How technology will test the Constitution

As technology advances, governments and citizens will face constitutional and legal questions that could barely have been imagined before, legal scholars at the Brookings Institution said.

Could Google or Facebook, in 2030, for instance, live stream feeds from security cameras dotting the globe? Or would that violate U.S. citizens' Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches? asked Jeffrey Rosen, a George Washington University law professor and co-editor of Brookings' "Constitution 3.0" study, which formed the basis of the panel discussion.

What if Congress wanted to block a gay couple from splicing DNA to create a fertilized egg that includes both their genetic material? Rosen asked. Would that egg be protected by the same presumptive right to privacy that the U.S. Supreme Court said upheld a woman's right to an abortion in Roe v. Wade?

What if police began carrying handheld functional magnetic resonance imaging machines that use brain wave patterns to indicate whether a person has seen a particular place before? Rosen asked. Could police detain an American citizen based on machine evidence that he had seen a particular terrorist training camp in Afghanistan before? Or would that violate his Fourth Amendment protections from unreasonable searches and his Fifth Amendment right against incriminating himself?