Law Commons^™

State Crypto Regulation: Competing Priorities Shaping Different Outcomes, John T. Bender

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law

“Cryptomania” is approaching fever pitch. Public officials, practitioners, and investors alike are becoming convinced that what began as a thought experiment has given rise to a full-fledged movement that is here to stay. This movement could potentially transform the modern financial system as we know it.

Today, crypto assets and related platforms are increasingly being adopted to store, secure, and transmit massive amounts of monetary value worldwide. Enforcement agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures and Trading Commission have ventured into the fray by employing existing legal regimes to regulate in this new frontier. At the …

Biometric Data Collection And Big Tech: Imposing Ethical Constraints On Entities That Harvest Biometric Data, Ian Ducey

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law

Amazon can tell when you are sleeping, when you are awake, and when you are stressed, and they can do it before you may recognize it yourself. At least it will be able to if you decide to buy their newest wearable health monitoring technology. In 2020, Amazon joined Google’s Fitbit and Apple’s Apple Watch in the wearable technology market with the Amazon Halo. A wristband outfitted with a variety of sensors designed to help manage and record health identifiers, including body fat percentage, step tracking, sleep tracking, and now emotional responses. Many companies have begun developing and exploring the …

Metasoftware: Building Blocks For Legal Technology, Houman Shadab

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law

This Article develops a novel concept in information technology called “metasoftware.” It then applies the concept of metasoftware to developing legal technology.

Metasoftware enables users to create the software of their choosing and stands in sharp contrast to traditional, functional. Functional software is the default type of software that is currently produced and includes word processing, email, social networking, enterprise resource management, online marketplaces, and video game software. Metasoftware, by contrast, is not functional. Metasoftware presents the user with a blank slate upon which to build functional software.

I argue that software is metasoftware to that extent that (1) it …

"I'M Concerned About This Post": Combatting Fake News On Social Media, Jake Latimer

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law

The public concern over the spread of “fake news” on social media has increased over the last decade. Large social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter have attempted to address fake news by flagging it as misleading. Even former President Trump has seemingly exhibited a sense of paranoia over its spread. While the term “fake news” is often used as a political weapon to discredit unfavorable information and opinions, fake news refers to factually false or grossly misleading content likely designed to sway or entrench one’s opinion on a particular topic. The pervasiveness of this type of fake news on …

Fracturing The Rule Of Capture: The Improper Application Of The Rule Of Capture To Subsurface Intrusions Resulting From Hydraulic Fracturing, Alexis K. Désiré

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law

Imagine that during the course of hydraulically fracturing a tract of land—a process used to extract gas from low-permeability rock formations —a drilling company causes fractures, as well as some of the materials necessary to the fracturing process, to cross the boundary of its property line and enter an adjoining property—that is, it makes a subsurface intrusion onto a neighbor’s property. Assume further that, because the company’s fractures have extended into the neighbor’s property, oil and gas from the neighboring land travels to the company’s wellbore, causing the neighbor to bring a tort action against the company for harms related …

The Long-Term Problem With Electric Vehicle Batteries: A Policy Recommendation To Encourage Advancement For Scalable Recycling Practices, Lauren Fricke

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law

With the growing popularity of electric vehicles, the demand for lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries, which are the dominant energy source for electric vehicles, are skyrocketing. By default, this means a growing demand for the raw materials needed to manufacture these complex batteries such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. Economic, environmental, and political supply chain factors bring into question the sustainability of these batteries as a solution to the issues surrounding gasoline powered transportation, creating a need for large scale Li-ion battery recycling. By 2030, 140 million EVs are predicted to be on the road worldwide. In that time, eleven million …

Uranium 233: The Nuclear Superfuel No One Is Using, Maris Hanson

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law

Nuclear power offers more energy in less physical space than solar and wind and yields more energy per pound than fossil fuels. However different nuclear fuels yield different waste profiles and create different beneficial products. Uranium 233 (U233) resists use in nuclear weapons, yields beneficial daughter products, and produces dramatically less of the most problematic waste products than Uranium 235 (U235). U233 results from reactions with Thorium, a plentiful, ubiquitous element currently considered waste from rare earth mines. Additionally, U233 functions well in a liquid fuel reactor resulting in safer, more efficient reactors than current solid fuel U235 or Plutonium …

On The Horizon: Nanosatellite Constellations Will Revolutionize The Internet Of Things (Iot), Diane Janosek

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law

The Internet of Things has experienced exponential growth and use across the globe with 25.1 billion devices currently in use. Until recently, the functionality of the IoT was dependent on secure data flow between internet terrestrial stations and the IoT devices. Now, a new alternative path of data flow is on the horizon.

IoT device manufacturers are now looking to outer space nanosatellite constellations to connect to a different type of internet. This new internet is no longer terrestrial with fiber cables six feet underground but now looking up, literally, 200 to 300 miles above the earth, to communicate, connect …

Tech And Authoritarianism: How The People’S Republic Of China Is Using Data To Control Hong Kong And Why The U.S. Is Vulnerable, Bryce Neary

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law

The aim of this article is to analyze and compare current events in the People's Republic of China and the United States to discuss the moral dilemmas that arise when establishing the boundary between national security interests and individual privacy rights. As we continue to intertwine our lives with technology, it has become increasingly important to establish clear privacy rights. The question then becomes: at what point should individuals sacrifice their rights for what the government considers the "greater good" of the country?

Further, this article analyzes the development of U.S. privacy law and its relationship to national security, technology, …

Learning From South Korea’S Covid-19 Response: Why Centralizing The United States Public Health System Is Essential For Future Pandemic Responses, Meghan Ricci

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed stark differences in governmental preparedness across the globe. The United States, once thought of as a global leader in public health, had the theoretical skill and efficiency to handle the pandemic but failed to utilize those skills and resources during an actual health crisis. In the spring of 2020, everyone watched the U.S.’s reaction to the unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic due to its historic placeholder as a global leader and innovator. However, the performance of the U.S. in response to the global pandemic disappointed both global commentators and U.S. citizens. This paper will compare the …

Chemical Weapons And Their Unforeseen Impact On Health And The Environment, Alexandra Chen

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law

The May 2020 police murder of George Floyd catalyzed a racial reckoning in the United States that saw millions of people take to the streets to protest police brutality against people of color. In following months, law enforcement used massive amounts of "less-lethal" chemical weapons against protesters in cities across the country. Despite widespread use of chemical weapons by police agencies and mounting evidence of related environmental and health harms, the federal government does not regulate the use nor the manufacture of chemical weapons. Chemical weapons contain toxic ingredients such as hexavalent chromium, lead salts, and methylene chloride, which are …