Thinking Freely with Nita Farahany

The Government Can Take Your Blood. Can It Take Your Thoughts?

Meta’s $799 wristband, released last fall, reads electrical signals in the wrist to infer a user’s intended gesture before the hand moves, turning thought into device input. The technology revives a longstanding Fifth Amendment debate about where the body ends and the mind begins for government‑compelled evidence. Recent circuit filings illustrate a split over whether biometric authentication and AI conversation logs constitute testimonial evidence subject to the privilege against self‑incrimination. The class lecture traces the doctrinal evolution from Schmerber’s physical‑evidence rule to the act‑of‑production and foregone‑conclusion doctrines that now confront AI‑driven data.