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Full-Text Articles in Science and Technology Law
A Public Technology Option, Hannah Bloch-Wehba
A Public Technology Option, Hannah Bloch-Wehba
Faculty Scholarship
Private technology increasingly underpins public governance. But the state’s growing reliance on private firms to provide a variety of complex technological products and services for public purposes brings significant costs for transparency: new forms of governance are becoming less visible and less amenable to democratic control. Transparency obligations initially designed for public agencies are a poor fit for private vendors that adhere to a very different set of expectations.
Aligning the use of technology in public governance with democratic values calls for rethinking, and in some cases abandoning, the legal structures and doctrinal commitments that insulate private vendors from meaningful …
Transparency's Ai Problem, Hannah Bloch-Wehba
Transparency's Ai Problem, Hannah Bloch-Wehba
Faculty Scholarship
A consensus seems to be emerging that algorithmic governance is too opaque and ought to be made more accountable and transparent. But algorithmic governance underscores the limited capacity of transparency law—the Freedom of Information Act and its state equivalents—to promote accountability. Drawing on the critical literature on “open government,” this Essay shows that algorithmic governance reflects and amplifies systemic weaknesses in the transparency regime, including privatization, secrecy, private sector cooptation, and reactive disclosure. These deficiencies highlight the urgent need to reorient transparency and accountability law toward meaningful public engagement in ongoing oversight. This shift requires rethinking FOIA’s core commitment to …