Law Commons^™

Pretrial Commitment And The Fourth Amendment, Laurent Sacharoff

Notre Dame Law Review

Today, the Fourth Amendment Warrant Clause governs arrest warrants and search warrants only. But in the founding era, the Warrant Clause governed a third type of warrant: the “warrant of commitment.” Judges issued these warrants to jail defendants pending trial. This Article argues that the Fourth Amendment Warrant Clause, with its oath and probable cause standard, should be understood today to apply to this third type of warrant. That means the Warrant Clause would govern any initial appearance where a judge first commits a defendant—a process that currently falls far short of fulfilling its constitutional and historical function. History supports …

Intellectual Property And The Myth Of Nonrivalry, James Y. Stern

Notre Dame Law Review

The concept of rivalry is central to modern accounts of property. When one per-son’s use of a resource is incompatible with another’s, a system of rights to determine its use may be necessary. It is commonly asserted, however, that informational goods like inventions and expressive works are nonrivalrous and that intellectual property rights must therefore be subject to special limitation, if they should even exist at all. This Article examines the idea of rivalry more closely and makes a series of claims about the analysis of rivalrousness for purposes of such arguments. Within that frame-work, it argues that rivalry should …

Extended Privacy For Extended Reality: Xr Technology Has 99 Problems And Privacy Is Several Of Them, Suchismita Pahi, Calli Schroeder

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

Americans are rapidly adopting innovative technologies which are pushing the frontiers of reality. But, when they look at how their privacy is protected within the new extended reality (XR), they will find that U.S. privacy laws fall short. The privacy risks inherent in XR are inadequately addressed by current U.S. data privacy laws or courtcreated frameworks that purport to protect the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches. Many scholars, including Ryan Calo, Danielle Citron, Sherry Colb, Margaret Hu, Orin Kerr, Kirsten Martin, Paul Ohm, Daniel Solove, Rebecca Wexler, Shoshana Zuboff, and others, have highlighted the gaps in U.S. …

A Solution For The Third-Party Doctrine In A Time Of Data Sharing, Contact Tracing, And Mass Surveillance, Tonja Jacobi, Dustin Stonecipher

Notre Dame Law Review

Today, information is shared almost constantly. People share their DNA to track their ancestry or for individualized health information; they instruct Alexa to purchase products or provide directions; and, now more than ever, they use videoconferencing technology in their homes. According to the third-party doctrine, the government can access all such information without a warrant or without infringing on Fourth Amendment privacy protections. This exposure of vast amounts of highly personal data to government intrusion is permissible because the Supreme Court has interpreted the third-party doctrine as a per se rule. However, that interpretation rests on an improper understanding of …

Covid-19 Sewage Testing As A Police Surveillance Infrastructure, Elizabeth E. Joh

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

This essay argues that sewage testing will outlive the pandemic and become a part of a general policing surveillance infrastructure. We risk adopting this surveillance method without taking care to assess the legal and policy questions raised by its use. Wastewater can provide early clues not just for COVID-19 outbreaks, but also for the presence (and assumed use) of opioids, methamphetamines, and other illegal drugs. Sewage testing at the University of California, San Diego, recently led to an alert that an infected person was “someone who used a restroom [at a specified residence hall] from 6 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. …

Note: Home-Sharing, Ride-Sharing, And Data-Sharing: Fourth Amendment Hurdles For Local Governance Of The Sharing Economy, Matthew J. Disler

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

Cities’ attempts to regulate the sharing economy reveal a conflict between local governance interests and Fourth Amendment doctrine. Although sharing economy industries present local problems, from housing affordability and land-use regulations to traffic congestion and sidewalk safety, cities attempt to effectuate their policies through data reporting requirements that are vulnerable to Fourth Amendment challenge. Businesses have successfully argued that cities’ reporting requirements are unconstitutional searches because they have an unreasonably broad scope and lack an opportunity for pre-compliance review. This Article argues that this impasse results from recent developments that have lent additional confusion to the Fourth Amendment’s administrative search …

Note: The "Border" Of Constitutional Electronic Privacy Rights: Electronic Searches And Seizures At The United States' Territorial Limits, Ryan Garippo

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

In the recent challenge brought before the First Circuit, the court was not required to directly answer what level of particularized suspicion is required for a forensic search. Although, its holding is consistent with the jurisprudence set forth by both the Fourth and Eleventh Circuits. Furthermore, it is important to note that there have been legal challenges brought on this issue in the Fifth, Seventh, and Tenth Circuits. However, in each of these cases, the court chose not to decide the constitutional question because it was not outcome determinative for the litigants in question. This disagreement between the federal circuit …

Note: Facial Recognition Technology And The Constitution, Mark Simonitis

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

Over the past several years, we have seen an increase in the adoption and use of facial recognition technology (FRT). Both private corporations and government organizations have increasingly used this technology over the past several years, and law enforcement agencies have been just as eager to utilize FRT in their operations. The potential uses for this technology in a law enforcement capacity are numerous. For example, FRT could be used to identify criminals whose faces were caught on surveillance footage, or it could be used to help identify citizens during border crossings. However, it is easy to imagine how an …

The Needle And The Damage Done: Mitchell V. Wisconsin'S Sweeping Rule For Warrantless Blood Draws On Unconscious Dui Suspects, Dyllan Taxman

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

In a normal year, the annual death toll from drunk driving accidents in the United States will roughly equal the total number of victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks and service members killed in the War on Terror combined. And while every state has enacted increasingly progressive laws to prevent and punish driving under the influence (DUI), episodes of drunk driving remain consistent year to year and less than one percent of self-reported drunk drivers are arrested. Drunken and drugged driving is, both in lay terms and legally speaking, a compelling public issue. But the Fourth Amendment of the …

Fisa Section 702: Does Querying Incidentally Collected Information Constitute A Search Under The Fourth Amendment?, Rachel G. Miller

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

An inherent source of conflict in the United States exists between protecting national security and safeguarding individual civil liberties. Throughout history, Americans have consistently been skeptical and fearful of the government abusing its power by spying on Americans. In an effort to curtail government abuses through surveillance, President Carter and Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA). The purpose of FISA was to establish a “statutory procedure authorizing the use of electronic surveillance in the United States for foreign intelligence purposes.” FISA provides the government with the authority to engage in electronic surveillance, targeted at foreign powers …

A New Third-Party Doctrine: The Telephone Metadata Program And Carpenter V. United States, Mary-Kathryn Takeuchi

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note will answer the question of whether bulk metadata collection is still defensible under the third-party doctrine. It ultimately concludes that Chief Justice Roberts incorrectly asserted that Carpenter v. United States will not impact the application of the third-party doctrine to collection techniques involving national security, and that the warrantless collection of bulk metadata under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is no longer defensible by the third-party doctrine. In Section I.A, this Note discusses traditional Fourth Amendment jurisprudence in Katz v. United States and the establishment of the third-party doctrine as a bright-line rule in United States v. Miller …

The Demise Of § 1983 Malicious Prosecution: Separating Tort Law From The Fourth Amendment, Erin E. Mcmannon

Notre Dame Law Review

The common-law tort of malicious prosecution originally developed to provide a remedy for plaintiffs who were unjustly prosecuted in a criminal proceeding. Today, malicious prosecution actions can be brought to redress wrongful civil actions as well. The “central thrust” of an action for malicious prosecution is a right not to be involved in an unjustified litigation.

This Note suggests that the confusion in this area of law derives from the use of the language of malicious prosecution tort law to describe what really amounts to a Fourth Amendment seizure claim under § 1983. There is no constitutional right to be …

Data Breaches, Identity Theft, And Article Iii Standing: Will The Supreme Court Resolve The Split In The Circuits?, Bradford C. Mank

Notre Dame Law Review

In data breach cases, the plaintiff typically alleges that the defendant used inadequate computer security to protect the plaintiff’s personal data. In most, but not all cases, the plaintiff cannot prove that a hacker or thief has actually used or sold the data to the plaintiff’s detriment. In most cases, a plaintiff alleges that the defendant’s failure to protect his personal data has caused him damages by increasing his risk of suffering actual identity theft in the future and therefore imposed costs on the plaintiff when he reasonably takes measures to prevent future unauthorized third-party data access by purchasing credit …

A Fourth Amendment Framework For The Free Exercise Clause, Adam Lamparello

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.

Dna And Distrust, Kerry Abrams, Brandon L. Garrett

Notre Dame Law Review

Over the past three decades, government regulation and funding of DNA testing has reshaped the use of genetic evidence across various fields, including criminal law, family law, and employment law. Courts have struggled with questions of when and whether to treat genetic evidence as implicating individual rights, policy trade-offs, or federalism problems. We identify two modes of genetic testing: identification testing, used to establish a person’s identity, and predictive testing, which seeks to predict outcomes for a person. Judges and lawmakers have often drawn a bright line at predictive testing, while allowing uninhibited identification testing. The U.S. Supreme Court in …

Whose Line Is It Anyway? Probable Cause And Historical Cell Site Data, Megan L. Mckeown

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note argues that the “specific and articulable facts” standard does not accord with the intent of the drafters of the Fourth Amendment to protect individuals’ reasonable expectation of privacy. Although allowing the government access to historical cell site data to use as evidence in a criminal proceeding aids law enforcement, legislators must recognize the risks that flow from allowing the government to retrieve cell phone location information without probable cause. At least one study suggests that the public is losing confidence in their ability to control personal information, ultimately creating public discomfort with and suspicion of government surveillance. If …