A man was convicted by his own heartbeat — and that's just the beginning of our digital dystopia.
About the Guest
Andrew Guthrie Ferguson is Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School and a national expert on surveillance technologies, policing, and criminal justice. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute and the author of the PROSE Award–winning The Rise of Big Data Policing. His new book, Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing in the Age of Self-Surveillance (NYU Press, March 2026), examines how smart devices and digital surveillance are transforming criminal prosecution — and what the law must do to catch up.
About This Episode
Following yesterday’s conversation with Christopher Mathias about doxxing and the ethics of unmasking, Andrew Keen turns to the legal side of the same question: what happens when the data we generate about ourselves becomes evidence? Andrew Guthrie Ferguson joins the show from Washington, D.C. to discuss his new book — a deeply researched investigation into how pacemakers, smartphones, smart cars, and doorbell cameras are being used to convict people in court, and why the law has almost nothing to say about it.
The conversation moves from a man convicted by his own heartbeat to AI-powered real-time crime centres, from Eric Schmidt’s infamous privacy defence to masked ICE agents in Minneapolis, and from Bentham’s panopticon to Ferguson’s proposed “tyrant test” — a framework for designing data protections by imagining the worst leader with access to your most intimate information.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction: Digital privacy and unmasking
01:25 Meet Andrew Guthrie Ferguson
02:10 The Dual-Edged Sword of Digital Devices
03:40 From “Don’t Be Ashamed” to Privacy Nuance
04:45 Regulating Government, Not Google
05:55 The Pacemaker Data Court Case
07:30 Convicted by His Own Heartbeat
09:40 Google’s Three-Part Warrant System
11:15 The Fourth Amendment Digital Gap
12:45 Digital Privileges and Intimate Data
14:20 Surveillance Battles on the Ground
16:05 “Just Doing Our Job” and State Surveillance
18:10 The Texas Drone Fleet
20:45 Real-Time Crime Centers and Mass Cameras
22:50 The Tyrant Test for Privacy Laws
25:15 AI Supercharges Surveillance
27:30 AI-Assisted Police Reports
29:10 No Turning Back From Technology
31:15 Closing: Every Smart Device Is Surveillance
Links & References
Mentioned in this episode:
Your Data Will Be Used Against You — NYU Press - https://nyupress.org/9781479838295/your-data-will-be-used-against-you/
Andrew Guthrie Ferguson — GW Law School faculty page - https://nyupress.org/9781479838295/your-data-will-be-used-against-you/
Perplexity for Public Safety — free AI tool for law enforcement - https://nyupress.org/9781479838295/your-data-will-be-used-against-you/
Previous episode: Christopher Mathias on To Catch a Fascist (Episode 2793) - https://nyupress.org/9781479838295/your-data-will-be-used-against-you/
Carpenter v. United States (2018) — Supreme Court ruling on cell-site location data and the Fourth Amendment - https://nyupress.org/9781479838295/your-data-will-be-used-against-you/
About Keen On America
Keen On America is a daily podcast hosted by Andrew Keen, the Anglo-American writer and Silicon Valley insider named by GQ magazine as one of the world’s “100 Most Connected Men.” Every day, Andrew brings his sharp Transatlantic wit to the forces reshaping the United States — interviewing leading thinkers and writers about American history, politics, technology, culture, and business. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show’s founding on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.
Website: https://www.keenon.tv/
Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/
YouTube: youtube.com/@KeenOnShow