Law Commons^™

Congressional Cybersecurity Oversight: Who’S Who And How It Works, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

Cybersecurity remains perhaps the greatest challenge to the economic and physical well being of governments, individuals, and business worldwide. During recent months the United States has witnessed many disruptive and expensive cyber breaches. No single U.S. governmental agency or congressional committee maintains primary responsibility for the numerous issues related to cybersecurity. Good oversight stands at the core of good government. Oversight is Congress’s way of making sure that the administration is carrying out federal law in the way Congress intended. So many aspects of cybersecurity have the potential for use by: terrorists; by foreign entities as a tool to conduct …

The New Wild West: Preventing Money Laundering In The Bitcoin Network, Kavid Singh

Kavid Singh

Bitcoin is the most popular online decentralized currency in the world. Created by an enigmatic figure, Satoshi Nakamoto, in 2009, its propagation and use has caused heated controversy. On the legal side of its use, businesses both large and small have started to accept bitcoins as a form of payment. On the illegal side of its use, large quantities of bitcoins worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been stolen from businesses and large Bitcoin currency exchanges. The aim of this article is to introduce workable federal regulation that will help deter money laundering, a pervasive problem in the world …

Will More, Better, Cheaper, And Faster Monitoring Improve Environmental Management?, Ryan P. Kelly

Ryan P Kelly

Two critical problems in environmental management are a lack of primary data and the difficulty of assessing the environmental impacts of human activities. Producing the information necessary to address these twin challenges is often difficult and expensive, which impedes decisionmaking in environmental management. I focus here on the possibility of making data collection more powerful and more cost-effective with a suite of analyses made tractable by emerging technology for genetic analysis. More, better, cheaper, and faster information about the planet’s living resources promises to influence a wide range of legal and policy processes—from Clean Water Act compliance and related public …

U.S. Government Counterterrorism Asset Freezes: Regulatory Seizures In A Digital Age Of Terrorism, Adam S. Wallwork

Adam S Wallwork

This Article addresses the question of when, if ever, the Department of the Treasury’s counterterrorism asset freezes against US persons (US citizens, resident aliens, and US-based organizations) violate the Fourth Amendment. It addresses two questions that currently divide the federal courts: (1) whether OFAC blocking orders are seizures subject to the Fourth Amendment and (2) whether the Fourth Amendment’s warrant and probable-cause requirements apply to OFAC counterterrorism blocking orders if these orders are in fact seizures.

My Originalist analysis of OFAC counterterrorism blocking orders draws on evidence of the Framers’ original understanding of “unreasonable . . . seizures,” including the …

After Privacy: The Rise Of Facebook, The Fall Of Wikileaks, And Singapore’S Personal Data Protection Act 2012, Simon Chesterman

Simon Chesterman

This article discusses the changing ways in which information is produced, stored, and shared — exemplified by the rise of social-networking sites like Facebook and controversies over the activities of WikiLeaks — and the implications for privacy and data protection. Legal protections of privacy have always been reactive, but the coherence of any legal regime has also been undermined by the lack of a strong theory of what privacy is. There is more promise in the narrower field of data protection. Singapore, which does not recognise a right to privacy, has positioned itself as an e-commerce hub but had no …

From Bad To Worst: Assessing The Long Term Consequences Of Four Very Bad Fcc Decisions, Rob M. Frieden

Rob Frieden

Far too many major decisions of the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) rely on flawed assumptions about the current and future telecommunications marketplace. If the FCC incorrectly overstates the current state of competition, it risks exacerbating its mistake going forward if actual competition proves unsustainable, or lackluster. In many key decisions the FCC cited robust competition in current and future markets as the basis for decisions that relax restrictions on incumbents, abandon strategies for promoting competition, or apply statutory definitions of services that trigger limited government oversight. The Commission ignores the secondary and tertiary consequences of decisions that deprive it of …

Invoking And Avoiding The First Amendment: How Internet Service Providers Leverage Their Status As Both Content Creators And Neutral Conduits, Rob M. Frieden

Rob Frieden

Much of the policy debate and scholarly literature on network neutrality has addressed whether the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) has statutory authority to require Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) to operate in a nondiscriminatory manner. Such analysis largely focuses on questions about jurisdiction, the scope of lawful regulation, and the balance of power between stakeholders, generally adverse to government oversight, and government agencies, apparently willing to overcome the same inclination. The public policy debate primarily considers micro-level issues, without much consideration of broader concerns such as First Amendment values. While professing to support marketplace resource allocation and a regulation-free Internet, the …

The Failure Of Adversary Process In The Administrative State, Bryan T. Camp

Bryan T Camp

In a series of hearings in 1997 and 1998, Congress heard allegations that the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS” or “Service”) was abusing taxpayers during the process of collecting taxes. The resulting distrust of the tax bureaucracy led Congress to create a special adversary proceeding providing for judicial review of IRS collection decisions. The proceeding is beguilingly titled “Collection Due Process” (and commonly referred to as “CDP”). My study of CDP’s structure, operation, and of 976 court decisions issued through the end of 2006 demonstrates that it has failed to fulfill its promise. Of the over 15 million collection decisions made …

Natural Justice And Its Applications In Administrative Law, Mubashshir Sarshar

Mubashshir Sarshar

No abstract provided.