POL S 405 B: Law and Ethics of Data and Technology
Spring Quarter 2026
Professor Brie McLemore | email: bmclem@uw.edu
Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:30 - 4:20 p.m. | Clark Hall 316
Office Hours: Wednesdays from 12pm to 2pm, by appointment
Office: Gowen Hall 25
The last few decades have been marked by the conspicuous rise of technologies, algorithms, and databases, which have accumulated unprecedented amounts of data tracking all aspects of human life. This occurrence, often referred to as “mass surveillance,” has been facilitated by what is often characterized as a failure on the part of United States governance to impose comprehensive regulations of interconnected and data-driven technologies. Limited court rulings and legislation, as well as the state’s deference to corporate power, have evoked declarations from lawyers, activists, academics, and even politicians that privacy, as we know it, is dead. As government agencies and their corporate partners continue to strengthen and weaponize surveillance infrastructure to target immigrants, political dissidents, and journalists, questions regarding privacy and regulation are pertinent now more than ever.
This research seminar is designed for students who want to develop analytical research skills to interrogate the intersection between law, surveillance, and technology. We will incorporate legal theories and empirical methods in order to analyze the regulatory landscape of mass-surveillance technologies, how it has evolved over time, and the promises and limitations of such attempts. Along the way, we will ask: What is a “regulation” and what constitutes “surveillance”? Who is presumed to be responsible for adopting, conceptualizing, and implementing regulations pertaining to surveillance technologies? Under what circumstances are certain regulations adopted and not others? How (or can) regulations contend with the large breadth of surveillance technologies and the global actors deploying and developing them? What are the intended and unintended consequences of regulatory attempts? And, most critically, what is (or should be) the relation between technology and the law?
While this course will have a particular focus on the regulatory regime of the United States, there will be some engagement with international laws, particularly as they clash with or compliment domestic policies.
This course will be divided into two parts. For the first half of the quarter, we will engage with socio-legal scholarship detailing the current state of court cases and statutes pertaining to surveillance technologies, with particular emphasis on how regulators understand the function and risks of technology, and the role of the law as a mitigating factor. We will also engage with empirical research on the legal mobilization strategies adopted by privacy proponents to push for such regulations. This will entail an historical analysis to contend with how evolutions in both technologies and constitutional rights have shaped the current limitations in safeguarding privacy.
This theoretical framework will facilitate the second half of the course, in which students will work collaboratively to develop a database consisting of regulatory documents, such as judicial decisions, amicus briefs, statutes, ordinances, corporate privacy policies, policy briefs, executive orders, etc. This database will then inform students’ original research projects, which will entail developing research questions, coding and analyzing data, and finding primary sources to identify themes and patterns. This research will culminate in a final paper interrogating the regulatory approaches to a surveillance technology of your choosing. Since questions of technology and surveillance are crucial for all facets of society, students will be expected to demonstrate their ability to translate their research for a broader audience by developing an op-ed, blog post, policy brief, or podcast summarizing their final paper.
Assignments:
- Discussant-Presenter
- Response Papers (2)
- Op-Ed/Blog Post/Podcast
- Final Paper:
- Note: The final paper will use the “scaffolding” method, so students will have smaller assignments due throughout the quarter as follows:
- Identify research question
- Outline research proposal
- Intro paragraph
- Peer review exercise