Law Commons^™

Amplifying Abuse: The Fusion Of Cyberharassment And Discrimination, Ari Ezra Waldman

Articles & Chapters

Cyberharassment devastates its victims. Anxiety, panic attacks, and fear are common effects; post-traumatic stress disorder, anorexia and bulimia, and clinical depression are common diagnoses. Targets of online hate and abuse have gone into hiding, changed schools, and quit jobs to prevent further abuse. Some lives are devastated in adolescence and are never able to recover. Some lives come to tragic, premature ends. Danielle Keats Citron not only teases out these effects in her masterful work, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace; she also makes the profound conclusion that these personal effects are part of a larger social cancer that breeds sexism, subjugation, …

Book Review. Balancing Privacy And Free Speech: Unwanted Attention In The Age Of Social Media By Mark Tunick, Kimberly Mattioli

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

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 …

Self-Defense Against Robots And Drones, A. Michael Froomkin, P. Zak Colangelo

Articles

Robots can pose-or can appear to pose-a threat to life, property, and privacy. May a landowner legally shoot down a trespassing drone? Can she hold a trespassing autonomous car as security against damage done or further torts? Is the fear that a drone may be operated by a paparazzo or Peeping Tom sufficient grounds to disable or interfere with it? How hard may you shove if the office robot rolls over your foot? This Article addresses all those issues and one more. what rules and standards we could put into place to make the resolution of those questions easier and …

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 …

Disagreeable Privacy Policies: Mismatches Between Meaning And Users’ Understanding, Joel R. Reidenberg, Travis Breaux, Lorrie F. Cranor, Brian M. French, Amanda Grannis, James T. Graves, Fei Liu, Aleecia Mcdonald, Thomas B. Norton, Rohan Ramanath, N. Cameron Russell, Norman Sadeh, Florian Schaub

Faculty Scholarship

Privacy policies are verbose, difficult to understand, take too long to read, and may be the least-read items on most websites even as users express growing concerns about information collection practices. For all their faults, though, privacy policies remain the single most important source of information for users to attempt to learn how companies collect, use, and share data. Likewise, these policies form the basis for the self-regulatory notice and choice framework that is designed and promoted as a replacement for regulation. The underlying value and legitimacy of notice and choice depends, however, on the ability of users to understand …

The Dawn Of Social Intelligence (Socint), Laura K. Donohue

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

More information about citizens’ lives is recorded than ever before. Because the data is digitized, it can be accessed, analyzed, shared, and combined with other information to generate new knowledge. In a post-9/‌11 environment, the legal standards impeding access to such data have fallen. Simultaneously, the advent of global communications and cloud computing, along with network convergence, have expanded the scope of information available. The U.S. government has begun to collect and to analyze the associated data.

The result is the emergence of what can be termed “social intelligence” (SOCINT), which this Article defines as the collection of digital data …

Private Letters And The Law: Edith Wharton’S Questions About Ownership And The Right To Publish Private Letters, Deborah Hecht

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cookie Monster: Balancing Internet Privacy With Commerce, Technology And Terrorism, Nichoel Forrett

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lawrence V. Texas: The Decision And Its Implications For The Future, Martin A. Schwartz

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Promoting Innovation While Preventing Discrimination: Policy Goals For The Scored Society, Frank Pasquale, Danielle K. Citron

Faculty Scholarship

There are several normative theories of jurisprudence supporting our critique of the scored society, which complement the social theory and political economy presented in our 2014 article on that topic in the Washington Law Review. This response to Professor Tal Zarsky clarifies our antidiscrimination argument while showing that is only one of many bases for the critique of scoring practices. The concerns raised by Big Data may exceed the capacity of extant legal doctrines. Addressing the potential injustice may require the hard work of legal reform.

County Court, Westchester County, People V. Gant, Albert V. Messina Jr.

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Outed At School: Student Privacy Rights And Preventing Unwanted Disclosures Of Sexual Orientation, Evan Ettinghoff

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) individuals often identify their sexual orientation during their formative school years. During this time, they make important decisions about whether they will come out, to whom, and under what circumstances. However, some school officials have taken matters into their own hands, disclosing information about a student’s sexual orientation to parents or family members without the student’s permission, and without considering the student’s well-being and potential consequences at home. This Note explores a student’s constitutional right to privacy in their sexual orientation. It begins by examining the unique problems LGBTQ youth encounter while developing …

Self, Privacy, And Power: Is It All Over?, Richard Warner, Robert H. Sloan

All Faculty Scholarship

The realization of a multifaceted self is an ideal one strives to realize. One realizes such a self in large part through interaction with others in various social roles. Such realization requires a significant degree of informational privacy. Informational privacy is the ability to determine for yourself when others may collect and how they may use your information. The realization of multifaceted selves requires informational privacy in public. There is no contradiction here: informational privacy is a matter of control, and you can have such control in public. Current information processing practices greatly reduce privacy in public thereby threatening the …

A Joyful Heart Is Good Medicine: Sexuality Conversion Bans In The Courts, Wyatt Fore

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Led by California and New Jersey, states have begun to ban Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) for minors. States have targeted SOCE, also called ‘gay conversion therapy,’ by regulating state licensure requirements for mental health professionals. Conservative legal groups have challenged these bans in federal court, alleging a variety of constitutional violations sounding in the First and Fourteenth Amendments. More specifically, these legal groups propose theories claiming that the bans infringe upon individuals’ freedom of speech, free exercise, and parental rights. In this Note, I survey the history of these bans, as well as court decisions that have rejected constitutional …

How Feminist Theory Became (Criminal) Law: Tracing The Path To Mandatory Criminal Intervention In Domestic Violence Cases, Claire Houston

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Our popular understanding of domestic violence has shifted significantly over the past forty years, and with it, our legal response. We have moved from an interpretation of domestic violence as a private relationship problem managed through counseling techniques to an approach that configures domestic violence first and foremost as a public crime. Mandatory criminal intervention policies reflect and reinforce this interpretation. How we arrived at this point, and which understanding of domestic violence facilitated this shift, is the focus of this Article. I argue that the move to intense criminalization has been driven by a distinctly feminist interpretation of domestic …

Beyond The Schoolhouse Gates: The Unprecedented Expansion Of School Surveillance Authority Under Cyberbulling Laws, Emily Suski

Faculty Publications

For several years, states have grappled with the problem of cyberbullying and its sometimes devastating effects. Because cyberbullying often occurs between students, most states have understandably looked to schools to help address the problem. To that end, schools in forty-six states have the authority to intervene when students engage in cyberbullying. This solution seems all to the good unless a close examination of the cyberbullying laws and their implications is made. This Article explores some of the problematic implications of the cyberbullying laws. More specifically, it focuses on how the cyberbullying laws allow schools unprecedented surveillance authority over students. This …

The Internet Of Things: Building Trust And Maximizing Benefits Through Consumer Control, Julie Brill

Fordham Law Review

    The Internet of Things is one of the fastest growing facets of a world that is becoming more data intensive. Connecting cars, appliances, and even clothing to the internet promises to deliver convenience, safety, and, through analysis of the torrent of additional data generated, potential solutions to some of our most intractable problems. But turning on this data flood also creates privacy and security risks for consumers, challenging us to consider how to apply basic privacy principles to the Internet of Things. A wide range of stakeholders—technologists, lawyers, industry leaders, and others—has a role to play in meeting this challenge.

"Smile, You're On Cellphone Camera!": Regulating Online Video Privacy In The Myspace Generation, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Akron Law Faculty Publications

In the latest Batman movie, Bruce Wayne’s corporate right hand man, Lucius Fox, copes stoically with the death and destruction dogging his boss. Interestingly, the last straw for him is Bruce’s request that he use digital video surveillance created through the city’s cellphone network to spy on the people of Gotham City in order to locate the Joker. Does this tell us something about the increasing social importance of privacy, particularly in an age where digital video technology is ubiquitous and largely unregulated?

While much digital privacy law and commentary has focused on text files containing personal data, little attention …

“We, The Paparazzi”: Developing A Privacy Paradigm For Digital Video, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Akron Law Faculty Publications

In January 2009, the Camera Phone Predator Alert bill was introduced into Congress. It raised serious concerns about privacy rights in the face of digital video technology. In so doing, it brought to light a worrying gap in current privacy regulation – the lack of rules relating to digital video privacy. To date, digital privacy regulation has focused on text records that contain personal data. Little attention has been paid to privacy in video files that may portray individuals in inappropriate contexts, or in an unflattering or embarrassing light. As digital video technology, including inexpensive cellphone cameras, is now becoming …

Repairing Online Reputation: A New Multi-Modal Regulatory Approach, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Akron Law Faculty Publications

In today’s interconnected digital society, high profile examples of online abuses abound. Cyberbullies launch attacks on the less powerful, often significantly damaging victims’ reputations. Outside of reputational damage, online harassment, bullying and stalking has led to severe emotional distress, loss of employment, physical assault and even death. Recent scholarship has identified this phenomenon but has done little more than note that current laws are ineffective in combating abusive online behaviors. This article moves the debate forward both by suggesting specific reforms to criminal and tort laws and, more importantly, by situating those reforms within a new multi-modal framework for combating …

Featuring People In Ads (2014 Edition), Eric Goldman, Rebecca Tushnet

Faculty Publications

This is a book chapter from the 2014 edition of a casebook, Advertising & Marketing Law: Cases and Materials, by Rebecca Tushnet and Eric Goldman. This chapter examines the legal issues arising from featuring people in advertisements, including publicity rights and endorsement/testimonial guidelines.

Proximity-Driven Liability, Bryant Walker Smith

Faculty Publications

This working paper argues that commercial sellers’ growing information about, access to, and control over their products, product users, and product uses could significantly expand their point-of-sale and post-sale obligations toward people endangered by these products. The paper first describes how companies are embracing new technologies that expand their information, access, and control, with primary reference to the increasingly automated and connected motor vehicle. It next analyzes how this proximity to product, user, and use could impact product-related claims for breach of implied warranty, defect in design or information, post-sale failure to warn or update, and negligent enabling of a …

16th Annual Open Government Summit: Access To Public Records Act & Open Meetings Act, 2014, Department Of Attorney General, State Of Rhode Island

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Deconstructing The Relationship Between Privacy And Security [Viewpoint], Gregory Conti, Lisa A. Shay, Woodrow Hartzog

Faculty Scholarship

From a government or law-enforcement perspective, one common model of privacy and security postulates that security and privacy are opposite ends of a single continuum. While this model has appealing properties, it is overly simplistic. The relationship between privacy and security is not a binary operation in which one can be traded for the other until a balance is found. One fallacy common in privacy and security discourse is that trade-offs are effective or even necessary. Consider the remarks of New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly shortly after the Boston Marathon bombing, “I'm a major proponent of cameras. I …

Systematic Ict Surveillance By Employers: Are Your Personal Activities Private?, Arlene J. Nicholas

Faculty and Staff - Articles & Papers

This paper reviews the various methods of information and communications technology (ICT) that is used by employers to peer into the work lives and, in some cases, private lives of employees. Some of the most common methods – such as computer and Internet monitoring, video surveillance, and global positioning systems (GPS) – have resulted in employee disciplines that have been challenged in courts. This paper provides background information on United States (U.S.) laws and court cases which, in this age of easily accessible information, mostly support the employer. Assessments regarding regulations and policies, which will need to be continually updated …

Ubiquitous Privacy, Thomas P. Crocker

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Where Have You Been - Your Phone Knows (And So Might The Police), W. Jacob Henerey

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

State V. Brossart: Adapting The Fourth Amendment For A Future With Drones, Thomas Bryan

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Procedure Decisions In The October 2005 Term, Susan N. Herman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.