Privacy Law Commons^™

Hash It Out: Fourth Amendment Protection Of Electronically Stored Child Exploitation, Rebekah A. Branham

Akron Law Review

Few courts have addressed whether ISP’s use of hash-based evaluation violates an individual’s Fourth Amendment rights. In 2018, the Fifth Circuit was presented with this issue in United States v. Reddick. The defendant is Reddick uploaded files to the cloud-sharing server Microsoft SkyDrive. Thereafter PhotoDNA, a computer software program that uses hashing, automatically reviewed the hash values of those files and compared them against its database of known child pornography hash values. PhotoDNA detected a hash value match between the defendant’s photos and the database. It then created a “CyberTip,” sending the files and users information to the NCMEC. …

The Supreme Court And The Press: Freedom Or Privilege?, Sandra Bradley

Akron Law Review

This comment will examine the Supreme Court's spring, 1978 decisions as they affected first amendment rights, and will assess their impact upon the press. Particular emphasis will be placed on Zurcher v. Stanford Daily as it affects first amendment, as well as fourth amendment, protections.

Unwanted Publicity, The News Media, And The Constitution: Where Privacy Rights Compete With The First Amendment, Ernest D. Giglio

Akron Law Review

It is ironic that while recent legal history records the emergence of a constitutional right to privacy, the Supreme Court, in a line of cases from New York Times to Firestone, has restricted the common law tort of privacy. The legal issues are particularly complex and admittedly difficult to reconcile when the public disclosure tort comes in conflict with first amendment privileges. Expansion of the privacy tort need not necessarily impose an unreasonable burden on the news media, provided the Supreme Court distinguishes between defamation and privacy invasion and establishes and applies to the latter wrong its own legal principles.

In Re Barzak: Access To Children Services Board Files, David Hazelkorn

Akron Law Review

In the recent court decision, In re Barzak, the Trumbull County Court of Appeals ruled that parents in child abuse, neglect, or dependency proceedings have a right of reasonable access to Children Services Board investigation files. While this was a case of first impression in Ohio, it puts state law in line with that of other jurisdictions.

Bad News: Privacy Ruling To Increase Press Litigation, The Florida Star V. B.J.F., Mary Ellen Hockwalt

Akron Law Review

This note analyzes the history and precedent upon which the Court relied in reaching Florida Star's "harsh outcome." Next, the note discusses how the Court, by refusing to extend its holding beyond the facts of the case and give broad Constitutional protection to publications of truth, failed to provide lower courts with any guidance in deciding future invasion of privacy actions. Finally, the note examines the Court's balancing test: weighing the privacy interests of a crime victim against the newspaper's freedom to print truthful information.

Wilson V. Arkansas: Thirty Years After The Supreme Court Addresses The Knock And Announce Issue, Todd Witten

Akron Law Review

This Note will initially discuss the historical background of the knock and announce principle and its evolution from the English common law. Next, the Note will address the facts and the holdings of Wilson, in the lower courts and the Supreme Court. Finally, the Note will analyze the Wilson decision and its precedential value.

False Light Invasion Of Privacy In Docudramas: The Oxymoron Which Must Be Solved, Matthew Stohl

Akron Law Review

According to Giardello, boxing historians, and even Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, himself, the opening sequence of The Hurricane — which purports to tell the “true story” of Carter’s unjust imprisonment — was not only far from being accurate, it was a complete falsity. In reality, the fight was a lopsided Giardello victory, to the delight of the 6,000 fans in attendance.

Joey Giardello, who knew nothing of the movie until the day he saw it in the theater, filed suit on February 16, 2000 against Universal Pictures claiming that the film inaccurately portrayed him as a weak fighter and the beneficiary …

Two Wrongs Don't Make A Fourth Amendment Right: Samson Court Errs In Choosing Proper Analytical Framework, Errs In Result, Parolees Lose Fourth Amendment Protection, Rachael A. Lynch

Akron Law Review

This Note will follow the Fourth Amendment from its origins to its modern application to parolee rights, as evidenced by the Samson Court. Part II focuses on the Fourth Amendment, from the circumstances surrounding its adoption to modern court cases that have applied its tenets to prisoners, probationers, and, finally, parolees. Part III details the Supreme Court’s decision in Samson v. California, including a thorough discussion of the facts that gave rise to the case and lower court decisions. Part IV explores the problems with the Court’s framework and suggests other possible frameworks the Court could have used to come …

Examining Crack Cocaine Sentencing In A Post-Kimbrough World, Michael B. Cassidy

Akron Law Review

This article examines Kimbrough’s effect on crack cocaine sentencing. Part I discusses the rise of crack cocaine use in the United States during the 1980s. Part II provides a short history on modern federal sentencing, including the Sentencing Reform Act, the Commission’s Guidelines, and its reports to Congress concerning the 100-to-1 ratio. Part III examines the Supreme Court’s recent Sixth Amendment jurisprudence through its seminal cases, Apprendi and Blakely. In Part IV, this article analyzes the Court’s Booker holding as well as Kimbrough and Gall v. United States, two cases that clarified Booker and its application to crack cocaine cases. …

How Privacy Killed Katz: A Tale Of Cognitive Freedom And The Property Of Personhood As Fourth Amendment Norm, Christian M. Halliburton

Akron Law Review

With each passing day, new technologies push the horizons of official government investigative and surveillance activity deeper and deeper into the mind and consciousness of the surveilled subject. While law enforcement agencies have always relied on observing the behavior and activity of suspicious targets, and there has been little judicial ink spent preserving the confidentiality of such observable activity, the law has been slow to respond to rapid increases in the capacity or scope of official observation that the advance of technologically sophisticated surveillance techniques helped facilitate. The sampling of techniques at the center of this Article allow the operators …

The Right To Silence As Protecting Mental Control, Dov Fox

Akron Law Review

This Article examines the idea that individuals have a moral and constitutional right of control over the use of their thoughts vis-à-vis the state. As a point of departure, I consider the prospect of a forensic neuroimaging device that was capable of eliciting recall and recognition from a criminal suspect without the suspect’s having even to answer an interrogator’s question. Reflection on government access to this sort of interrogation technique suggests that the state should be prohibited from either extracting a person’s thoughts without her consent or making use of her compelled thoughts to lay criminal blame upon her. Though …