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Full-Text Articles in Law
Administrative Regulation Of Programmatic Policing: Why "Leaders Of A Beautiful Struggle" Is Both Right And Wrong, Christopher Slobogin
Administrative Regulation Of Programmatic Policing: Why "Leaders Of A Beautiful Struggle" Is Both Right And Wrong, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that Aerial Investigation Research (AIR), Baltimore's aerial surveillance program, violated the Fourth Amendment because it was not authorized by a warrant. AIR was constitutionaly problematic, but not for the reason given by the Fourth Circuit. AIR, like many other technologically-enhanced policing programs that rely on closed-circuit television (CCTV), automated license plate readers and the like, involves the collection and retention of information about huge numbers ofpeople. Because individualized suspicion does not exist with respect to any of these people's information, an individual-specific warrant …
A Game Theoretic Approach To Balance Privacy Risks And Familial Benefits, Ellen W. Clayton, Jia Guo, Murat Kantarcioglu, Et Al.
A Game Theoretic Approach To Balance Privacy Risks And Familial Benefits, Ellen W. Clayton, Jia Guo, Murat Kantarcioglu, Et Al.
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
As recreational genomics continues to grow in its popularity, many people are afforded the opportunity to share their genomes in exchange for various services, including third-party interpretation (TPI) tools, to understand their predisposition to health problems and, based on genome similarity, to find extended family members. At the same time, these services have increasingly been reused by law enforcement to track down potential criminals through family members who disclose their genomic information. While it has been observed that many potential users shy away from such data sharing when they learn that their privacy cannot be assured, it remains unclear how …
Direct-To-Consumer Genetic Testing, Ellen W. Clayton, Et Al.
Direct-To-Consumer Genetic Testing, Ellen W. Clayton, Et Al.
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Direct-to-consumer genetic testing is marketed as a tool to uncover ancestry and kin. Recent studies of actual and potential users have demonstrated that individuals’ responses to the use of these tests for these purposes are complex, with privacy, disruptive consequences, potential for misuse, and secondary use by law enforcement cited as potential concerns. We conducted six focus groups with a diverse sample of participants (n = 62) who were aware of but had not used direct-to-consumer genetic tests, in an effort to understand more about what people considering these tests think about the potential value, risks, and benefits of such …
Becoming Visible, Jennifer B. Shinall
Becoming Visible, Jennifer B. Shinall
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article will consider the consequences of a large number of workers making their health conditions known to their employers during the pandemic. Becoming visible will likely have short-term costs for both employers and employees-—in terms of health-status discrimination, privacy, and administrative burdens. Nonetheless, this Article will ultimately argue that becoming visible also has a major benefit: improved information flow between employers and employees. Although the long-run cost-benefit analysis of increased health-status visibility during the pandemic remains to be seen, increased visibility ultimately has the potential to improve the employer-employee relationship.
Protecting Research Data Of Publicly Revealing Participants, Ellen Clayton, B. A. Malin, Kyle J. Mckibbin
Protecting Research Data Of Publicly Revealing Participants, Ellen Clayton, B. A. Malin, Kyle J. Mckibbin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Biomedical researchers collect large amounts of personal data about individuals, which are frequently shared with repositories and an array of users. Typically, research data holders implement measures to protect participants’ identities and unique attributes from unauthorized disclosure. These measures, however, can be less effective if people disclose their participation in a research study, which they may do for many reasons. Even so, the people who provide these data for research often understandably expect that their privacy will be protected. We discuss the particular challenges posed by self-disclosure and identify various steps that researchers should take to protect data in these …
A World Of Difference? Law Enforcement, Genetic Data, And The Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin, J. W. Hazel
A World Of Difference? Law Enforcement, Genetic Data, And The Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin, J. W. Hazel
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Law enforcement agencies are increasingly turning to genetic databases as a way of solving crime, either through requesting the DNA profile of an identified suspect from a database or, more commonly, by matching crime scene DNA with DNA profiles in a database in an attempt to identify a suspect or a family member of a suspect. Neither of these efforts implicates the Fourth Amendment, because the Supreme Court has held that a Fourth Amendment "search" does not occur unless police infringe "expectations of privacy society is prepared to recognize as reasonable" and has construed that phrase narrowly, without reference to …
Policing, Databases, And Surveilance: Five Regulatory Categories, Christopher Slobogin
Policing, Databases, And Surveilance: Five Regulatory Categories, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Databases are full of personal information that law enforcement might find useful. Government access to these databases can be divided into five categories: suspect-driven; profile-driven; event-driven; program-driven and volunteer-driven. This chapter recommends that, in addition to any restrictions imposed by the Fourth Amendment (which currently are minimal), each type of access should be subject to its own regulatory regime. Suspect-driven access should depend on justification proportionate to the intrusion. Profile-driven access should likewise abide by a proportionality principle but should also be subject to transparency, vetting, and universality restrictions. Event-driven access should be cabined by the time and place of …
Is It Time For A Universal Genetic Forensic Database?, J. W. Hazel, Ellen Wright Clayton, B. A. Malin, Christopher Slobogin
Is It Time For A Universal Genetic Forensic Database?, J. W. Hazel, Ellen Wright Clayton, B. A. Malin, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The ethical objections to mandating forensic profiling of newborns and/or compelling every citizen or visitor to submit to a buccal swab or to spit in a cup when they have done nothing wrong are not trivial. But newborns are already subject to compulsory medical screening, and people coming from foreign countries to the United States already submit to fingerprinting. It is also worth noting that concerns about coercion or invasions of privacy did not give pause to legislatures (or, for that matter, even the European Court) when authorizing compelled DNA sampling from arrestees, who should not forfeit genetic privacy interests …
Government Data Mining And The Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin
Government Data Mining And The Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The government's ability to obtain and analyze recorded information about its citizens through the process known as data mining has expanded enormously over the past decade. Although the best-known government data mining operation (Total Information Awareness, more recently dubbed Terrorism Information Awareness) supposedly no longer exists, large-scale data mining by federal agencies devoted to enforcing criminal and counter-terrorism laws has continued unabated. This paper addresses three puzzles about data mining. First, when data mining is undertaken by the government, does it implicate the Fourth Amendment? Second, does the analysis change when data mining is undertaken by private entities which then …
"Carhart", Constitutional Rights, And The Psychology Of Regret, Chris Guthrie
"Carhart", Constitutional Rights, And The Psychology Of Regret, Chris Guthrie
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In "Gonzales v. Carhart", the Supreme Court upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. In so doing, the Court used the prospect of regret to justify limiting choice. Relying on empirical evidence documenting the four ways in which regret actually operates, this Article argues that the Court's analysis reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the psychology of regret. By exposing the Court's misunderstanding of this emotion, this article seeks to minimize the most significant risk posed by the Carhart decision: that states will use the prospect of regret to justify additional constraints not only on the abortion right but also on other …
The Liberal Assault On The Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin
The Liberal Assault On The Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
As construed by the Supreme Court, the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness requirement regulates overt, non-regulatory government searches of homes, cars, and personal effects-and virtually nothing else. This essay is primarily about how we got to this point. It is fashionable to place much of the blame for today's law on the Warren Court's adoption of the malleable expectation of privacy concept as the core value protected by the Fourth Amendment. But this diagnosis fails to explain why even the more liberal justices have often gone along with many of the privacy-diminishing holdings of the Court. This essay argues that three other …
Patients And Biobanks, Ellen Wright Clayton
Patients And Biobanks, Ellen Wright Clayton
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The question about the privacy of medical information can be stated simply: To what extent can and should patients control what the medical record contains and who has access to it and for what purposes? Patients often have apparently conflicting views on this subject. On the one hand, we, as patients, say that we prize privacy and that we fear that information will be used to harm us. On the other hand, we value the benefits that come from improved communication among providers, such as having our visits covered by third party payers and advances in medical science, which often …
Subpoenas And Privacy, Christopher Slobogin
Subpoenas And Privacy, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This symposium article, the first of two on regulation of government's efforts to obtain paper and digital records of our activities, analyzes the constitutional legitimacy of subpoenas. Whether issued by a grand jury or an administrative agency, subpoenas are extremely easy to enforce, merely requiring the government to demonstrate that the items sought pursuant to the subpoena are "relevant" to a investigation. Yet today subpoenas and pseudo-subpoenas are routinely used not only to obtain business records and the like, but also documents containing significant amounts of personal information about individuals, including medical, financial, and email records. Part I provides an …
Transaction Surveillance By The Government, Christopher Slobogin
Transaction Surveillance By The Government, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This symposium article is the second of two on regulation of government efforts to obtain recorded information for criminal prosecutions. More specifically, it explores the scope and regulation of "transaction surveillance," which it defines as government attempts to access already existing records, either physically or through data banks, and government efforts to obtain, in real-time or otherwise, "catalogic data" (the identifying signals of a transaction, such as the address of an email recipient). Transaction surveillance is a potent way of discovering and making inferences about a person's activities, character and identity. Yet, despite a bewildering array of statutorily created authorization …
The Poverty Exception To The Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin
The Poverty Exception To The Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This essay, written for the Sixth Annual LatCrit conference, explores the subterranean motifs of current rules regulating searches and seizures by the police. More specifically, it investigates whether and to what extent alienage, race and poverty influence the warrant and individualized suspicion rules purportedly governing police investigation. The essay begins by showing that, contrary to the assertion of other conference participants, Supreme Court doctrine has not created a "Mexican exception" to the Fourth Amendment (as distinguished from an "illegal alien" exception, which does seem to exist). The main focus of the article, however, is an examination of whether the Court's …
Toward Taping, Christopher Slobogin
Toward Taping, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Numerous authors, from all points on the political spectrum, have advocated that police interrogations be taped. But police rarely record custodial questioning, at least in full, and only a handful of courts have found this failure objectionable. This commentary outlines three different constitutional grounds for mandating that such recording become a routine practice. To set up the constitutional argument, the article first outlines why taping is needed despite the elaborate rules that now govern interrogation. Put simply, the reasoning is as follows: the Miranda regime has failed, voluntariness should once again be the focal point of interrogation regulation, and taping …
Through The Lens Of The Sequence, Ellen Wright Clayton
Through The Lens Of The Sequence, Ellen Wright Clayton
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The completion of the rough draft of the human genome is a scientific feat worthy of celebration. But the media attention that has been devoted to the Human Genome Project demonstrates that most people are not as interested in what the sequence is as in what it means for individuals and for society, for good or for ill. My purpose in writing this essay is to discuss how the project was conducted here in the United States, and some of the implications of knowing the sequence (or more aptly, a sequence).
Technologically-Assisted Physical Surveillance: The American Bar Association's Tentative Draft Standards, Christopher Slobogin
Technologically-Assisted Physical Surveillance: The American Bar Association's Tentative Draft Standards, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
As the name implies, the American Bar Association's Tentative Draft Standards Concerning Technologically-Assisted Physical Surveillance is a work in progress...Final approval by the ABA hierarchy is still some time away, so feedback could have an impact. Indeed, it is anticipated that the content of at least some of the standards will change prior to their submission to the House of Delegates...The work of the Task Force on Technology and Law Enforcement has persuasively demonstrated that some regulatory structure governing the use of physical surveillance technology is necessary. This work provides a model for future attempts to establish guidelines for other …
Reasonable Expectations Of Privacy And Autonomy In Fourth Amendment Cases: An Empirical Look At "Understandings Recognized And Permitted By Society", Christopher Slobogin, Joseph E. Schumacher
Reasonable Expectations Of Privacy And Autonomy In Fourth Amendment Cases: An Empirical Look At "Understandings Recognized And Permitted By Society", Christopher Slobogin, Joseph E. Schumacher
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article reports an attempt to investigate empirically important aspects of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as construed by the United States Supreme Court. In the course of doing so, it touches upon two other topics. Most directly, it addresses the appropriate scope of the Fourth Amendment. Less directly, it raises questions about the role that empirical research should play in fashioning constitutional rules.
World Without A Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin
World Without A Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The subject of this Article is suggested by a single question: How would we regulate searches and seizures if the Fourth Amendment did not exist? This question is a useful one to ask even leaving aside the possibility of amending the amendment. Starting on a blank slate, as it were, should free us from current preconceptions about the law of search and seizure, ingrained after years of analyzing current dogma. Viewed from this fresh perspective, we might gain a better understanding of the values at stake when the state seeks to obtain evidence or detain suspects. This new understanding in …
Capacity To Contest A Search And Seizure: The Passing Of Old Rules And Some Suggestions For New Ones, Christopher Slobogin
Capacity To Contest A Search And Seizure: The Passing Of Old Rules And Some Suggestions For New Ones, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Professor Slobogin examines recent Supreme Court decisions involving standing to challenge search and seizure violations, and argues that the Court's commitment to a "totality of the circumstances" approach has permitted erosion of fourth amendment protections. After concluding that these decisions provide little guidance to lower courts, Professor Slobogin offers a set of principles which will aid in analyzing the Court's direction.