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Privacy Law Commons

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Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Privacy Law

The Fourth Amendment In A Digital World, Laura K. Donohue Jan 2017

The Fourth Amendment In A Digital World, Laura K. Donohue

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Fourth Amendment doctrines created in the 1970s and 1980s no longer reflect how the world works. The formal legal distinctions on which they rely—(a) private versus public space, (b) personal information versus third party data, (c) content versus non-content, and (d) domestic versus international—are failing to protect the privacy interests at stake. Simultaneously, reduced resource constraints are accelerating the loss of rights. The doctrine has yet to catch up with the world in which we live. A necessary first step for the Court is to reconsider the theoretical underpinning of the Fourth Amendment, to allow for the evolution of a …


Big Brother Is Watching: The Reality Show You Didn't Audition For, J. Amy Dillard Apr 2011

Big Brother Is Watching: The Reality Show You Didn't Audition For, J. Amy Dillard

All Faculty Scholarship

In 1984, at the height of the Reagan-era war on drugs, the Supreme Court created a bright-line exception to Fourth Amendment protection by declaring that no person had a reasonable expectation of privacy in an area defined as an open field. When it created the exception, the Court ignored positive law and its own jurisprudence that the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. The open fields doctrine allows law enforcement officers to enter posted, private areas that are not part of a house or its curtilage for brief surveillance. The Supreme Court has never “extended the open fields doctrine to …


A Fourth Amendment For The Poor Alone: Subconstitutional Status And The Myth Of The Inviolate Home, Jordan C. Budd Jan 2010

A Fourth Amendment For The Poor Alone: Subconstitutional Status And The Myth Of The Inviolate Home, Jordan C. Budd

Law Faculty Scholarship

For much of our nation’s history, the poor have faced pervasive discrimination in the exercise of fundamental rights. Nowhere has the impairment been more severe than in the area of privacy. This Article considers the enduring legacy of this tradition with respect to the Fourth Amendment right to domestic privacy. Far from a matter of receding historical interest, the diminution of the poor’s right to privacy has accelerated in recent years and now represents a powerful theme within the jurisprudence of poverty. Triggering this development has been a series of challenges to aggressive administrative practices adopted by localities in the …


Be My Guest: The Hidden Holding Of Minnesota V. Carter, Edwin J. Butterfoss, Mary Sue B. Snyder Jan 1999

Be My Guest: The Hidden Holding Of Minnesota V. Carter, Edwin J. Butterfoss, Mary Sue B. Snyder

Faculty Scholarship

This Article first examines the Carter case in detail, including the opinions of the state courts and the briefs and oral argument in the United States Supreme Court, before turning to the Court's decision. The Article highlights the importance of Justice Kennedy's concurring opinion and explains the "hidden holding" of the case, raising the question of whether lowercourts will apply the correct rule from the case. The Article argues that the Court's denial of the defendants' claim of a reasonable expectation of privacy, combined with its failure to provide guidance as to when non-overnight visitors in homes will have the …