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7th Annual Open Government Summit: Access To Public Records Act & Open Meetings Act, 2005, Department Of Attorney General, State Of Rhode Island

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

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Privacies: Philosophical Evaluations, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This fine collection of essays on privacy crosses disciplinary and national boundaries, bringing together 13 scholars from law, philosophy, political theory, and film studies to consider “various aspects of the problematic of the private.” As the editor, Beate Rössler, explains this “problematic,” current debates about the value and limits of privacy—such as the reach of information technology or the private lives of public figures—pose afresh more fundamental philosophical questions about privacy: What is the normative grounding for a right to privacy? How does such a right relate to identity and integrity? What is the demarcation in persons’ lives between the …

Data Mining And Attention Consumption, Eric Goldman

Faculty Publications

This Essay challenges the prevailing hostility towards data mining and direct marketing. The Essay starts by defining data mining and shows that the only important step is how data is used, not its aggregation or sorting. The Essay then discusses one particular type of data use, the sending of direct marketing. The Essay establishes a model for calculating the private utility experienced by a direct marketing recipient. The model posits that utility is a function of the message's substantive content, the degree of attention consumed, and the recipient's reaction to receiving the message. The Essay concludes with some policy recommendations …

Transaction Surveillance By The Government, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This symposium article is the second of two on regulation of government efforts to obtain recorded information for criminal prosecutions. More specifically, it explores the scope and regulation of "transaction surveillance," which it defines as government attempts to access already existing records, either physically or through data banks, and government efforts to obtain, in real-time or otherwise, "catalogic data" (the identifying signals of a transaction, such as the address of an email recipient). Transaction surveillance is a potent way of discovering and making inferences about a person's activities, character and identity. Yet, despite a bewildering array of statutorily created authorization …

Family Privacy And Death: Antigone, War, And Medical Research, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Death ends the doctor–patient relationship, and legally the patient's right of privacy dies with the patient. Other privacy interests survive, the most central of which are those of the patient's family to bury the body and to prevent the disclosure of some personal information, such as medical information, about the deceased relative. Just what privacy interests encompass and when they can be overridden by other interests — such as freedom of speech or the claims of public policy or medical research — are evolving.1 Family privacy concerning a family member who has died is at the forefront of a …

'Bend It Like Beckham' And 'Real Women Have Curves': Constructing Identity In Multicultural Coming-Of-Age Stories, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This Article looks at the coming-of-age stories in two recent films, Bend It Like Beckham and Real Women Have Curves, as an avenue to explore the question of constructing identity. Both films, arising out of the filmmakers' experiences, aim to offer representations of particular individuals in minority groups that challenge dominant representations. They also offer aspirational visions of how such individuals might find a way to construct a hybrid identity that allows them to negotiate their place within the various groups that claim them and within the broader society. How, the article asks, do the heroines in these films find …

The Simplification Of International Data Privacy Rules, Joel R. Reidenberg

Faculty Scholarship

The variation and complexity of national data privacy rules pose significant challenges for international data flows. Data protection laws range from ad hoc narrow legal rights, like those found in the United States, to comprehensive fair information practice statutes like those found in Europe. Because data processing frequently occurs across national borders, multiple data protection laws might apply simultaneously to international data flows. At the same time, data protection regimes may prohibit the circumvention of national standards by processing personal information at a foreign site. Global information processing thus presents a data controller with important burdens and obstacles related to …

Privacy And The Criminal Arrestee Or Suspect: In Search Of A Right, In Need Of A Rule, Sadiq Reza

Faculty Scholarship

Criminal accusation stigmatizes. Merely having been accused of a crime lasts in the public eye, damaging one's reputation and threatening current and future employment, relationships, social status, and more. But vast numbers of criminal cases are dismissed soon after arrest, and countless accusations are unfounded or unprovable. Nevertheless, police officers and prosecutors routinely name criminal accusees to the public upon arrest or suspicion, with no obligation to publicize a defendant's exoneration, or the dismissal of his case, or a decision not to file charges against him at all. Other individuals caught up in the criminal process enjoy protections against the …

A Model Regime Of Privacy Protection (Version 2.0), Daniel J. Solove, Chris Jay Hoofnagle

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This version incorporates and responds to the many comments that we received to Version 1.1, which we released on March 10, 2005.

Privacy protection in the United States has often been criticized, but critics have too infrequently suggested specific proposals for reform. Recently, there has been significant legislative interest at both the federal and state levels in addressing the privacy of personal information. This was sparked when ChoicePoint, one of the largest data brokers in the United States with records on almost every adult American citizen, sold data on about 145,000 people to fraudulent businesses set up by identity thieves. …

Confidentiality And Privacy Implications Of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Stacey A. Tovino

Scholarly Works

Advances in science and technology frequently raise new ethical, legal, and social issues, and developments in neuroscience and neuroimaging technology are no exception. Within the field of neuroethics, leading scientists, ethicists, and humanists are exploring the implications of efforts to image, study, treat, and enhance the human brain.

This article focuses on one aspect of neuroethics: the confidentiality and privacy implications of advances in functional magnetic resonance imaging (“fMRI”). Following a brief orientation to fMRI and an overview of some of its current and proposed uses, this article highlights key confidentiality and privacy issues raised by fMRI in the contexts …

Hospital Chaplaincy Under The Hipaa Privacy Rule: Health Care Or "Just Visiting The Sick?", Stacey A. Tovino

Scholarly Works

Approximately seventy-nine percent of Americans believe that praying can help people recover from illness, injury or disease, and nearly seventy-seven percent of American patients would like spiritual issues discussed as part of their care. Despite Americans' strong beliefs in the health-related benefits of religious and spiritual practices and traditions, the preamble to the federal Department of Health and Human Services' ("HHS") health information privacy rule (the "Privacy Rule") explains that health care "does not include methods of healing that are solely spiritual" (the "preamble"). The preamble concludes that, "clergy or other religious practitioners that provide solely religious healing services are …

Sexuality And Sovereignty: The Global Limits And Possibilities Of Lawrence Symposium: Legal Rights In Historical Perspective: From The Margins To The Mainstream, Sonia K. Katyal

Faculty Scholarship

In the summer of 2003, the Supreme Court handed gay and lesbian activists a stunning victory in the decision of Lawrence v. Texas, which summarily overruled Bowers v. Hardwick. At issue was whether Texas' prohibition of same-sex sexual conduct violated the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution. In a powerful, poetic, and strident opinion, Justice Kennedy, writing for a six-member majority, reversed Bowers, observing that individual decisions regarding physical intimacy between consenting adults, either of the same or opposite sex, are constitutionally protected, and thus fall outside of the reach of state intervention. Volumes can be written about the …

A Model Regime Of Privacy Protection (Version 1.1), Daniel J. Solove, Chris Jay Hoofnagle

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Privacy protection in the United States has often been criticized, but critics have too infrequently suggested specific proposals for reform. Recently, there has been significant legislative interest at both the federal and state levels in addressing the privacy of personal information. This was sparked when ChoicePoint, one of the largest data brokers in the United States with records on almost every adult American citizen, sold data on about 145,000 people to fraudulent businesses set up by identity thieves.

In the aftermath of the ChoicePoint debacle, both of us have been asked by Congressional legislative staffers, state legislative policymakers, journalists, academics, …

Privacy And The Criminal Arrestee Or Suspect: In Search Of A Right, In Need Of A Rule, Sadiq Reza

Articles & Chapters

Criminal accusation stigmatizes. Merely having been accused of a crime lasts in the public eye, damaging one's reputation and threatening current and future employment, relationships, social status, and more. But vast numbers of criminal cases are dismissed soon after arrest, and countless accusations are unfounded orunprovable. Nevertheless, police officers and prosecutors routinely name criminal accusees to the public upon arrest or suspicion, with no obligation to publicize a defendant's exoneration, or the dismissal of his case, or a decision not to file charges against him at all. Other individuals caught up in the criminal process enjoy protections against the public …

Controlling Identity: Plessy, Privacy, And Racial Defamation, Jonathan Kahn

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the origins of privacy law in early twentieth century America in relation to the legal solidification of Jim Crow in the aftermath of Plessy v. Ferguson. It considers some distinctively southern aspects of the origins of the right to privacy and argues that by viewing privacy, racial defamation, and Jim Crow in relation to each other, we can gain new insights into each-coming to understand that Plessy was not just about controlling space, or property, or even equality but also about controlling identity itself, and coming to see that in its origins, the right to privacy had …

Spyware And The Limits Of Surveillance Law, Patricia L. Bellia

Journal Articles

For policymakers, litigants, and commentators seeking to address the threats digital technology poses for privacy, electronic surveillance law remains a weapon of choice. The debate over how best to respond to the spyware problem provides only the most recent illustration of that fact. Although there is much controversy over how to define spyware, that label encompasses at least some software that monitors a computer user's electronic communications. Federal surveillance statutes thus present an intuitive fit for responding to the regulatory challenges of spyware, because those statutes bar the unauthorized acquisition of electronic communications and related data in some circumstances. Indeed, …

The Right Of Publicity And Autonomous Self-Definition, Mark P. Mckenna

Journal Articles

Legal protection against unauthorized commercial uses of an individual's identity has grown significantly over the last fifty years as it has relentlessly pursued economic value. It was forced to focus on value because a false distinction between the harms suffered by private citizens and celebrities seemingly left celebrities without a privacy claim for commercial use of their identities. But the normative case for awarding individuals the economic value of their identity is weak, since celebrities do not need additional incentive to invest in either their native skill or in developing a persona. Still, while the prevailing justification is inadequate, as …

Subpoenas And Privacy, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This symposium article, the first of two on regulation of government's efforts to obtain paper and digital records of our activities, analyzes the constitutional legitimacy of subpoenas. Whether issued by a grand jury or an administrative agency, subpoenas are extremely easy to enforce, merely requiring the government to demonstrate that the items sought pursuant to the subpoena are "relevant" to a investigation. Yet today subpoenas and pseudo-subpoenas are routinely used not only to obtain business records and the like, but also documents containing significant amounts of personal information about individuals, including medical, financial, and email records. Part I provides an …

Melville's Billy Budd And Security In Times Of Crisis, Daniel J. Solove

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

During times of crisis, our leaders have made profound sacrifices in the name of security, ones that we later realized need not have been made. Examples include the Palmer Raids, the McCarthy Era anti-Communist movement, and the Japanese-American Internment. After September 11th, this tragic history repeated itself. The Bush Administration has curtailed civil liberties in many ways, including detaining people indefinitely without hearings or counsel. These events give Herman Melville's "Billy Budd" renewed relevance to our times. "Billy Budd" is a moving depiction of a profound sacrifice made in the name of security. This essay diverges from conventional readings that …