Doctoral Dissertation Research: Digital Technologies, Legal Evidence, and Counterterrorism

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).

Digital technologies have become an essential asset in counterterrorism as they facilitate surveillance practices such as profiling, biometrics, or real-time monitoring. However, few empirical sociolegal studies have examined how digital technologies and experts materialize suspicion and produce digital evidence of terrorism. This doctoral dissertation project investigates how digital data is interpreted and mobilize as evidence of terrorism across different fields of expertise.

In addition to providing funding for the training of a graduate student, the project widely disseminates its data and findings through presentations, publications, lectures, and public meetings, thereby improving the public's understanding of science and the scientific method as is pertains to sociolegal and evidentiary analysis.

This doctoral dissertation research investigates whether the utilization of digital evidence through expert practices changes the way terrorism and counterterrorism are understood. This project asks three central questions: What constitutes digital evidence of terrorism? How digital entities materialize suspicion of terrorism?

What happens to counterterrorism practices when interacting with new forms of evidence through digital technology? The researcher explores these questions through an ethnographic investigation of courts, terrorism researchers, digital forensics forums, firms, and discussions. The researcher also conducts archival research based on news articles, social media posts, and legal documents.

Using a range of ethnographic techniques of data collection and analysis (including interviews, participant observation, and archival analysis), the researcher tracks what considerations turn digital data into evidence. The resulting research products contribute to scientific debates about terrorism, suspicion, digital data, evidence-making, and expertise.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.