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Full-Text Articles in Law
Escaping Circularity: The Fourth Amendment And Property Law, João Marinotti
Escaping Circularity: The Fourth Amendment And Property Law, João Marinotti
Articles by Maurer Faculty
The Supreme Court’s “reasonable expectation of privacy” test under the Fourth Amendment has often been criticized as circular, and hence subjective and unpredictable. The Court is presumed to base its decisions on society’s expectations of privacy, while society’s expectations of privacy are themselves presumed to be based on the Court’s judgements. As a solution to this problem, property law has been repeatedly propounded as an allegedly independent, autonomous area of law from which the Supreme Court can glean reasonable expectations of privacy without falling back into tautological reasoning.
Such an approach presupposes that property law is not itself circular. If …
Judicial Activism And Fourteenth Amendment Privacy Claims: The Allure Of Originalism And The Unappreciated Promise Of Constrained Nonoriginalism, Daniel O. Conkle
Judicial Activism And Fourteenth Amendment Privacy Claims: The Allure Of Originalism And The Unappreciated Promise Of Constrained Nonoriginalism, Daniel O. Conkle
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Among other meanings, "judicial activism" can be defined as judicial decisionmaking that frustrates majoritarian self-government and that is unconstrained by law. So understood, judicial activism is presumptively problematic, because it frustrates customary democratic and judicial norms.
In this essay, I address originalist and nonoriginalist responses to the presumptive problem of judicial activism in the context of Fourteenth Amendment privacy claims, including claims relating to abortion, sexual conduct, and same-sex marriage. I argue that originalism is an overrated solution, largely because current understandings of originalism, despite claims to the contrary, do not provide standards of decision that are sufficiently clear to …
Government Data Mining: The Need For A Legal Framework, Fred H. Cate
Government Data Mining: The Need For A Legal Framework, Fred H. Cate
Articles by Maurer Faculty
The article examines the government's growing appetite for collecting personal data. Often justified on the basis of protecting national security, government data mining programs sweep up data collected through hundreds of regulatory and administrative programs, and combine them with huge datasets obtained from industry. The result is an aggregation of personal data - the "digital footprints" of individual lives - never before seen. These data warehouses are then used to determine who can work and participate in Social Security programs, who can board airplanes and enter government buildings, and who is likely to pose a threat in the future, even …
Three Theories Of Substantive Due Process, Daniel O. Conkle
Three Theories Of Substantive Due Process, Daniel O. Conkle
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Substantive due process is in serious disarray, with the Supreme Court simultaneously embracing two, and perhaps three, competing and inconsistent theories of decisionmaking. The first two theories, historical tradition and reasoned judgment, have explicit and continuing support in the Court's decisions. Under the theory of historical tradition, substantive due process affords presumptive constitutional protection only to liberties that are "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." By contrast, the theory of reasoned judgment is far more expansive, permitting the Court to identify rights independently, through a process that amounts to philosophical analysis or political-moral reasoning. The third theory, evolving …
Some Queries About Privacy And Constitutional Rights, Michael Grossberg
Some Queries About Privacy And Constitutional Rights, Michael Grossberg
Articles by Maurer Faculty
No abstract provided.
High Technology, The Human Image, And Constitutional Value, Patrick L. Baude
High Technology, The Human Image, And Constitutional Value, Patrick L. Baude
Articles by Maurer Faculty
No abstract provided.