
What would a liberty-consistent framework for surveillance regulation actually look like?
Interested in joining the Liberty Forum Book Club?
If you’re interested but not yet a Liberty Forum member, please visit the Membership page to join!