Three worker unions sued the Government of Donald Trump for the “ideological surveillance” of the social networks of immigrants with visas in the United States using artificial intelligence (AI) in order to “punish” opinions contrary to their policies.
The United Automobile Workers (UAW), Communications Workers of America (CWA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) unions filed the lawsuit yesterday against the Departments of State and Homeland Security, according to local media.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which represents the unions in the lawsuit, the first of its kind, argued in a statement that the “online opinion-based surveillance program violates the First Amendment (freedom of speech) and the Administrative Procedure Act.”
“Using AI and other automation technologies, the program monitors the social media accounts of people with visas to identify and punish those who express opinions that the Government does not like,” a measure that is accompanied by a “public campaign of intimidation,” they maintain.
The plaintiffs asked a New York judge for an order stopping that government surveillance program because “it has silenced and frightened citizens and non-citizens (of the United States), and undermined the ability of unions to associate with their members and potential members.”
80% of UAW members who are immigrants with a visa and aware of the surveillance program said in a survey that they have changed their activity on social networks, and in the case of the CWA it was 40%, the note indicates.
An EFF lawyer, Lisa Femia, added that AI tools allow the Government to analyze data “on a scale that was never possible with human review alone”, and warned that “the scale of this spying is matched by an equally chilling and massive effect on freedom of expression”.
