Law Commons^™

City Of Los Angeles V. Patel: The Upcoming Supreme Court Case No One Is Talking About, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

Focusing solely on whether a hotel owner has a reasonable expectation of privacy in a guest registry is akin to asking whether Verizon Wireless has a reasonable expectation of privacy in its customer lists. The answer to those questions should be yes, but the sixty-four thousand dollar question—and the proverbial elephant in the room—is whether hotel occupants and cell phone users forfeit their privacy rights simply because they check into the Beverly Hills Hotel or call their significant others from a Smart Phone on the Santa Monica Freeway. Put differently, a hotel owner’s expectation of privacy in a guest registry …

City Of Los Angeles V. Patel: The Upcoming Supreme Court Case No One Is Talking About, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

Focusing solely on whether a hotel owner has a reasonable expectation of privacy in a guest registry is akin to asking whether Verizon Wireless has a reasonable expectation of privacy in its customer lists. The answer to those questions should be yes, but the sixty-four thousand dollar question—and the proverbial elephant in the room—is whether hotel occupants and cell phone users forfeit their privacy rights simply because they check into the Beverly Hills Hotel or call their significant others from a Smart Phone on the Santa Monica Freeway.

Put differently, a hotel owner’s expectation of privacy in a guest registry …

Regulation Of Chemical Risks: Lessons For Tsca Reform From Canada And The European Union, Adam Abelkop, John D. Graham

Adam Abelkop

The United States Congress is considering reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976. This Article compares recent reforms in Europe and Canada in order to draw lessons for TSCA reform. In 2006, the European Union enacted the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulation while Canada used existing authority under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) of 1999 to initiate the 2006 Chemicals Management Plan (CMP). Focusing on the tens of thousands of industrial chemicals now in use in the US, we offer several suggestions for TSCA reform based on the European and Canadian experiences. …

The Replicator And The First Amendment, Kyle Langvardt

Kyle Langvardt

As 3D printing technology improves, the theoretical endpoint comes into view: a machine that, like the “replicators” of Star Trek, can produce anything the user asks for out of thin air from a digital blueprint. Real-life technology may never reach that endpoint, but our progress toward it has accelerated sharply over the past few years—sharply enough, indeed, for legal scholars to weigh in on the phenomenon’s disruptive potential in areas ranging from intellectual property to gun rights. This paper is concerned with the First Amendment status of the digital blueprints. As of August 2014, it is the first law review …

Balancing The Scales: Adhuc Sub Judice Li Est Or Trial By Media, Casey J. Cooper

Casey J Cooper

The right to freedom of expression and free press is recognized under almost all major human rights instruments and domestic legal systems—common and civil—in the world. However, what do you do when a fundamental right conflicts with another equally fundamental right, like the right to a fair trial? In the United States, the freedom of speech, encompassing the freedom of the press, goes nearly unfettered: the case is not the same for other common law countries. In light of cultural and historic facts, institutional factors, modern realities, and case-law, this Article contends that current American jurisprudence does not take into …

An Other History Of Knowledge And Decision In Precautionary Approaches To Sustainability, Saptarishi Bandopadhyay

Saptarishi Bandopadhyay

In this paper, I offer an alternative reading of precaution with the hope of recovering the capacity of this ethic to facilitate legal and political decisions. Despite being a popular instrument of international environmental governance, decision-makers continue to understand this principle as reflecting an immemorial and natural instinct for preserving the environment in cases of scientific uncertainty. Such a reading, however, ignores the history and moral basis underlying this principle and thereby renders it obvious, and automatically adaptable to the politics of Sustainable Development. By offering a thicker history of precautionary governance at exemplary moments of ecological crisis I trace …

Defining Death: A Call For The Reformation Of The Standard For Declaration Of Death In The Modern Era, Jayme M. Reisler

Jayme M Reisler

Prior to the mid 20th century, a declaration of death was a relatively definite determination because the functioning of each vital organ was inextricably linked to the other. With the advent of the positive-pressure mechanical ventilator, however, came the loss of integration among these organ systems. The ability to maintain metabolic functioning of a patient as well as the ability to successfully transplant viable organs have given rise to a host of legal issues revolving around the determination of death. The main issue that arises is two fold. On one hand, such medical technology can prolong an individual’s life even …

Preventing Cold War: Militarization In The Southernmost Continent And The Antarctic Treaty System's Fading Effectiveness, Dillon A. Redding

Dillon A Redding

This note argues that the preservation of Antarctica for peaceful research and internationally cooperative activity as envisioned originally by the Antarctic Treaty in 1961 has gone unrealized amid growing international interest in the strategic advantages offered by Antarctica, including the possibility of large swathes of mineral deposits and optimal locations for satellite stations. Part 1 describes the motivations behind the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) and outlines the relevant provisions of the Antarctic Treaty. Part 2 examines the military advantages to a state presence in Antarctica and the ways in which the ATS allows for such a presence to be carried …

Hacking The Anti-Hacking Statute: Using The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act To Secure Public Data Exclusivity, Nicholas A. Wolfe

Nicholas A Wolfe

Work smarter, not harder. Perhaps no other saying better captures the era of hyper-productivity and automation in which we live. Titles such as ‘Top Ten Hacks to Avoid Paywalls,’ ‘Five ways You’re Wasting Your time,’ and ‘One Weird Trick’ fly across our computer screens on a commoditized basis. [1] These tips and tricks help us automate our lives and get more done, faster. Better living through automation. However, as these shortcut solutions get better and automation advances, a question arises. When does working smarter cross the line into cheating?

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was designed to draw this …

Virtual Currencies: Bitcoin & What Now After Liberty Reserve, Silk Road, And Mt. Gox?, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

During 2013, the U.S. Treasury Department evoked the first use of the 2001 Patriot Act to exclude virtual currency provider Liberty Reserve from the U.S. financial system. This article will discuss: the regulation of virtual currencies; cybercrimes and payment systems; darknets, Tor and the “deep web;” Bitcoin; Liberty Reserve; Silk Road and Mt. Gox. Virtual currencies have quickly become a reality, gaining significant traction in a very short period of time, and are evolving rapidly. Virtual currencies present particularly difficult law enforcement challenges because of their: ability to transcend national borders in the fraction of a second; unique jurisdictional issues; …

Bargaining In The Shadow Of Big Data, Dru Stevenson, Nicholas J. Wagoner

Dru Stevenson

Attorney bargaining has traditionally taken place in the shadow of trial, as litigants alter their pretrial behavior—including their willingness to negotiate a settlement—based on their forecast of the outcome at trial and associated costs. Lawyers bargaining in the shadow of trial have traditionally relied on their knowledge of precedent, intuition, and previous interactions with the presiding judge and opposing counsel to forecast trial outcomes and litigation costs. Today, however, technology for leveraging legal data is moving the practice of law into the shadow of the trends and patterns observable in aggregated litigation data. In this Article, we describe the tools …

Back To The Future: The Constitution Requires Reasonableness And Particularity—Introducing The “Seize But Don’T Search” Doctrine, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean

Adam Lamparello

Issuing one-hundred or fewer opinions per year, the United States Supreme Court cannot keep pace with opinions that match technological advancement. As a result, in Riley v. California and United States v. Wurie, the Court needs to announce a broader principle that protects privacy in the digital age. That principle, what we call “seize but don’t search,” recognizes that the constitutional touchstone for all searches is reasonableness.

When do present-day circumstances—the evolution in the Government’s surveillance capabilities, citizens’ phone habits, and the relationship between the NSA and telecom companies—become so thoroughly unlike those considered by the Supreme Court thirty-four years …

Foreseeability Decoded, Meiring De Villiers

Meiring de Villiers

The Article reviews the conceptual and doctrinal roles of the foreseeability doctrine in negligence law, and analyzes its application in cases where a new technology or unexplored scientific principle contributed to a plaintiff’s harm. It adopts the common law definition of foreseeability as a systematic relationship between a defendant’s wrongdoing and the plaintiff’s harm, and demonstrates translation of the concept into the language of science so that the common law meaning of the foreseeability doctrine is preserved. An analysis of the foreseeability of HIV/AIDS as a blood-borne risk illustrates application of the concept to contemporary issues in medical science.

Transnationalization On The Technique Of Assisted Human Reproduction, Edna Raquel Hogemann

EDNA RAQUEL HOGEMANN

This paper's purpose is to present a reflective analysis about the process of transnationalization in which the technique of assisted human reproduction has been going to the extent that such a procedure has been revealed as a true "fertility tourism", offered through packages for those people who have financial conditions, but cannot through natural means to realize the dream of membership. Through the dialectic method of discourse, promoting the comparison of the thought of many authors who focus on issues such as globalization, commodification of human and technical exacerbation detriment of humans and their interpersonal relations, the authors seek to …

An Empirical Study: A Socio-Legal Approach To Gauging Attitudes To Intellectual Property Rights, Faris K. Nesheiwat, Mike Adcock

Ferris K Nesheiwat

This article seeks to provide a socio-legal framework for the examination of the attitude of a section of the Jordanian public towards intellectual property rights (IPRs), using copyright protected software as an example; it provides an overview of perceptions of IPRs within an Arabic and predominantly Muslim society, and examines how such perceptions impact attitudes towards abiding with, and enforcement of, IPRs. Through its analytical value and empirical research, this paper fills a void in the availability of reliable empirical data in Jordan as part of the analysis to gauge the impact of intellectual property (IP) laws. A review of …