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Modernize due process for automated government decisions, compelled device access, forfeiture, and takings without pretending personal data is already constitutional property.
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AI-researched, unverifiedLast Reviewed
Jul 12, 2026
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12
What is failing, what we would change, and the conclusion we are willing to defend.
The Fifth Amendment already supplies the principles: no compelled self-incrimination, no deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process, and no taking of private property for public use without just compensation. The modern problem is not absence of text. It is that government now acts through automated systems, digital accounts, seized devices, forfeiture revenue, permit conditions, and tax-sale procedures the old statutes did not anticipate.
The party's position is statutory modernization, not a new constitutional amendment. People should receive notice, explanation, human review, and appeal before high-impact automated government decisions deprive them of benefits, licenses, housing, immigration status, property, or liberty. Courts and legislatures should treat compelled passwords and biometric device unlocks as unsettled and rights-sensitive, then create a clear statutory rule against forcing people to help open their own digital lives. Forfeiture and takings law should return surplus value, require prompt process, and remove revenue incentives.
Require due-process safeguards for high-impact automated government decisions: notice, reasons, contestable records, human review, audit logs, appeal rights, and public reporting.
Bar compelled passwords, passphrases, and biometric device unlocks unless the government uses immunity or another procedure that protects the privilege against self-incrimination. The Supreme Court has not resolved this; statutes should not wait for a split to harden.
Reform civil forfeiture by requiring a prompt preliminary retention hearing by statute, a clear nexus to alleged wrongdoing, stronger innocent-owner protections, counsel access where property is essential, and limits on agency retention of forfeiture proceeds.
Go beyond the constitutional floor by statute: require an independent appraisal or a minimum-bid threshold before a tax-sale auction, then return everything above what is owed. A depressed auction price should not let government, or a buyer connected to it, capture the gap as a hidden windfall.
Apply takings scrutiny to legislatively imposed permit conditions and digital-era exactions. A fee or condition should have a real connection to the public burden it claims to address.
Create statutory data rights and damages for misuse without making the overbroad claim that personal data is already a Fifth Amendment property interest in every context.
This issue sits beside CONST-04. The Fourth Amendment issue asks when government can search or seize data. This issue asks what process and compulsion limits apply when government uses digital systems to deprive, extract, retain, or force access.
Turn frustration into useful pressure.
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