Constitutional Law Commons^™

Cybergossip Or Securities Fraud? Some First Amendment Guidance In Drawing The Line., Lyrissa Lidsky, Michael Pike

Faculty Publications

Fifteen-year-old Jonathan Lebed, the youngest person ever pursued by the SEC in an enforcement action, made over $800,000 in six months by promoting stocks on Internet message boards. Using several fictitious screen names, Jonathan posted hundreds of messages on Yahoo! Finance, hyping selected over-the-counter stocks and then promptly selling his pre-purchased shares as soon as the stock prices rose.

Publicly, the SEC painted a picture-perfect case of securities fraud. Yet, the SEC forced disgorgement of only $285,000 of Jonathan's profits, leaving many observers to wonder why the resolution of this supposedly clear-cut case left its teenaged perpetrator with over $500,000. …

A Symposium Précis, Thomas E. Baker

Faculty Publications

This article is an introduction to and overview of the Drake University Law School symposium The Constitution and the Internet, held in February of 2001. It highlights important issues including the Constitution and the Internet, civil liberty and the application of a 200 year old document to the modern age of rapidly changing technology.

Proactive Legislation And The First Amendment, Stuart Minor Benjamin

Michigan Law Review

It is a commonplace that the world is changing rapidly, with whole sectors of the economy being transformed. New forms of communication, like the World Wide Web, e-mail, and satellite television, have risen from obscurity to ubiquity in less than a decade. The speed of these changes has led some to express concern about the ability of governments to respond. The fear is that governments cannot keep up with developments as they occur and thus get hopelessly behind. The solution, according to some, is for the government to act proactively - before a harm has arisen, so that the government …

Resolving Tensions Between Copyright And The Internet, Walter Effross

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Wrong Turn In Cyberspace: Using Icann To Route Around The Apa And The Constitution, A. Michael Froomkin

Articles

The Internet relies on an underlying centralized hierarchy built into the domain name system (DNS) to control the routing for the vast majority of Internet traffic. At its heart is a single data file, known as the "root." Control of the root provides singular power in cyberspace.

This Article first describes how the United States government found itself in control of the root. It then describes how, in an attempt to meet concerns that the United States could so dominate an Internet chokepoint, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) summoned into being the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers …

Parental Liability And The Criminal Misconduct Of Children In The Wake Of An Unregulated Internet: Who Should Pay?, Katherine R. Richardson

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note examines the legal and practical challenges of holding parents accountable for their children's criminal acts, particularly when influenced by internet content. It questions the effectiveness of parental liability laws and highlights the tension between child protection, parental rights, and internet regulation. While acknowledging the complexity of these issues, the note suggests that parental liability should only apply when a clear causal link exists between negligence and harm, though proving such a link is legally challenging. Ultimately, the analysis advocates for a nuanced approach to balancing these competing interests.

Silencing John Doe: Defamation And Discourse In Cyberspace, Lyrissa Lidsky

Faculty Publications

John Doe has become a popular defamation defendant as corporations and their officers bring defamation suits for statements made about them in Internet discussion fora. These new suits are not even arguably about recovering money damages but instead are brought for symbolic reasons — some worthy, some not so worthy. If the only consequence of these suits were that Internet users were held accountable for their speech, the suits would be an unalloyed good. However, these suits threaten to suppress legitimate criticism along with intentional and reckless falsehoods, and existing First Amendment law doctrines are not responsive to the threat …

Strike Two: An Analysis Of The Child Online Protection Act’S Constitutional Failures, Heather L. Miller

Federal Communications Law Journal

Congress's first attempt to regulate minors' access to sexually explicit material via the Internet failed. Congress responded with the Child Online Protection Act, which, despite its narrower scope, cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny. This Notes delves into the constitutionality of Congress's second attempt by addressing the difficulty of applying the vague "harmful to minors" definition to the Internet medium and the economic and technological unavailability of the Act's affirmative defenses. This Note concludes with an explanation as to why legislation is an ineffective mechanism to address the problem of minors' access to online pornography.

Zoning Speech On The Internet: A Legal And Technical Model, Lawrence Lessig, Paul Resnick

Michigan Law Review

Speech, it is said, divides into three sorts - (1) speech that everyone has a right to (political speech, speech about public affairs); (2) speech that no one has a right to (obscene speech, child porn); and (3) speech that some have a right to but others do not (in the United States, Ginsberg speech, or speech that is "harmful to minors," to which adults have a right but kids do not). Speech-protective regimes, on this view, are those where category (1) speech predominates; speech-repressive regimes are those where categories (2) and (3) prevail. This divide has meaning for speech …

Will Surfing The Web Subject One To Transient Tax Jurisdiction? Why We Need A Uniform Federal Sales Tax On Internet Commerce, Aaron G. Murphy

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment considers how Internet sales could be taxed if Congressional action is taken to remove the Commerce Clause impediments, which would leave only Due Process Clause limitations on Internet taxation. Though three potential solutions are addressed and analyzed for their potential treatment under the Due Process Clause, this Comment concludes that a federal uniform tax on Internet sales of goods will achieve the best balance of interests while avoiding Due Process problems. Part Two provides the reader with a basic description of the current law in the area of sales and use taxes and the problems the Internet poses …

Congress, The Internet, And The Intractable Pornography Problem: The Child Online Protection Act Of 1998, Timothy Zick

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

State Sales & Use Tax On Internet Transactions, Sandi Owen

Federal Communications Law Journal

The explosive growth of electronic commerce raises serious questions about the viability of the current state sales and use tax system. Sales via the Internet and other electronic means are changing both the form and substance of consumer transactions, and such sales often do not satisfy the traditional nexus requirement for state taxation because on-line vendors frequently lack physical presence in the purchaser’s home state. The inability to collect taxes on this growing segment of the retail sales market will impair states’ efforts to raise revenues and cause economically similar transactions to be treated differently. Consequently, Congress must act pursuant …

Renov. Aclu: Insulating The Internet, The First Amendment, And The Marketplaceof Ideas , Stephen C. Jacques

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Your Life As An Open Book: Has Technology Rendered Personal Privacy Virtually Obsolete?, Sandra Byrd Peterson

Federal Communications Law Journal

As society becomes increasingly automated, the ability of individuals to protect their "information privacy" is practically nonexistent. Information that was once kept on paper in filing cabinets is now on-line in computer databases. At the touch of a computer key, a complete stranger can conveniently access and compile from a variety of different sources a dossier of intimate, personal information about people without their knowledge. Perhaps more shocking is the current lack of legal recourse available to contest the nonconsensual use of personal data.

In this Note, the Author examines the currently loose constitutional and common-law protections and suggests strategies …

A Future Without Formalities, Irwin Karp

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Pc Peep Show: Computers, Privacy, And Child Pornography, 27 J. Marshall L. Rev. 989 (1994), John C. Scheller

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Information Law Overview, 18 J. Marshall L. Rev. 815 (1985), George B. Trubow

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.