Law and Society Commons^™

Why It's Time For Pervasive Surveillance...Of The Police, Russell Dean Covey

Russell D. Covey

No abstract provided.

Children's Rights In The Midst Of Marriage Equality: Amicus Brief In Obergefell V. Hodges By Scholars Of The Constitutional Rights Of Children, Tanya Washington, Susannah Pollvogt, Catherine Smith, Lauren Fontana

Tanya Monique Washington

No abstract provided.

On Patenting Human Organisms Or How The Abortion Wars Feed Into The Ownership Fallacy, Yaniv Heled

Yaniv Heled

The idea of ominous technologies that put human individuals or parts of their bodies under someone else's control has been stirring emotions and terrifying people for centuries. It was a recent offshoot of this idea--the notion of “patenting humans”--that mobilized certain members of Congress to pass legislation prohibiting the issuance of patent claims “directed to or encompassing a human organism.” The values underlying this legislation may well have been agreeable, even admirable. Yet, the actual motivation for it was misguided; its execution, deeply flawed; its potential outcomes, hazardous

This Article reviews the history and background of this prohibition. It fleshes …

The Limits Of Regulatory Science In Transnational Governance Of Transgenic Plant Agriculture And Food Systems, Taiwo Oriola

Taiwo Oriola

The current national and transnational regulatory and policy framework for transgenic plant agriculture and food is arguably largely defined by science. Notably, transgenic plant agriculture policy deference to science is ostensibly premised on the general perception that science is neutral, objective, reliable, and agnostic. This is exemplified by cases ranging from Alliance for Bio-integrity v Donna Shalala, European Communities: Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products, to European Commission v Republic of Poland, in which conscientious, ethical, religious, and cultural oppositional grounds to transgenic plant agriculture and food were trumped by scientific imperatives. However, the lack of unanimity …

Wie Featured Person Of The Month Highlights (Katina Michael), Keyana Tenant, Katina Michael

Professor Katina Michael

The WIE Featured Person of the Month is Katina Michael, editor-in-chief of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine. After working at OTIS Elevator Company and Andersen Consulting, Katina was offered and exciting graduate engineering position at Nortel in 1996; and her career has been fast track from there. Read Katina’s story on Page 7.

Privacy- The Times They Are A-Changin', M.G. Michael, Katina Michael

Professor Katina Michael

This special section is dedicated to privacy in the information age. Since the rise of mobile social media in particular and the advent of cloud computing few can dispute that the times have changed. Privacy is now understood in context, and within a framework that is completely different to what it once was. The right to be let alone physically seemingly has been replaced by the right to give away as much information as you want virtually. What safeguards can be introduced into such a society? We cannot claim to wish for privacy as a right if we ourselves do …

Interative Discussion Leader (Idt) @ Futuregov Forum Queensland On The Theme Of "Mobile Government", Katina Michael, Erica Fensom

Professor Katina Michael

Mobile Government Briefing: Provide services anywhere any time: - Transact to enable in-field data collection, request processing, order management, approvals, edits, updates and execute actions. - What are the implications for the incorporation of rich multimedia content on devices to better serve staff and citizens? - Addressing the security challenges of various risks around data access, data transmission, and data storage for BI architecture and mobile devices

Ieee T&S Magazine: Undergoing Transformation, Katina Michael

Professor Katina Michael

Our Magazine is in a transformative period, not only because we are ‘Going Green’ in 2013 but because we are experiencing tremendous growth in quality international submissions. This means that we are increasingly appealing to an international audience with transdisciplinary interests. This has not gone unnoticed by the media, nor by our SSIT readership or wider engineering community.

Book Review Of Hacking: The Next Generation (Written By Nitesh Dhanjani, Billy Rios & Brett Hardin), Katina Michael

Professor Katina Michael

Hacking: The Next Generation demonstrates just how hackers continue to exploit “back doors”. New ways of working and new ways of communicating have meant that the number of attack vectors continue to rise rapidly. This provides hackers with a greater number of opportunities to penetrate systems using blended approaches while organizations struggle to come up to speed with the latest technology developments and commensurate security capabilities. Dealing with anticipated threats is a lot harder than dealing with known threats.

Converging And Coexisting Systems Towards Smart Surveillance, Katina Michael, Mg Michael

Professor Katina Michael

Tracking and monitoring people as they operate within their personal networks benefits service providers and their constituents but involves hidden risks and costs.

Automatic identification technologies, CCTV cameras, pervasive and mobile networks, wearable computing, location-based services and social networks have traditionally served distinct purposes. However, we have observed patterns of integration, convergence and coexistence among all these innovations within the information and communication technology industry.1For example, ‘location-based social networking’ can draw on a smart phone's capacity to identify a user uniquely, locate him within 1–2m and share this information across his social network in real time. The resulting ability to …

Editorial: The Idio-Technopolis, Katina Michael

Professor Katina Michael

The rapid rise of social media has brought with it an emphasis on the distinct dimensions of the whole person. Social media recognises that the individual has a personal network of extensions- a home life, a work life, a social life, a study life, a hobbyist life, and much more- some of these identities even hidden from full view. Each of these online value networks are now accessible by big business, where opinion leaders and early adopters are easily distinguishable, and where brand commentary between consumers matters manifold more than any form of targeted advertising.

Editorial: "You Talkin' To Me?", Katina Michael

Professor Katina Michael

Advancing knowledge through robust research is an honourable aim- being scientific, finding the right methodology, executing project phases meticulously, and reporting on the outcomes as objectively and accurately as possible. But may I begin my inaugural editorial by saying that an even higher ideal to advancing knowledge is critiquing it as it happens. Reflective practice is not just something to be done by academics in their teaching- reflective practice is what we should all be doing as we go about undertaking our various day-to-day work tasks. For the engineer engaged in research and development, whether in industry or government, reflective …

Building Democracy In Japan, Mary Alice Haddad

Mary Alice Haddad

How is democracy made real? How does an undemocratic country create new institutions and transform its polity such that democratic values and practices become integral parts of its political culture? These are some of the most pressing questions of our times, and they are the central inquiry of Building Democracy in Japan. Using the Japanese experience as starting point, this book develops a new approach to the study of democratization that examines state-society interactions as a country adjusts its existing political culture to accommodate new democratic values, institutions and practices. With reference to the country's history, the book focuses on …

Entrusting The Commons: Agricultural Land Conservation And Shared Heritage Protection, Angela Labrador

Angela M Labrador

The start of the twenty-first century is marked by new levels of globaliza- tion, environmental degradation, and social conflict that are endangering the cultural landscapes and agrarian heritage of rural areas. In the wake of these threats, heritage profes- sionals are imagining new, holistic models for shared cultural and natural heritage protec- tion that support active community engagement around issues of cultural identity, material and ecological sustainability, and shared ethical values. Agricultural land conservation is fertile terrain in which to theorize how heritage protection can contribute to the mobiliza- tion of social cohesion to restore a balanced human ecology. Agrarian …

Implementing Environmental Justice In Appalachia: The Social And Cultural Context Of Mountaintop Removal Mining As Seen Through The Lenses Of Law And Documentaries, Evan Barret Smith

Evan Barret Smith

Mountaintop removal is a form of mining that has major effects on the ecology and people of central Appalachia. The practice has been gaining increasing attention from the EPA and popular cultural sources as an environmental justice issue. Recent decisions by the EPA incorporate an environmental justice analysis as contextualization, but the perspective provided is problematic. This Article compares the way that the social and cultural context of mountaintop removal has been framed in judicial opinions and EPA documents to understand how legal documents understand and perpetuate the conflicts related to mountaintop removal. To further widen the lens, seven documentary …

The Place Of Law: The Role And Limits Of Law In Society, Larry Barnett

Larry D Barnett

The Place of Law addresses two questions that are critical to understanding law. Why is law an evidently universal, enduring institution in modern societies? And why do the concepts and doctrines of law differ between jurisdictions (states or nations) at one point in time and vary within a jurisdiction over time? In this stimulating volume, Barnett suggests answers to these questions, and in doing so, he challenges popular assumptions regarding law in structurally complex, technologically advanced, democratic societies. In particular, Barnett questions the assumption that social behaviors central to such societies are effectively controlled by law and the assumption that …

The Fall-Out From Emerging Technologies: On Matters Of Surveillance, Social Networks And Suicide, M.G. Michael, Katina Michael

Professor Katina Michael

No abstract provided.

Flying Passports Of Convenience, Karl T. Muth

Karl T Muth

This paper proposes an economic alternative to the legal construct of citizenship that currently dominates international law.

Politics And Volunteering In Japan: A Global Perspective, Mary Alice Haddad

Mary Alice Haddad

Politics and Volunteering begins by painting a portrait of volunteering in Japan, and demonstrates that our current understandings of civil society have been based implicitly on a U.S. model that does not adequately consider participation patterns found in other parts of the world. The book develops a theory of civic participation that, incorporates citizen attitudes about governmental and individual responsibility, with societal and governmental practices that support (or hinder) volunteer participation. This theory is tested using cross-national and sub-national statistical analysis, and it is refined through detailed case studies of volunteering in three Japanese cities. The findings are then used …