Testimony On Unmanned Aircraft Systems Rules And Regulations, Stephen E. Henderson
Sep 2016
Testimony On Unmanned Aircraft Systems Rules And Regulations, Stephen E. Henderson
Stephen E Henderson
Chairman Barrington, Vice Chair Brooks, members of the Committee on Public Safety, Senators, and distinguished guests, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to you today about unmanned aerial systems, or drones, and more particularly about their federal constitutional implications and what might be the constitutional restrictions on any legislation you might like to enact. I am the Judge Haskell A. Holloman Professor of Law at the University of Oklahoma, where my teaching and research focus on criminal law and procedure and privacy, including the constitutional rights pertaining thereto.
My topic is not an easy one. The constitutional law …
If You Fly A Drone, So Can Police, Stephen E. Henderson
May 2016
If You Fly A Drone, So Can Police, Stephen E. Henderson
Stephen E Henderson
According to the U.S. Constitution, the more you fly your drone, the more police can fly theirs. “Come on,” you might reply, “that hoary document”—and, yes, sorry to make you the sort who drops words like
hoary—“that hoary document surely says nothing about drones.” But in fact it does. At least it does as interpreted by the courts. In particular, it is how they interpret the
Fourth Amendment. So, to understand this aspect of drones, we first must understand this provision of the Bill of Rights...
Ou Professor: Fourth Amendment At Heart Of Dispute Between Fbi, Apple, Stephen E. Henderson
Mar 2016
Ou Professor: Fourth Amendment At Heart Of Dispute Between Fbi, Apple, Stephen E. Henderson
Stephen E Henderson
The dispute between the FBI and Apple Inc. over the unlocking of the iPhone used by one of the San Bernadino shooters is important to all Americans. And so it's good that it is getting a wide airing. But when it comes to issues that have complicated tradeoffs, it can be important not just that we have the conversation, but that we use the right words. And here the debate deserves very mixed reviews. . . .
Please, Let's Bury The Junk: The Codis Loci And The Revelation Of Private Information, David H. Kaye
Mar 2016
Please, Let's Bury The Junk: The Codis Loci And The Revelation Of Private Information, David H. Kaye
David Kaye
This Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy paper describes the four possible ways in which genetic loci could possess predictive or diagnostic value with regard to diseases and explains why these mechanisms have not led, and probably cannot lead, to useful screening tests with the Convicted Offender DNA Index System (CODIS) profiles in national, state, and local databases. It then considers the phenotypes and familial relationships that the CODIS STRs can be used to identify. The profiles carry limited information about an individual's race and familial relationships, and the article places the resulting privacy issues in perspective. Finally, the paper comments …
A Fourth Amendment Theory For Arrestee Dna And Other Biometric Databases, David H. Kaye
Mar 2016
A Fourth Amendment Theory For Arrestee Dna And Other Biometric Databases, David H. Kaye
David Kaye
Routine DNA sampling following a custodial arrest process is now the norm in many jurisdictions, but is it consistent with the Fourth Amendment? The few courts that have addressed the question have disagreed on the answer, but all of them seem to agree on two points: (1) the reasonableness of the practice turns on a direct form of balancing of individual and governmental interests; and (2) individuals who are convicted — and even those who are merely arrested — have a greatly diminished expectation of privacy in their identities. This Article disputes these propositions and offers an improved framework for …
Copyrights, Privacy, And The Blockchain, Tom W. Bell
Dec 2015
Copyrights, Privacy, And The Blockchain, Tom W. Bell
Tom W. Bell
The law of the United States forces authors to choose between copyrights and privacy rights. Federal lawmakers have noticed and tried to remedy that problem. The Copyright Act makes express provisions for anonymous and pseudonymous works. The Copyright Office has tried to remedy that tension, too; copyright registration forms do not outwardly require authors to reveal their real world identities. Nonetheless, authors still face a choice between protecting their privacy and enjoying one of copyright’s most powerful incentives: the prospect of transferring to another the exclusive right to use a copyrighted work. That power proves useful, to say the least, …
A Rose By Any Other Name: Regulating Law Enforcement Bulk Metadata Collection, Stephen E. Henderson
Dec 2015
A Rose By Any Other Name: Regulating Law Enforcement Bulk Metadata Collection, Stephen E. Henderson
Stephen E Henderson
In Other People’s Papers, Jane Bambauer argues for careful reform of the Fourth Amendment’s third party doctrine, providing an important contribution to an increasingly rich field of scholarship, judicial opinion, statute, and law reform. Bambauer is especially concerned with access to bodies of third-party data that can be filtered and mined, as they can be privacy invasive but also effective and less subject to traditional investigative prejudices and limitations. Although her article provocatively overclaims in trying to set itself apart from existing proposals, by analyzing existing constitutional and statutory law—including what I have termed a “limited” third party doctrine—and comparing …
Fourth Amendment Time Machines (And What They Might Say About Police Body Cameras), Stephen E. Henderson
Dec 2015
Fourth Amendment Time Machines (And What They Might Say About Police Body Cameras), Stephen E. Henderson
Stephen E Henderson
When it comes to criminal investigation, time travel is increasingly possible. Despite longstanding roots in traditional investigation, science is today providing something fundamentally different in the form of remarkably complete digital records. And those big data records not only store our past, but thanks to data mining they are in many circumstances eerily good at predicting our future. So, now that we stand on the threshold of investigatory time travel, how should the Fourth Amendment and legislation respond? How should we approach bulk government capture, such as by a solar-powered drone employing wide-area persistent stare technology? Is it meaningfully different …