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Full-Text Articles in Law
Small Data Surveillance V. Big Data Cybersurveillance, Margaret Hu
Small Data Surveillance V. Big Data Cybersurveillance, Margaret Hu
Margaret Hu
This Article highlights some of the critical distinctions between small data surveillance and big data cybersurveillance as methods of intelligence gathering. Specifically, in the intelligence context, it appears that “collect-it-all” tools in a big data world can now potentially facilitate the construction, by the intelligence community, of other individuals' digital avatars. The digital avatar can be understood as a virtual representation of our digital selves and may serve as a potential proxy for an actual person. This construction may be enabled through processes such as the data fusion of biometric and biographic data, or the digital data fusion of the …
Grounding Drones: Big Brother’S Tool Box Needs Regulation Not Elimination, Melanie M. Reid
Grounding Drones: Big Brother’S Tool Box Needs Regulation Not Elimination, Melanie M. Reid
Melanie M. Reid
One of the most significant contemporary issues in privacy law relates to law enforcement’s new domestic surveillance tool: unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as, drones. Law enforcement’s use of aerial surveillance as an investigatory tool is currently under attack. In the past, if law enforcement chose to follow a suspect throughout the day, either on the ground or in the air, they need not worry about seeking a warrant or determining whether probable cause or reasonable suspicion exists to justify their surveillance. Aerial surveillance of criminal suspects has been considered outside the protections of Fourth Amendment law. In the 1980’s, …
Chasing Bits Across Borders, Patricia L. Bellia
Chasing Bits Across Borders, Patricia L. Bellia
Patricia L. Bellia
As computer crime becomes more widespread, countries increasingly confront difficulties in securing evidence stored in electronic form outside of their borders. These difficulties have prompted two related responses. Some states have asserted a broad power to conduct remote cross-border searches - that is, to use computers within their territory to access and examine data physically stored outside of their territory. Other states have pressed for recognition of a remote cross-border search power in international fora, arguing that such a power is an essential weapon in efforts to combat computer crime. This Article explores these state responses and develops a framework …
The Fourth Amendment Status Of Stored E-Mail: The Law Professors' Brief In Warshak V. United States, Susan Freiwald, Patricia L. Bellia
The Fourth Amendment Status Of Stored E-Mail: The Law Professors' Brief In Warshak V. United States, Susan Freiwald, Patricia L. Bellia
Patricia L. Bellia
This paper contains the law professors' brief in the landmark case of Warshak v. United States, the first federal appellate case to recognize a reasonable expectation of privacy in electronic mail stored with an Internet Service Provider (ISP). While the 6th circuit's opinion was subsequently vacated and reheard en banc, the panel decision will remain extremely significant for its requirement that law enforcement agents must generally acquire a warrant before compelling an ISP to disclose its subscriber's stored e-mails. The law professors' brief, co-authored by Susan Freiwald (University of San Francisco) and Patricia L. Bellia (Notre Dame) and signed by …
Fourth Amendment Protection For Stored E-Mail, Patricia L. Bellia, Susan Freiwald
Fourth Amendment Protection For Stored E-Mail, Patricia L. Bellia, Susan Freiwald
Patricia L. Bellia
The question of whether and how the Fourth Amendment regulates government access to stored e-mail remains open and pressing. A panel of the Sixth Circuit recently held in Warshak v. United States, 490 F.3d 455 (6th Cir. 2007), that users generally retain a reasonable expectation of privacy in the e-mails they store with their Internet Service Providers (ISPs), which implies that government agents must generally acquire a warrant before they may compel ISPs to disclose their users' stored e-mails. The Sixth Circuit, however, is reconsidering the case en banc. This Article examines the nature of stored e-mail surveillance and argues …
Fighting Cybercrime After United States V. Jones, David C. Gray, Danielle Keats Citron, Liz Clark Rinehart
Fighting Cybercrime After United States V. Jones, David C. Gray, Danielle Keats Citron, Liz Clark Rinehart
David C. Gray
In a landmark non-decision last term, five Justices of the United States Supreme Court would have held that citizens possess a Fourth Amendment right to expect that certain quantities of information about them will remain private, even if they have no such expectations with respect to any of the information or data constituting that whole. This quantitative approach to evaluating and protecting Fourth Amendment rights is certainly novel and raises serious conceptual, doctrinal, and practical challenges. In other works, we have met these challenges by engaging in a careful analysis of this “mosaic theory” and by proposing that courts focus …
Fighting Cybercrime After United States V. Jones, David C. Gray, Danielle Keats Citron, Liz Clark Rinehart
Fighting Cybercrime After United States V. Jones, David C. Gray, Danielle Keats Citron, Liz Clark Rinehart
Danielle Keats Citron
In a landmark non-decision last term, five Justices of the United States Supreme Court would have held that citizens possess a Fourth Amendment right to expect that certain quantities of information about them will remain private, even if they have no such expectations with respect to any of the information or data constituting that whole. This quantitative approach to evaluating and protecting Fourth Amendment rights is certainly novel and raises serious conceptual, doctrinal, and practical challenges. In other works, we have met these challenges by engaging in a careful analysis of this “mosaic theory” and by proposing that courts focus …
The Right To Quantitative Privacy, David Gray, Danielle Citron
The Right To Quantitative Privacy, David Gray, Danielle Citron
David C. Gray
We are at the cusp of a historic shift in our conceptions of the Fourth Amendment driven by dramatic advances in surveillance technology. Governments and their private sector agents continue to invest billions of dollars in massive data-mining projects, advanced analytics, fusion centers, and aerial drones, all without serious consideration of the constitutional issues that these technologies raise. In United States v. Jones, the Supreme Court signaled an end to its silent acquiescence in this expanding surveillance state. In that case, five justices signed concurring opinions defending a revolutionary proposition: that citizens have Fourth Amendment interests in substantial quantities of …
The Right To Quantitative Privacy, David C. Gray, Danielle Keats Citron
The Right To Quantitative Privacy, David C. Gray, Danielle Keats Citron
Danielle Keats Citron
We are at the cusp of a historic shift in our conceptions of the Fourth Amendment driven by dramatic advances in surveillance technology. Governments and their private sector agents continue to invest billions of dollars in massive data-mining projects, advanced analytics, fusion centers, and aerial drones, all without serious consideration of the constitutional issues that these technologies raise. In United States v. Jones, the Supreme Court signaled an end to its silent acquiescence in this expanding surveillance state. In that case, five justices signed concurring opinions defending a revolutionary proposition: that citizens have Fourth Amendment interests in substantial quantities of …