Law Commons^™

Wiretapping The Internet: Analyzing The Application Of The Federal Wiretap Act’S Party Exception Online, Hayden Driscoll

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The federal Wiretap Act—originally enacted to curtail the government’s unbridled use of wiretaps to monitor telephonic communications—was amended in 1986 to provide a private right of action, extending the Act’s Fourth Amendment-like protections to private intrusions. Since the advent of the internet, plaintiffs have attempted to predicate claims of unauthorized online privacy intrusions on the Wiretap Act. In response, defendants claim they are parties to the communications at issue and should be absolved of liability under the Act’s party exception. The federal circuit courts of appeal disagree on how the party exception applies in the internet context. This Note evaluates …

Leave Them Kids Alone: State Constitutional Protections For Gender-Affirming Healthcare, Jessica Matsuda

Washington and Lee Law Review

State legislatures across the nation are continually targeting the rights of transgender individuals with a variety of laws affecting everything from bathrooms to medical care. One particularly invasive type of legislation, the gender-affirming healthcare ban, seeks to prohibit all forms of healthcare that align a person’s physical traits with their gender identity for individuals under eighteen. Bans like this severely impede the treatment necessary for transgender youth suffering from gender dysphoria, which carries serious physical consequences and sometimes fatal psychological repercussions. As legislative sessions pass, more and more states are introducing and actually enacting these bans

Striking down these bans …

California And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Statutory Employee Classification Scheme, Richard H. Gilliland Iii

Washington and Lee Law Review

The battle over worker classification between state governments, on the one hand, and gig economy companies, on the other, has raged since at least the first time someone ordered an Uber. Nowhere has this battle played out more prominently in recent years than in California. In 2019, the state legislature passed AB 5, a bill which adopted a stringent independent contractor standard and effectively classified all gig economy workers as employees of the companies whose apps they use to find work. AB 5’s ripple effects were enormous—the significant popularity of gig economy apps among consumers launched what might have been …

Big Little Lies: How Loopholes In The Small Business Act Allow Large Businesses To Profit, Halley Townsend

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

The Small Business Administration (SBA) was established by Congress to create and administer programs to help small businesses compete in the national economy. But far too often, large, sophisticated firms profit from SBA programs meant to assist the little guy. Currently, Congress legislates specific programs tailored towards one type of small business, and the SBA is responsible for implementing the program. This process has resulted in loopholes in the SBA’s enabling act that permit powerful businesses to qualify for SBA programs. This result is the opposite of what Congress intended.

Part II provides background and the history of the SBA. …

We Shouldn't Need Roe, Carliss Chatman

Scholarly Articles

In the face of state-by-state attacks on the right to choose, which result in regular challenges to Roe v. Wade in the U.S. Supreme Court, this essay asks whether Roe is needed at all. Decades of state law encroachments have caused Roe to fail to properly protect the right to choose. Building on prior works that challenge the premise of fetal personhood and highlighting the status of Roe-based rights after decades of challenges, this essay proposes an alternative solution to Roe. Federal legislative and executive efforts, including the Women’s Health Protection Act, are necessary to ensure the right …

Comment: The Necessary Evolution Of State Data Breach Notification Laws: Keeping Pace With New Cyber Threats, Quantum Decryption, And The Rapid Expansion Of Technology, Beth Burgin Waller, Elaine Mccafferty

Washington and Lee Law Review

The legal framework that was built almost two decades ago now struggles to keep pace with the rapid expansion of technology, including quantum computing and artificial intelligence, and an ever-evolving cyber threat landscape. In 2002, California passed the first data breach notification law, with all fifty states following suit to require notice of unauthorized access to and acquisition of an individual’s personal information.1 These data breach notification laws, originally designed to capture one-off unauthorized views of data in a computerized database, were not built to address PowerShell scripts by cyber terrorists run across thousands of servers, leaving automated accessed data …

The Impact Of Uncertainty Regarding Patent Eligible Subject Matter For Investment In U.S. Medical Diagnostic Technologies, A. Sasha Hoyt

Washington and Lee Law Review

Historically, 35 U.S.C. § 101, the statute governing patent eligible subject matter, has been construed broadly—with its legislative history indicating that it should cover “anything under the sun that is made by man.” The Supreme Court crafted three exceptions to § 101: (1) abstract ideas, (2) laws of nature, and (3) natural phenomena. In recent years, the Supreme Court’s eligibility jurisprudence has further narrowed § 101 to effectively exclude meritorious medical diagnostic methods. Indeed, since the Court’s decision in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., the Federal Circuit has held every single diagnostic method claim brought before it …