Law Commons^™

Surveillance Of Emergent Associations: Freedom Of Association In A Network Society, Katherine J. Strandburg

Katherine J. Strandburg

Recent events have combined to bring of the prospect of using communications traffic data to ferret out suspect groups and investigate their membership and structure to the forefront of debate. While such “relational surveillance” has been around for years, efforts are being made to update traffic analysis to incorporate insights from “social network analysis” -- a means of analyzing relational structures developed by sociologists.1-13 Interest in employing social network analysis for law enforcement purposes was given a huge boost after September 11, 2001 when attention focused on tracking terrorist networks.5,7,9,11,12,14-17 Traffic data, when stored, aggregated, and analyzed using sophisticated computer …

Search And Seizure On Steroids: United States V. Comprehensive Drug Testing And Its Consequences For Private Information Stored On Commercial Electronic Databases, Aaron S. Lowenstein

Aaron S Lowenstein

This article critiques the Ninth Circuit’s recent decision in United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing. This case received some attention because it stems from the investigation into the use of steroids in Major League Baseball. It should have received much more attention, however, because of its troubling expansion of the government’s authority to access our private digital information without a warrant.

Executing a search warrant for information stored on a computer database poses special problems. Because targets of government investigations can easily conceal incriminating digital evidence, investigators often must search an entire computer hard drive in order to effectively execute …

If You Could Read My Mind: Implications Of Neurological Evidence For Twenty-First Century Criminal Jurisprudence, John G. New

John G. New

The advent of new technologies has permitted cognitive neuroscientists to explore the neural mechanisms underlying deceptive behaviors. Lawyers and law enforcement entities have shown great interest in exploring the legal consequences of employing such technologies; indeed such interest extends back to the days of phrenology and the advent of polygraphy. This article recounts current advances in the development of “truth telling” technologies, particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and Brain Fingerprinting and recent attempts to introduce the latter into court as scientific evidence. The second part of the article explores the challenges to constitutional jurisprudence, especially to the Fifth and …

Border Confidential: Why Searches Of Laptop Computers At The Border Should Require Reasonable Suspicion, John W. Nelson

John W. Nelson

Our laptops are capable of containing large amounts of personal, private, intimate, and confidential information. At the same time, the power of the government to search us and our possessions is at its zenith during a border crossing. How should our laptops be treated during these border crossings?

This Note examines the background of the border search exception and the privacy interests we each have in our laptop computers. This Note argues that searches of our laptop computers should be viewed as highly intrusive in nature because of the ability to quickly sort through vast amounts of intimate and private …