Law Commons^™

Freedom In My Heart, Karen Sandler

Events

No abstract provided.

The Self, The Stasi, The Nsa: Privacy, Knowledge, And Complicity In The Surveillance State, Richard Warner, Robert H. Sloan

All Faculty Scholarship

We focus on privacy in public. The notion dates back over a century, at least to the work of the German sociologist, Georg Simmel. Simmel observed that people voluntarily limit their knowledge of each other as they interact in a wide variety of social and commercial roles, thereby making certain information private relative to the interaction even if it is otherwise publicly available. Current governmental surveillance in the US (and elsewhere) reduces privacy in public. But to what extent?

The question matters because adequate self-realization requires adequate privacy in public. That in turn depends on informational norms, social norms that …

The Cycles Of Global Telecommunication Censorship And Surveillance, Jonathon Penney

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Internet censorship and surveillance is on the rise globally and cyber-warfare increasing in scope and intensity. To help understand these new threats commentators have grasped at historical analogies often with little regard for historical complexity or international perspective. Unfortunately, helpful new works on telecommunications history have focused primarily on U.S. history with little focus on international developments. There is thus a need for further internationally oriented investigation of telecommunications technologies, and their history. This essay attempts to help fill that void, drawing on case studies wherein global telecommunications technologies have been disrupted or censored — telegram censorship and surveillance, high …

Regulating Mass Surveillance As Privacy Pollution: Learning From Environmental Impact Statements, A. Michael Froomkin

Articles

Encroachments on privacy through mass surveillance greatly resemble the pollution crisis in that they can be understood as imposing an externality on the surveilled. This Article argues that this resemblance also suggests a solution: requiring those conducting mass surveillance in and through public spaces to disclose their plans publicly via an updated form of environmental impact statement, thus requiring an impact analysis and triggering a more informed public conversation about privacy. The Article first explains how mass surveillance is polluting public privacy and surveys the limited and inadequate doctrinal tools available to respond to mass surveillance technologies. Then, it provides …

From Anonymity To Identification, A. Michael Froomkin

Articles

This article examines whether anonymity online has a future. In the early days of the Internet, strong cryptography, anonymous remailers, and a relative lack of surveillance created an environment conducive to anonymous communication. Today, the outlook for online anonymity is poor. Several forces combine against it: ideologies that hold that anonymity is dangerous, or that identifying evil-doers is more important than ensuring a safe mechanism for unpopular speech; the profitability of identification in commerce; government surveillance; the influence of intellectual property interests and in requiring hardware and other tools that enforce identification; and the law at both national and supranational …

Regulating Real-World Surveillance, Margot E. Kaminski

Publications

A number of laws govern information gathering, or surveillance, by private parties in the physical world. But we lack a compelling theory of privacy harm that accounts for the state's interest in enacting these laws. Without a theory of privacy harm, these laws will be enacted piecemeal. Legislators will have a difficult time justifying the laws to constituents; the laws will not be adequately tailored to legislative interest; and courts will find it challenging to weigh privacy harms against other strong values, such as freedom of expression.

This Article identifies the government interest in enacting laws governing surveillance by private …

Reasonable Expectations Of Privacy Settings: Social Media And The Stored Communications Act, David Thaw, Christopher Borchert, Fernando Pinguelo

Articles

In 1986, Congress passed the Stored Communications Act (“SCA”) to provide additional protections for individuals’ private communications content held in electronic storage by third parties. Acting out of direct concern for the implications of the Third-Party Records Doctrine — a judicially created doctrine that generally eliminates Fourth Amendment protections for information entrusted to third parties — Congress sought to tailor the SCA to electronic communications sent via and stored by third parties. Yet, because Congress crafted the SCA with language specific to the technology of 1986, courts today have struggled to apply the SCA consistently with regard to similar private …