Digital Commons Network^™

Maps: Scaling Privacy Compliance Analysis To A Million Apps, Sebastian Zimmeck, Peter Story, Daniel Smullen, Abhilasha Ravichander, Ziqi Wang, Joel R. Reidenberg, N. Cameron Russell, Norman Sadeh

Faculty Scholarship

The app economy is largely reliant on data collection as its primary revenue model. To comply with legal requirements, app developers are often obligated to notify users of their privacy practices in privacy policies. However, prior research has suggested that many developers are not accurately disclosing their apps’ privacy practices. Evaluating discrepancies between apps’ code and privacy policies enables the identification of potential compliance issues. In this study, we introduce the Mobile App Privacy System (MAPS) for conducting an extensive privacy census of Android apps. We designed a pipeline for retrieving and analyzing large app populations based on code analysis …

Recovering Tech's Humanity, Olivier Sylvain

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Second Step Act For The States (And Counties And Cities), John F. Pfaff

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Apis And Your Privacy, N. Cameron Russell

Faculty Scholarship

Application programming interfaces, or APIs, have been the topic of much recent discussion. Newsworthy events, including those involving Facebook’s API and Cambridge Analytica obtaining information about millions of Facebook users, have highlighted the technical capabilities of APIs for prominent websites and mobile applications. At the same time, media coverage of ways that APIs have been misused has sparked concern for potential privacy invasions and other issues of public policy. This paper seeks to educate consumers on how APIs work and how they are used within popular websites and mobile apps to gather, share, and utilize data.

APIs are used in …

Emergent Regulatory Systems And Their Challenges: The Case Of Combination Medical Products, George Horvath

Faculty Scholarship

Where regulatory systems overlap, courts and scholars often focus on the undesirable aspects of the overlap—the ways in which systems conflict. One such context involves the regulation of prescription drugs and medical devices by the FDA’s premarket evaluation processes and by state common-law tort and products liability actions. FDA regulation and state common law are often described as separate, conflicting regulatory systems. This Article challenges that description by proposing a model in which FDA premarket evaluation and state common law function as a single regulatory system.

This model brings order to the Supreme Court’s seemingly inconsistent medical products preemption cases, …

Book Review: Aisling Swaine, Conflict-Related Violence Against Women: Transforming Transition (2018), Jennifer Moore

Faculty Scholarship

Acknowledging that rape is sometimes utilized as a “weapon of war” represents an important development in humanitarian action and scholarly inquiry. However, Aisling Swaine instructs this is but one important facet of the range of harms women experience in time of war, not to mention in peacetime. Swaine articulates two powerful themes: the variant nature of violence against women in times of war, and the other concerns its ambulant nature over time.

Swaine’s treatment of “conflict-related violence against women” represents an important contribution to the canon of feminist scholarship on gender-based violence. Her insights emerge from qualitative research she conducted …

Nefarious Neighbors: How Living Near Payday Loan Stores Affects Loan Use, Nathalie Martin, Younghee Lim, Aimee Moles, Trey Bickham

Faculty Scholarship

Few of us give much thought to local laws, yet local laws, such as zoning and other land use regulations, have an abiding influence on our lives. Think for a few moments about the types of businesses located near your home. Are these businesses places you frequent? Considering socio-economics, how do land uses differ from locale to locale throughout your city or state? Do all citizens have an equal voice in the land use approval process? The answer is likely no, which creates environmental and economic justice issues.

Like all businesses, when it comes to payday lenders, geography matters. Payday …

Can A State's Water Rights Be Damned? Environmental Flows And Federal Dams In The Supreme Court, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

Interstate rivers are subject to the doctrine of equitable apportionment, whereby the Supreme Court seeks to ensure that all states that share such rivers get a fair portion of their benefits. The Court has rarely issued an equitable apportionment decree, however, and there is little law on whether the doctrine protects river flows for environmental purposes. The ongoing Florida v. Georgia litigation in the Supreme Court raises this issue, as Florida seeks to limit consumptive uses by upstream Georgia to preserve flows in the Apalachicola River, which provide both economic and environmental benefits. This Article summarizes both the equitable apportionment …

Book Review: Jonathan P. Thompson, River Of Lost Souls: The Science, Politics, And Green Behind The Gold King Mine Disaster (2018), Clifford J. Villa

Faculty Scholarship

On August 5, 2015, contractors for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) investigating the Gold King Mine in southwestern Colorado accidently released some three million gallons of contaminated water into the Animas River, triggering weeks of front-page headlines, months of congressional hearings, and now years of litigation. River of Lost Souls: The Science, Politics, and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Disaster, a new book by Jonathan P. Thompson, suggests by its title a human folly behind this “disaster” much broader and deeper than one tragic accident wrought by EPA contractors. On this thesis, Thompson certainly delivers. However, what …

Evaluating Judicial Standards Of Conduct In The Current Political And Social Climate: The Need To Strengthen Impropriety Standards And Removal Remedies To Include Procedural Justice And Community Harm, Joshua E. Kastenberg

Faculty Scholarship

Chief Justice Warren Burger warned that when “people who have long been exploited . . . come to believe that courts cannot vindicate their legal rights from fraud,” an “incalculable damage [is done] to society.”

Part I of this Article presents an examination of the current common frameworks shared by the states for addressing judicial conduct appealing to popular social and political influences. Included in this section is an analysis of the interrelationship between implicit bias and impropriety, as well as on community harm and procedural justice.

Part II provides both a historical and contemporary analysis of “populism,” including the …

Karaoke Car Talk With Mark Pettit, Frances H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

Mark Pettit and I played our own version of Carpool Karaoke long before it became a media favorite. Mark was the quiet one, a prisoner in my car for more than forty years of driving back and forth to the Law School on the Mass Pike. We were cooped up alone together for an hour and a half almost every day, sometimes under trying circumstances, including monumental traffic jams and weather horrendiomas. Some days we had more direct conversation with one another than either one of us had with our own spouses. So I thought I’d give you a little …

Free Trade, Immigrant Workers, And Employment Discrimination, Angela D. Morrison

Faculty Scholarship

This article reframes the outward-looking perspective on workers’ rights provisions in free trade agreements. It argues that those provisions provide an opportunity to reinforce the workplace rights of noncitizen workers in the United States. Scholars and worker advocates have criticized recent free trade agreements for their lack of enforcement mechanisms and protections for workers in developing countries. They argue that this has encouraged a race to the bottom on the part of multi-national corporations who relocate to developing countries to take advantage of cheap labor costs, thereby costing U.S. workers’ jobs.

This article shifts the focus. Instead, it argues that …

Understanding Environmental, Health And Economic Activity Interactions Following Transition Of Ownership In Gold Mining Areas In Tanzania: A Case Of Private To Public, Sophia Rhee, Elias Charles Nyanza, Madison Condon, Joshua Fisher, Theresia Maduka, Anja Benshaul-Tolonen

Faculty Scholarship

Mining is an important source of revenue for many developing countries, however, the social, environmental and economic impacts of mining are often poorly monitored. The recent transition of a gold mine in Western Tanzania—from large-scale gold mine under private, multinational ownership, to medium-scale public and national owned mine with limited life length offers a prime opportunity to understand the implications of changes in ownership and scale on the local economy and community well-being. We conducted 44 semi-structured interviews with community members in four villages adjacent to the mine site. We find that the local economy and public service provision contracted …

Avoiding Pitfalls In The Determination Of Reliable Electrochemical Kinetics Parameters For The Cu2+ → Cu1+ Reduction Reaction In Deep Eutectic Solvents, Dai Shen, Katherine Steinberg, Rohan Akolkar

Faculty Scholarship

Deep eutectic solvents (DES), on account of their low-cost, non-flammability and electrochemical stability, are attracting attention for their potential use in applications such as electrodeposition and energy storage. In these applications, knowledge of the transport and electrochemical kinetics properties of DES is critically important. To date, attempts to measure the kinetics parameters of the Cu2+ +e Cu1+ reaction in ethaline DES have yielded a cathodic charge transfer coefficient (α) in the range of 0.2–0.3 suggesting an unexpected asymmetric polarization behavior. In the present work, we pursued a comprehensive study of the kinetics and transport properties of the aforementioned reaction. Using …

Democratizing Interpretation, Anya Bernstein

Faculty Scholarship

Judges interpreting statutes sometimes seem eager to outsource the work. They quote ordinary speakers to define a statutory term, point to how an audience understands it, or pin it down with interpretive canons. But sometimes conduct that appears to diminish someone’s power instead sneakily enhances it. So it is with these forms of interpretive outsourcing. Each seems to constrain judges’ authority by handing the reins to someone else, giving interpretation a democratized veneer. But in fact, each funnels power right back to the judge.

These outsourcing approaches show a disconnect between the questions judges pose and the methods they use …

Metabolic Impact Of Protein Feeding Prior To Moderate-Intensity Treadmill Exercise In A Fasted State: A Pilot Study, Bradley T. Gieske, Richard A. Stecker, Charles R. Smith, Kyle E. Witherbee, Patrick S. Harty, Robert Wildman, Chad M. Kerksick

Faculty Scholarship

Background

Augmenting fat oxidation is a primary goal of fitness enthusiasts and individuals desiring to improve their body composition. Performing aerobic exercise while fasted continues to be a popular strategy to achieve this outcome, yet little research has examined how nutritional manipulations influence energy expenditure and/or fat oxidation during and after exercise. Initial research has indicated that pre-exercise protein feeding may facilitate fat oxidation while minimizing protein degradation during exercise, but more research is needed to determine if the source of protein further influences such outcomes.

Methods

Eleven healthy, college-aged males (23.5 ± 2.1 years, 86.0 ± 15.6 kg, 184 …

Bureaucratic Resistance And The National Security State, Rebecca Ingber

Faculty Scholarship

Modern accounts of the national security state tend toward one of two opposing views of bureaucratic tensions within it: At one extreme, the executive branch bureaucracy is a shadowy “deep state,” unaccountable to the public or even to the elected President. On this account, bureaucratic obstacles to the President’s agenda are inherently suspect, even dangerous. At the other end, bureaucratic resistance to the President represents a necessary benevolent constraint on an otherwise imperial executive, the modern incarnation of the separation of powers, as the traditional checks on the President of the courts and Congress have fallen down on the job. …

Safety Of Creatine Supplementation In Active Adolescents And Youth: A Brief Review, Andrew R. Jagim, Richard A. Stecker, Patrick S. Harty, Jacob L. Erickson, Chad M. Kerksick

Faculty Scholarship

Creatine has been extensively researched and is well-supported as one of the most effective dietary supplements available. There is overwhelming support within the literature regarding the ability of creatine to augment performance following short term (5–7 days) and long-duration supplementation periods. There is also strong support for creatine regarding its safety profile and minimal risk for adverse events or any negative influence on markers of clinical health and safety. Recent research has also highlighted the ability of creatine to confer several health-related benefits in select clinical populations in addition to offering cognitive benefits. Creatine is also a popular supplement of …

The Business Of Ai Startups, James Bessen, Stephen Michael Impink, Lydia Reichensperger, Robert Seamans

Faculty Scholarship

New machine learning techniques have led to an acceleration of “artificial intelligence” (AI). Numerous papers have projected substantial job losses based on assessments of technical feasibility. But what is the actual impact? This paper reports on a survey of commercial AI startups, documenting rich detail about their businesses and their impacts on their customers. These firms report benefits of AI that are more often about enhancing human capabilities than replacing them. Their applications more often increase professional, managerial, and marketing jobs and decrease manual, clerical, and frontline service jobs. These startups sell to firms of different sizes, in different industries …

The Demise Of Drug Design Litigation Death By Federal Preemption, Aaron Twerski

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

After The Trump Era: A Constitutional Role Morality For Presidents And Members Of Congress, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

In the United States today, the behavior of the political branches is generally viewed as more damaging to the American constitutional system than is the behavior of the federal courts. Yet constitutional law scholarship continues to focus primarily on judges and judging. This Article suggests that such scholarship should develop for presidents and members of Congress what it has long advocated for judges: a role morality that imposes normative limits on the exercise of official discretion over and above strictly legal limits. The Article first grounds a role morality for federal elected officials in two purposes of the U.S. Constitution …

Tpp, Rcep And The Future Of Copyright Norm-Setting In The Asian Pacific, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

The past decade has seen two mega-regional intellectual property norm-setting exercises focusing on countries in the Asian Pacific region: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Taken together, these two mega-regional norm-setting exercises will have unlimited potential to shape future copyright norms in the Asian Pacific region.

For countries involved in either the TPP or RCEP negotiations, legal obligations concerning new protection and enforcement standards will have to be incorporated into domestic law once the applicable agreement enters into force. These standards can be quite burdensome, as they often exceed what is currently required by the …

Letter To Council Members Regarding Council Draft 2, Jane C. Ginsburg, June M. Besek

Faculty Scholarship

We understand that the ALI Council will consider Council Draft 2 (CD2) of the Restatement of the Law, Copyright (Copyright Restatement) project at its meeting on October 18-19, 2018. We have had – and continue to have – significant concerns about the project and the work to date. We note that numerous parties have expressed concerns about CD2, including the US Patent and Trademark Office, the American Bar Association’s Section of Intellectual Property Law, academics and other Advisers, and that the US Copyright Office and the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on Copyright and Literary Property have done so …

Avatars, Acting, And Imagination: Bringing New Techniques Into The Legal Classroom, Joy Kanwar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Practice And Tax Consequences Of Nonqualified Deferred Compensation, David I. Walker

Faculty Scholarship

Although nonqualified deferred compensation plans lack explicit tax preferences afforded qualified plans, it is well understood that nonqualified deferred compensation results in a joint tax advantage when employers earn a higher after‐tax return on deferred sums than employees could do on their own. Several commentators have proposed tax reform aimed at leveling the playing field between cash and nonqualified deferred compensation, but reform would not be easy or straightforward. This Article investigates nonqualified deferred compensation practices and shows that joint tax minimization often takes a backseat to accounting priorities and participant diversification concerns. In practice, the largest source of joint …

Supreme Verbosity: The Roberts Court's Expanding Legacy, Mary Margaret Penrose

Faculty Scholarship

The link between courts and the public is the written word. With rare exceptions, it is through judicial opinions that courts communicate with litigants, lawyers, other courts, and the community. Whatever the court’s statutory and constitutional status, the written word, in the end, is the source and the measure of the court’s authority.

It is therefore not enough that a decision be correct—it must also be fair and reasonable and readily understood. The burden of the judicial opinion is to explain and to persuade and to satisfy the world that the decision is principled and sound. What the court says, …

Disruptive Philanthropy: Chan-Zuckerberg, The Limited Liability Company, And The Millionaire Next Door, Dana Brakman Reiser

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ultrastructural Changes In Peripheral Blood Leukocytes In Α-Synuclein Knockout Mice, Hammad Tashkandi, Afshin Shameli, Clifford V. Harding, Robert W. Maitta

Faculty Scholarship

Effects of α-synuclein deficiency on cellular blood components have not been extensively investigated. This study evaluated ultrastructural changes of leukocytes in α-synuclein knockout (KO) mice using electron microscopy (EM). The following ultrastructural characteristics were quantified in leukocytes: mitochondria, primary granules, specific granules (SG), Golgi apparatus (GA), inclusions, rough-endoplasmic reticulum (RER), smooth-endoplasmic reticulum (SER), and cellular projections (CP). EM showed increased numbers or amounts of SG, inclusions, and SER in KO group (5.3 ± 4.5 in WT vs. 14.1 ± 10.3 in KO, p = 0.02; 0.4 ± 0.9 in WT vs. 3.2 ± 2.8 in KO, p = 0.007; and …

Patient Safety And The Ageing Physician: A Qualitative Study Of Key Stakeholder Attitudes And Experiences, Andrew A. White, William M. Sage, Paulina H. Osinska, Monica J. Salgaonkar, Thomas H. Gallagher

Faculty Scholarship

Background Unprecedented numbers of physicians are practicing past age 65. Unlike other safety-conscious industries, such as aviation, medicine lacks robust systems to ensure late-career physician (LCP) competence while promoting career longevity.

Objective To describe the attitudes of key stakeholders about the oversight of LCPs and principles that might shape policy development.

Design Thematic content analysis of interviews and focus groups.

Participants 40 representatives of stakeholder groups including state medical board leaders, institutional chief medical officers, senior physicians (>65 years old), patient advocates (patients or family members in advocacy roles), nurses and junior physicians. Participants represented a balanced sample from …

Taxing & Zapping Marijuana: Blockchain Compliance In The Trump Administration Part 4, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Brendan Magauran

Faculty Scholarship

This is the fourth of a five-part series dealing with the rescission by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions of the Obama-era policy that discouraged federal prosecutors from bringing charges in all but the most serious marijuana cases.

This article focuses on retail-level frauds. It proposes a limited purpose crypto currency. At the retail level the MJ Freeway or METRC software essentially functions as a marijuana-industry-specific point of sale (POS) system. It is common in retail for different industry sectors (restaurants, hotels, convenience stores, or gasoline stations) to have market-specific POS systems that are molded to fit the unique characteristics of …