Communications Law Commons^™

Emerging Technologies And Dwindling Speech, Jorge R. Roig

Jorge R Roig

Inspired in part by the recent holding in Bland v. Roberts that the use of the “Like” feature in Facebook is not covered by the Free Speech Clause, this article makes a brief foray into the approach that courts have taken in the recent past towards questions of First Amendment coverage in the context of emerging technologies. Specifically, this article will take a closer look at how courts have dealt with the issue of functionality in the context of First Amendment coverage of computer source code. The analysis of this and other recent experiences, when put in a larger context ...

Political Campaigning And The Airways, Harrop Freeman, Stewart Edelstein

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Has Skinner Killed The Katz? Are Society's Expectations Of Privacy Reasonable In Today's Techological World?, Jason Forcier

Jason Forcier

The right to privacy has and will remain a hotly contested debate about American liberties. In 2012, a 3-0 decision by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, in United States v. Melvin Skinner, the court held that there is no “reasonable expectation of privacy in the data given off by. . . cellphone[s].” Given today’s explosion of cellular technology and use of smart phones, is it unreasonable to believe a person should remain secure in their "person" and “effects," as guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment, from unreasonable searches and seizures? Furthermore, with police requiring only a subpoena to a obtain ...

Privacy And Missing Persons After Natural Disasters, Joel Reidenberg, Robert Gellman, Jamela Debelak, Adam Elewa, Nancy Liu

Center on Law and Information Policy

When a natural disaster occurs, government agencies, humanitarian organizations, private companies, volunteers, and others collect information about missing persons to aid the search effort. Often this processing of information about missing persons exacerbates the complexities and uncertainties of privacy rules. This report offers a road map to the legal and policy issues surrounding privacy and missing persons following natural disasters. The report first identifies the privacy challenges in the disaster context and provides some recent examples that demonstrate how disaster relief information sharing raises unique privacy concerns and issues. It then outlines current missing persons information sharing activities in the ...

De-Regulation As The New Regulation: Telecom's Philosophy Turnabout And The Story Of A Forward-Looking Formula That Brought Back Competition , Christia Crocker

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Relaxing The Rules Of Media Ownership: Localism And Competition And Diversity, Oh My! The Frightening Road Of Deregulation , Kristen Morse

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

S!*T, P*@S, C*^T, F*#K, C*@!S*&!Er, M*!#$*@!*#^R, T*!S - The Fcc's Crackdown On Indecency, Lindsay Weiss

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Satellite Radio: An Innovative Technology's Path Through The Fcc And Into The Future, Adam Cain

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

I Want My Mtv, But Not Your Vh1: A La Carte Cable, Bundling, And The Potential Great Cable Compromise, Holly Phillips

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

It's A Series Of Tubes: Network Neutrality In The United States And How The Current Economic Environment Presents A Unique Opportunity To Invest In The Future Of The Internet , Andrew Seitz

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

It is almost an accident that the Internet developed the way it did. In the late 1990's large internet service providers (ISPs), such as AOL, that had their own proprietary networks failed to fully realize that their business model was becoming obsolete, and instead the Internet developed into the open network that it is today. But is an open network the best model for the Internet? Could more of a free market deliver a better product to the consumer? Broadband providers such as AT&T and Verizon believe that in order to give their customers the best product, they ...

How Detailed Of An Explanation Is Required When An Administrative Agency Changes An Existing Policy? Implications And Analysis Of Fcc V. Fox Television Stations, Inc. On Administrative Law Making And Television Broadcasters, David Lee

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Can You Hear Me Now? Cell Phone Jamming And The Tenth Amendment, Thomas L. Chittum, Iii

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

"The Marvels Of Modern Technology": Constitutional Rights, Technology, And Statutory Interpretation Collide In United States V. Chiaradio, Wilber A. Barillas

Boston College Journal of Law & Social Justice

On July 11, 2012, in United States v. Chiaradio, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that a defendant possessing child pornography on two networked computers had committed two separate crimes of possession and distribution of child pornography under 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B). The court, however, should have shown restraint in its analysis to avoid creating dangerous precedent. In her concurring opinion, Chief Judge Lynch argued for a narrow holding, emphasizing the statute’s ambiguity as applied to more complex, modern scenarios. The First Circuit’s decision highlights how courts struggle to ...

Searching For "Something More": Viacom Interprets The Control Provision Of The Dmca § 512(C) Safe Harbor, Brett M. Jackson

Boston College Law Review

On April 5, 2012, in Viacom International, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(1)(B) requires a service provider to exert “substantial influence” over user activity to show the requisite control necessary to remove it from safe harbor protection. In doing so, the Second Circuit created a circuit split with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit regarding the proper interpretation of the § 512(c)(1)(B) control provision. This Comment argues that, unlike the Ninth Circuit, the Second Circuit rendered ...

“Smut And Nothing But”: The Fcc, Indecency, And Regulatory Transformations In The Shadows, Lili Levi

Lili Levi

For almost a century, American broadcasting has received a lesser degree of constitutional protection than the print medium. Although many of the FCC’s regulations in “the public interest” have been upheld against First Amendment challenge on the ground that broadcasting is exceptional, the traditional reasons given for such exceptionalism – scarcity and pervasiveness – have become increasingly careworn. Fighting that consensus, the FCC has aggressively pursued the regulation of indecency on radio and television since 2003. When the FCC’s enhanced indecency prohibitions swept up U2 front-man Bono’s fleeting expletive on a music awards show, broadcasters finally thought they had ...

Moving Beyond Cameras In The Courtroom: The Supreme Court, Technology, And The Media, Mary-Rose Papandrea

Boston College Law School Faculty Papers

From the introduction:

News media, legal blogs, and law reviews routinely cite a panoply of reasons why the Supreme Court will not permit the televising or videotaping of oral arguments: the Justices’ desire for anonymity , the risk that creative editing of sound bites will mislead the public , the risk that the Justices’ question s and comments will be taken out of context , the need to separate the judicial process from the political branches of government, a lack of confidence in the public’s ability to understand the proceedings, and the concern that both the lawyers and the Justices will grandstand ...

The Implausibility Of Secrecy, Mark Fenster

Mark Fenster

Government secrecy frequently fails. Despite the executive branch’s obsessive hoarding of certain kinds of documents and its constitutional authority to do so, recent high-profile events—among them the WikiLeaks episode, the Obama administration’s celebrated leak prosecutions, and the widespread disclosure by high-level officials of flattering confidential information to sympathetic reporters—undercut the image of a state that can classify and control its information. The effort to control government information requires human, bureaucratic, technological, and textual mechanisms that regularly founder or collapse in an administrative state, sometimes immediately and sometimes after an interval. Leaks, mistakes, open sources—each of ...

The Invalidation Of Mandatory Cable Access Regulations: Fcc V. Midwest Video Corp., Robert L. Clarkson

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Data Caps And Other Forms Of Usage-Based Pricing For Broadband Access, Daniel A. Lyons

Boston College Law School Faculty Papers

In recent years, broadband providers have introduced data caps and other plans that charge customers based on use. While regulators have generally approved of this shift, some consumer groups fear that usage-based pricing will lead to higher prices and deteriorating service. They also fear data caps allow companies like Comcast to protect their cable businesses from upstarts like Netflix.

This article evaluates the merits of data caps and other usage-based pricing strategies. Usagebased pricing shifts more network costs onto heavier Internet users. This can reduce costs for others and make broadband more accessible to low-income consumers. Usage-based pricing can also ...

Why Broadband Pricing Freedom Is Good For Consumers, Daniel A. Lyons

Boston College Law School Faculty Papers

From the introduction:

Usage-based pricing has rapidly become one of the most high-profile topics in Internet policy. In the past few years, many broadband providers have migrated from all-you-can-eat flat-rate pricing to consumption-based pricing models such as tiered service plans or data caps. This trend has been most prominent in the wireless sector, where monthly limits were an almost inevitable solution to the surge in bandwidth demand unleashed by the smartphone revolution. Some fixed broadband providers have adopted much larger data caps for residential broadband use as well.