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Full-Text Articles in Law

Can Dna Be Speech?, Jorge R. Roig Dec 2015

Can Dna Be Speech?, Jorge R. Roig

Jorge R Roig

DNA is generally regarded as the basic building block of life itself. In the most fundamental sense, DNA is nothing more than a chemical compound, albeit a very complex and peculiar one. DNA is an information-carrying molecule. The specific sequence of base pairs contained in a DNA molecule carries with it genetic information, and encodes for the creation of particular proteins. When taken as a whole, the DNA contained in a single human cell is a complete blueprint and instruction manual for the creation of that human being.
In this article we discuss myriad current and developing ways in which …


Katz On A Hot Tin Roof: The Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy Is Rudderless In The Digital Age Unless Congress Continually Resets The Privacy Bar, Charles E. Maclean Jan 2014

Katz On A Hot Tin Roof: The Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy Is Rudderless In The Digital Age Unless Congress Continually Resets The Privacy Bar, Charles E. Maclean

Charles E. MacLean

The Katz reasonable expectation of privacy doctrine has lasting relevance in the digital age, but that relevance must be carefully and clearly guided in great detail by Congressional and state legislative enactments continually resetting the privacy bar as technology advances. In that way, the Katz “reasonableness” requirements are actually set by the legislative branch, thereby precluding courts from applying inapposite analogies to phone booths, cigarette packs, and business records. Once legislation provides the new contours of digital privacy, those legislative contours become the new “reasonable.”

This article calls upon Congress, and to a lesser extent, state legislatures, to control that …


The Anatomy Of A Search: Intrusiveness And The Fourth Amendment, Renée Mcdonald Hutchins Apr 2012

The Anatomy Of A Search: Intrusiveness And The Fourth Amendment, Renée Mcdonald Hutchins

Renée M. Hutchins

No abstract provided.


Changing Expectations Of Privacy And The Fourth Amendment, Robert Power Dec 2005

Changing Expectations Of Privacy And The Fourth Amendment, Robert Power

Robert C Power

Public attitudes about privacy are central to the development of fourth amendment doctrine in two respects. These are the two “reasonableness” requirements, which define the scope of the fourth amendment (it protects only “reasonable” expectations of privacy), and provide the key to determining compliance with its commands (it prohibits “unreasonable” searches and seizures). Both requirements are interpreted in substantial part through evaluation of societal norms about acceptable levels of privacy from governmental intrusions. Caselaw, poll data, newspaper articles, internet sites, and other vehicles for gauging public attitudes after the September 11 attacks indicate that public concerns about terrorism and the …


Unburdening The Constitution: What Has The Indian Constitution Got To Do With Private Universities, Modernity And Nation States?, Shubhankar Dam Dec 2005

Unburdening The Constitution: What Has The Indian Constitution Got To Do With Private Universities, Modernity And Nation States?, Shubhankar Dam

Shubhankar Dam

This article critically analyses the decision of the Indian Supreme Court in Yashpal and another v. State of Chhattisgarh and others holding the establishment of private universities as unconstitutional. Swayed by the overwhelmingly irresponsible character of the respondent universities, the Supreme Court innovated constitutional arguments to uphold the claims of the petitioners. While intuitively correct in the context of the immediate facts, the judgment, when analysed in the abstract, reveals the self-inflicted harm it has the potential to cause. The judgment is technologically regressive: it fails to account for the emerging trends in education, especially those related to the use …


Learning From All Fifty States: How To Apply The Fourth Amendment And Its State Analogs To Protect Third Party Information From Unreasonable Search, Stephen E. Henderson Dec 2005

Learning From All Fifty States: How To Apply The Fourth Amendment And Its State Analogs To Protect Third Party Information From Unreasonable Search, Stephen E. Henderson

Stephen E Henderson

We are all aware of, and many commentators are critical of, the Supreme Court's third-party doctrine, under which information provided to third parties receives no Fourth Amendment protection. This constitutional void becomes increasingly important as technology and social norms dictate that increasing amounts of disparate information are available to third parties. But we are not solely dependent upon the Federal Constitution. We may have more constitutional protection as citizens of states, each of which has a constitutional cognate or analog to the Federal Fourth Amendment. As Justice Brennan urged in a famous 1977 article, those provisions should be interpreted to …


Nothing New Under The Sun? A Technologically Rational Doctrine Of Fourth Amendment Search, Stephen E. Henderson Dec 2004

Nothing New Under The Sun? A Technologically Rational Doctrine Of Fourth Amendment Search, Stephen E. Henderson

Stephen E Henderson

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. Yet as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court, the Amendment places no restriction on police combing through financial records; telephone, e-mail and website transactional records; or garbage left for collection. Indeed there is no protection for any information knowingly provided to a third party, because the provider is said to retain no reasonable expectation of privacy in that information. As technology dictates that more and more of our personal lives are available to anyone equipped to receive them, and as social norms dictate that more and …