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Full-Text Articles in Law

Ending Exemption 5 Expansion: Toward A Narrower Interpretation Of Foia’S Exemption For Inter- And Intra-Agency Memorandums, Ryan W. Miller Mar 2024

Ending Exemption 5 Expansion: Toward A Narrower Interpretation Of Foia’S Exemption For Inter- And Intra-Agency Memorandums, Ryan W. Miller

Fordham Law Review

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) creates a judicially enforceable right to access almost any record that a federal agency creates or obtains. Its crafters aimed to strike a careful balance in promoting disclosure of government records to increase transparency while still protecting the confidentiality of certain information. Although any person can request an agency record, FOIA’s nine exemptions allow agencies to withhold records if certain conditions are met. 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(5) permits agencies to withhold “inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters” that would normally be privileged in civil discovery. Through this exemption, Congress sought to prevent FOIA from …


How To Regulate Online Platforms: Why Common Carrier Doctrine Is Inappropriate To Regulate Social Networks And Alternate Approaches To Protect Rights, Edward W. Mclaughlin May 2022

How To Regulate Online Platforms: Why Common Carrier Doctrine Is Inappropriate To Regulate Social Networks And Alternate Approaches To Protect Rights, Edward W. Mclaughlin

Fordham Law Review Online

Concerns about the “concentrated control of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties” and their ability to suppress some user speech have led to calls to regulate online platforms like common carriers or public accommodations. Advocates of that regulation theorize that social media platforms host today’s public forum and are open to all comers and so should have a responsibility to be content neutral and allow all voices to be heard. Traditionally, the argument that private players, as opposed to only government actors, can violate individuals’ free speech rights was a progressive cause, but recently conservative …


Media Consolidation & Political Polarization: Reviewing The National Television Ownership Rule, Mary R. Hornak Nov 2021

Media Consolidation & Political Polarization: Reviewing The National Television Ownership Rule, Mary R. Hornak

Fordham Law Review

Local television plays an important role in the democratic society. The medium is viewed as being trustworthy, and it is accessible and uniquely situated to report on matters of local interest. Among other roles, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates firms’ ownership interests in the media through regulations that permit a certain degree of consolidation at both the local and national levels. Since 1996, Congress has mandated that the FCC regularly review broadcast media ownership regulations. Originally, this requirement mandated biennial review. In 2004, however, Congress revised the mandate, requiring review on a quadrennial basis and excluding from such review …


Cacophony Or Concerto?: Analyzing The Applicability Of The Wiretap Act’S Party Exception For Duplicate Get Requests, David Koenig Nov 2021

Cacophony Or Concerto?: Analyzing The Applicability Of The Wiretap Act’S Party Exception For Duplicate Get Requests, David Koenig

Fordham Law Review

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“Wiretap Act”) prohibits the intentional interception of an electronic communication. However, “parties to a communication” can intercept a communication without Wiretap Act liability. Parties include the intended recipients of a communication. When internet users navigate the internet, they communicate with websites using GET requests. The users’ GET requests call out to websites and websites respond by providing the websites’ content to the users. During this process, websites receive user data. This data can include information about the website visited, the search terms used to locate the website, and referral data identifying the last web page …


Free Speech In The Modern Age, Fordhamiplj@Gmail.Com Jan 2021

Free Speech In The Modern Age, Fordhamiplj@Gmail.Com

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Entertaining Satan: Why We Tolerate Terrorist Incitement, Andrew Koppelman Nov 2017

Entertaining Satan: Why We Tolerate Terrorist Incitement, Andrew Koppelman

Fordham Law Review

Words are dangerous. That is why governments sometimes want to suppress speech. The law of free speech reflects a settled decision that, at the time that law was adopted, the dangers were worth tolerating. But people keep dreaming up nasty new things to do with speech. Recently, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other terrorist organizations have employed a small army of Iagos on the internet to recruit new instruments of destruction. Some of what they have posted is protected speech under present First Amendment law. In response, scholars have suggested that there should be some new …


Wild Westworld: Section 230 Of The Cda And Social Networks’ Use Of Machine-Learning Algorithms, Catherine Tremble Nov 2017

Wild Westworld: Section 230 Of The Cda And Social Networks’ Use Of Machine-Learning Algorithms, Catherine Tremble

Fordham Law Review

This Note argues that Facebook’s services—specifically the personalization of content through machine-learning algorithms—constitute the “development” of content and as such do not qualify for § 230 immunity. This Note analyzes the evolution of § 230 jurisprudence to help inform the development of a revised framework. This framework is guided by congressional and public policy goals and creates brighter lines for technological immunity. It tailors immunity to account for user data mined by ISPs and the pervasive effect that the use of that data has on users—two issues that courts have yet to confront. This Note concludes that under the revised …


Terrorist Incitement On The Internet, Alexander Tsesis Nov 2017

Terrorist Incitement On The Internet, Alexander Tsesis

Fordham Law Review

I organized this symposium to advance understanding of how terrorist communications drive and influence social, political, religious, civil, literary, and artistic conduct. Viewing terrorist speech through wide prisms of law, culture, and contemporary media can provide lawmakers, adjudicators, and administrators a better understanding of how to contain and prevent the exploitation of modern communication technologies to influence, recruit, and exploit others to perpetrate ideologically driven acts of violence. Undertaking such a multipronged study requires not only looking at the personal and sociological appeals that extreme ideology exerts but also considering how to create political, administrative, educational, and economic conditions to …


The Internet As Marketplace Of Madness— And A Terrorist’S Best Friend, Thane Rosenbaum Nov 2017

The Internet As Marketplace Of Madness— And A Terrorist’S Best Friend, Thane Rosenbaum

Fordham Law Review

The panel I was assigned to, for this distinguished gathering of scholars at Fordham Law School, where I had previously been a professor for twentythree years, was given the name, “Caution Against Overreaching.” Overreaching and the caution it occasions, in this case, refer to the First Amendment, a uniquely American absolutist, legalistic obsession. For many who fixate on such matters, the government must never be allowed to trample upon the unfettered free speech rights guaranteed under America’s first, and most favorite, Amendment.


Social Media Accountability For Terrorist Propaganda, Alexander Tsesis Nov 2017

Social Media Accountability For Terrorist Propaganda, Alexander Tsesis

Fordham Law Review

Terrorist organizations have found social media websites to be invaluable for disseminating ideology, recruiting terrorists, and planning operations. National and international leaders have repeatedly pointed out the dangers terrorists pose to ordinary people and state institutions. In the United States, the federal Communications Decency Act’s § 230 provides social networking websites with immunity against civil law suits. Litigants have therefore been unsuccessful in obtaining redress against internet companies who host or disseminate third-party terrorist content. This Article demonstrates that § 230 does not bar private parties from recovery if they can prove that a social media company had received complaints …


Terrorizing Advocacy And The First Amendment: Free Expression And The Fallacy Of Mutual Exclusivity, Martin H. Redish, Matthew Fisher Nov 2017

Terrorizing Advocacy And The First Amendment: Free Expression And The Fallacy Of Mutual Exclusivity, Martin H. Redish, Matthew Fisher

Fordham Law Review

Traditional free speech doctrine is inadequate to account for modern terrorist speech. Unprotected threats and substantially protected lawful advocacy are not mutually exclusive. This Article proposes recognizing a new hybrid category of speech called “terrorizing advocacy.” This is a type of traditionally protected public advocacy of unlawful conduct that simultaneously exhibits the unprotected pathologies of a true threat. This Article explains why this new category confounds existing First Amendment doctrine and details a proposed model for how the doctrine should be reshaped.


Government Speech And The War On Terror, Helen Norton Nov 2017

Government Speech And The War On Terror, Helen Norton

Fordham Law Review

This Article examines how the government’s speech in the War on Terror can threaten free speech, equal protection, and due process values. It focuses primarily on the constitutional harms threatened by the government’s speech itself (what some call a form of “soft law”), rather than on situations in which the government’s speech may be evidence of a constitutionally impermissible motive for its “hard law” actions.


Free Speech And National Security Bootstraps, Heidi Kitrosser Nov 2017

Free Speech And National Security Bootstraps, Heidi Kitrosser

Fordham Law Review

It is troubling that courts treat administrative designations—specifically, both FTO determinations and information classification—as bootstraps by which to yank speech restrictions from the clutches of probing judicial scrutiny. This Article builds on existing scholarly critiques to identify and examine the common thread of national security bootstrapping that runs through both sets of cases. The hope is that in so doing, some greater light may be shed both on the cases themselves and, more broadly, on the costs and benefits of judicial deference to executive national security claims where civil rights and civil liberties are at stake.


Algorithmic Jim Crow, Margaret Hu Nov 2017

Algorithmic Jim Crow, Margaret Hu

Fordham Law Review

This Article contends that current immigration- and security-related vetting protocols risk promulgating an algorithmically driven form of Jim Crow. Under the “separate but equal” discrimination of a historic Jim Crow regime, state laws required mandatory separation and discrimination on the front end, while purportedly establishing equality on the back end. In contrast, an Algorithmic Jim Crow regime allows for “equal but separate” discrimination. Under Algorithmic Jim Crow, equal vetting and database screening of all citizens and noncitizens will make it appear that fairness and equality principles are preserved on the front end. Algorithmic Jim Crow, however, will enable discrimination on …


Terror On Your Timeline: Criminalizing Terrorist Incitement On Social Media Through Doctrinal Shift, Zachary Leibowitz Nov 2017

Terror On Your Timeline: Criminalizing Terrorist Incitement On Social Media Through Doctrinal Shift, Zachary Leibowitz

Fordham Law Review

The United States faces a barrage of threats from terrorist organizations on a daily basis. The government takes some steps to prevent these threats from coming to fruition, but not much is being done proactively. Any person can log into a social media account to preach hate and incite violence against the United States and its citizenry, and sometimes these words result in action. When speakers are not held accountable, they can continue to incite the masses to violent action across the United States. This Note proposes a new incitement doctrine to prevent these speakers from being able to spread …


Free Speech And The Confluence Of National Security And Internet Exceptionalism, Alan K. Chen Nov 2017

Free Speech And The Confluence Of National Security And Internet Exceptionalism, Alan K. Chen

Fordham Law Review

In this Article, I argue that, notwithstanding these contemporary developments, the Court got it mostly right in Brandenburg. Or, I want to at least suggest that it is premature to reconstruct the Brandenburg test to address perceived changes in our global environment. For the most part, Brandenburg has succeeded in mediating the balance between protecting political or ideological advocacy and enabling the government to regulate actual incitement, even in the contemporary era. Moreover, I argue that society should be especially wary of calls to narrow Brandenburg’s speech-protective standard because such changes might be significantly influenced by the confluence of two …


The Internet Will Not Break: Denying Bad Samaritans § 230 Immunity, Danielle Keats Citron, Benjamin Wittes Nov 2017

The Internet Will Not Break: Denying Bad Samaritans § 230 Immunity, Danielle Keats Citron, Benjamin Wittes

Fordham Law Review

Section 230 is overdue for a rethinking. If courts do not construe the scope of federal immunity to avoid injustice, we argue, Congress should amend the law. This is not to discount the important role that the immunity provision has played over the past twenty years. Far from it. Section 230 immunity has enabled innovation and expression beyond the imagination of the operators of early bulletin boards and computer service providers the provision was designed to protect. But its overbroad interpretation has left victims of online abuse with no leverage against site operators whose business models facilitate abuse. This state …


Terrorists Are Always Muslim But Never White: At The Intersection Of Critical Race Theory And Propaganda, Caroline Mala Corbin Nov 2017

Terrorists Are Always Muslim But Never White: At The Intersection Of Critical Race Theory And Propaganda, Caroline Mala Corbin

Fordham Law Review

When you hear the word “terrorist,” who do you picture? Chances are, it is not a white person. In the United States, two common though false narratives about terrorists who attack America abound. We see them on television, in the movies, on the news, and, currently, in the Trump administration. The first is that “terrorists are always (brown) Muslims.” The second is that “white people are never terrorists.” Different strands of critical race theory can help us understand these two narratives. One strand examines the role of unconscious cognitive biases in the production of stereotypes, such as the stereotype of …


Smart Law For Smart Cities, Annie Decker Mar 2016

Smart Law For Smart Cities, Annie Decker

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Government-Provided Internet Access: Terms Of Service As Speech Rules, Enrique Armijo Mar 2016

Government-Provided Internet Access: Terms Of Service As Speech Rules, Enrique Armijo

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Quality Collusion: News, If It Ain’T Broke, Why Fix It?, Mark Mcmillan Mar 2016

Quality Collusion: News, If It Ain’T Broke, Why Fix It?, Mark Mcmillan

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Privacy And Cloud Computing In Public Schools, Joel Reidenberg, N. Cameron Russell, Jordan Kovnot, Thomas B. Norton, Ryan Cloutier, Daniela Alvarado Dec 2013

Privacy And Cloud Computing In Public Schools, Joel Reidenberg, N. Cameron Russell, Jordan Kovnot, Thomas B. Norton, Ryan Cloutier, Daniela Alvarado

Center on Law and Information Policy

Today, data driven decision-making is at the center of educational policy debates in the United States. School districts are increasingly turning to rapidly evolving technologies and cloud computing to satisfy their educational objectives and take advantage of new opportunities for cost savings, flexibility, and always-available service among others. As public schools in the United States rapidly adopt cloud-computing services, and consequently transfer increasing quantities of student information to third-party providers, privacy issues become more salient and contentious. The protection of student privacy in the context of cloud computing is generally unknown both to the public and to policy-makers. This study …


Privacy And Missing Persons After Natural Disasters, Joel Reidenberg, Robert Gellman, Jamela Debelak, Adam Elewa, Nancy Liu Mar 2013

Privacy And Missing Persons After Natural Disasters, Joel Reidenberg, Robert Gellman, Jamela Debelak, Adam Elewa, Nancy Liu

Center on Law and Information Policy

When a natural disaster occurs, government agencies, humanitarian organizations, private companies, volunteers, and others collect information about missing persons to aid the search effort. Often this processing of information about missing persons exacerbates the complexities and uncertainties of privacy rules. This report offers a road map to the legal and policy issues surrounding privacy and missing persons following natural disasters. The report first identifies the privacy challenges in the disaster context and provides some recent examples that demonstrate how disaster relief information sharing raises unique privacy concerns and issues. It then outlines current missing persons information sharing activities in the …


Broadband Localism, Olivier Sylvain Jan 2012

Broadband Localism, Olivier Sylvain

Faculty Scholarship

Today, local governments are supplying broadband service to residents to fill the service gap left by major providers. Municipalities are joining forces with local anchor institutions and private providers to close the digital divide and incubate novel public-minded service models. This is the new broadband localism. Some stakeholders fear that local public participation in the broadband market will negatively impact competition. They have articulated this concern in state legislation across the country: nineteen states forbid or otherwise restrict municipal ownership or administration of broadband and three may enact similar restrictions this year. No matter the substantive policy merits of such …


Internet Governance And Democratic Legitimacy, Olivier Sylvain Jan 2010

Internet Governance And Democratic Legitimacy, Olivier Sylvain

Faculty Scholarship

Even as the Internet goes pop, federal policymakers continue to surrender their statutory obligation to regulate communications in the first instance to extralegal nongovernmental organizations comprised of technical experts. The Federal Communications Commission’s conclusion that a major broadband service provider's network management practices were unreasonable is a case in point. There, in the absence of any decisive legislative or even regulatory guidance, the FCC turned principally to the engineering principles on which the Internet Engineering Task Force bases transmission standards: to wit, (1) decentralization, (2) interoperability, and (3) user empowerment. This impulse to defer as a matter of course to …


Extraterritorial Electioneering And The Globalization Of American Elections, Zephyr Teachout Jan 2009

Extraterritorial Electioneering And The Globalization Of American Elections, Zephyr Teachout

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay explores a fascinating new truth: because of the Internet, governments, corporations, and citizens of other countries can now meaningfully participate in United States elections. They can phone bank, editorialize, and organize in ways that impact a candidate's image, the narrative structure of a campaign, and the mobilization of base support. Foreign governments can bankroll newspapers that will be read by millions of voters. Foreign companies can enlist employees in massive cross-continental email campaigns. Foreign activists can set up offline meetings and organize door-to-door campaigns in central Ohio. They can, in short, influence who wins and who loses. Depending …


Le Droit Et Les Reseaux Internationaux D'Information, Joel R. Reidenberg Feb 2003

Le Droit Et Les Reseaux Internationaux D'Information, Joel R. Reidenberg

Faculty Scholarship

Travaux pour obtenir le grade de Docteur De L'Universite Paris I. Discipline: Droit. Sujet des publications: Le Droit Et Les Reseaux Internationaux D'Information


Unnecessary Privacy , Carl Felsenfeld Jan 2001

Unnecessary Privacy , Carl Felsenfeld

Faculty Scholarship

An individual's right to privacy in an electronic society has gained international attention as a booming new field. Its birth may roughly be marked to coincide with the birth of the Internet. The flow of information without limit or boundary has raised concerns with the consumer spokespeople in the Western World that personal information about them may flow as easily as general information about Machu Pichu, Keynesian economics, or Harvard College. The fear is that will cause individuals harm, ranging from personal embarrassment to a loss of civil liberties. Therefore, movements are developing to limit this flow of information. The …


The Deregulation Of Commercial Television, Heidi R. Young Jan 1985

The Deregulation Of Commercial Television, Heidi R. Young

Fordham Urban Law Journal

In August 1984, the Federal Communications Commission released the Report and Order in the Matter of the Revision of Programming and Commercialization Policies, Ascertainment Requirements, and Program Log Requirements for Commercial Television Stations, affecting the FCC regulations concerning programming policies, ascertainment requirements, program logging rules and commercialization policies. This Note analyzes these regulatory changes from this Report and Order according the following structure: first, a historical exposition of radio and television regulation in general and of the areas affected by the deregulation in particular; second, an assessment of the changes in the context of the modern television marketplace; and third, …


Electronic Publishing: First Amendment Issues In The Twenty-First Century, Lynn Becker Jan 1985

Electronic Publishing: First Amendment Issues In The Twenty-First Century, Lynn Becker

Fordham Urban Law Journal

In six sections, the author explores regulation of the then-emerging field of tele-communications, including electronic publishing, e-mail, electronic bulletin boards, teletype, and digital banking. Focusing on how the First Amendment applies to claims of defamation and obscenity made in an electronic format, the author proposes a unified regulatory scheme based on existing communications regulation law that will unify telecommunications policy countrywide. The first two sections are devoted to explanation of the then-novel forms of electronic communication and giving the history of the FCC and communications and data regulation in the US. The author describes the distinction between press regulation, broadcast …