Privacy Law Commons^™

The Timely Demise Of The Fourth Amendment Third Party Doctrine, Stephen E. Henderson

Faculty Articles

In what may be a slightly premature obituary, in this response to a forthcoming paper by Matthew Tokson I argue that the Fourth Amendment third party doctrine "has at least taken ill, and it can be hoped it is an illness from which it will never recover." It is increasingly unpopular as a matter of state constitutional law, has long been assailed in scholarship but now thoughtful alternatives are percolating, and it cannot – or at least should not – withstand the pressures which technology and social norms are placing upon it. Even the Supreme Court seems loath to defend …

Big Brother Is Watching: The Reality Show You Didn't Audition For, Amy Dillard

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cloudy Privacy Protections: Why The Stored Communications Act Fails To Protect The Privacy Of Communications Stored In The Cloud, Ilana R. Kattan

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The advent of new communications technologies has generated debate over the applicability of the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement to communications sent through, and stored in, technologies not anticipated by the Framers. In 1986, Congress responded to perceived gaps in the protections of the warrant requirement as applied to newer technologies, such as email, by passing the Stored Communications Act (SCA). As originally enacted, the SCA attempted to balance the interests of law enforcement against individual privacy rights by dictating the mechanisms by which the government could compel a particular service provider to disclose communications stored on behalf of its customers. …

Comments: Naturally Shed Dna: The Fourth Amendment Implications In The Trail Of Intimate Information We All Cannot Help But Leave Behind, Mike Silvestri

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Along For The Ride: Gps And The Fourth Amendment, Stephen A. Josey

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

With the advent of new technologies, the line as to where the Fourth Amendment forbids certain police behavior and when it does not has become increasingly blurred. Recently, the issue of whether police may use Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking devices to track individuals for prolonged periods of time without first securing a search warrant has crept its way into the limelight. The various circuits have arrived at different conclusions, and the question has now found its way onto the US Supreme Court's docket. After analyzing and weighing both Supreme Court case law and public policy considerations, this Note concludes …

Disentangling Administrative Searches, Eve Brensike Primus

Articles

Everyone who has been screened at an international border, scanned by an airport metal detector, or drug tested for public employment has been subjected to an administrative search. Since September 11th, the government has increasingly invoked the administrative search exception to justify more checkpoints, unprecedented subway searches, and extensive wiretaps. As science and technology advance, the frequency and scope of administrative searches will only expand. Formulating the boundaries and requirements of administrative search doctrine is therefore a matter of great importance. Yet the rules governing administrative searches are notoriously unclear. This Article seeks to refocus attention on administrative searches and …

Privacy Implications Of Smart Meters, Cheryl Dancey Balough

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Many people worry about the erosion of privacy in our society given developments in technology, but that loss of privacy may take a quantum leap as electric "smart meters" make it possible for strangers to know on a real-time basis what is occurring in our houses and apartments. Perhaps the greatest concern is that current laws and regulations do not fully protect us from this unprecedented threat to two of our most basic rights—to be left alone in our own homes and to control personal information. Utility companies across the country are replacing conventional electric meters with smart meters designed …

The Anatomy Of A Search: Intrusiveness And The Fourth Amendment, Renee Mcdonald Hutchins

Journal Articles

For more than two months beginning in late December of 2005, police officers in New York State continuously monitored the location and movements of Scott Weaver's van using a surreptitiously attached global positioning system ("GPS") device, known as a "Qball."' The reason Weaver was targeted for police surveillance has never been disclosed. 2 In addition, law enforcement made no attempt to justify the heightened scrutiny of Weaver by seeking the pre-authorization of a warrant from a neutral magistrate.3 Rather, for sixty-five days, the police subjected Weaver to intense surveillance without oversight, interruption, or explanation. 4 More than a year after …

Proportionality, Privacy, And Public Opinion: A Reply To Kerr And Swire, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In 2007, I published Privacy at Risk: The New Government Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment.' The immediate trigger for the book was the recent upsurge in government use of technology to monitor public and private behavior, and more particularly the tremendous increase in government surveillance after 9/11 using techniques such as data mining, phone and computer intercepts, and public camera systems. The primary analytical target of the book, however, was more general: Supreme Court case law that, read broadly, permits much of this technological surveillance to take place without impinging on any constitutional interests. In an effort to counteract this …

Privacy Revisited: Gps Tracking As Search And Seizure, Bennett L. Gershman

Pace Law Review

Part I of this Article discusses the facts in People v. Weaver, the majority and dissenting opinions in the Appellate Division, Third Department decision, and the majority and dissenting opinions in the Court of Appeals decision. Part II addresses the question that has yet to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court—whether GPS tracking of a vehicle by law enforcement constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. Part III addresses the separate question that the Court of Appeals did not address in Weaver—whether the surreptitious attachment of a GPS device to a vehicle constitutes a seizure under the Fourth Amendment. …

Flexing Judicial Muscles: Did The Ninth Circuit Abandon Judicial Restraint In United States V. Comprehensive Druge Testing, Inc.?, Allen H. Quist

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

A Fourth Amendment For The Poor Alone: Subconstitutional Status And The Myth Of The Inviolate Home, Jordan C. Budd

Law Faculty Scholarship

For much of our nation’s history, the poor have faced pervasive discrimination in the exercise of fundamental rights. Nowhere has the impairment been more severe than in the area of privacy. This Article considers the enduring legacy of this tradition with respect to the Fourth Amendment right to domestic privacy. Far from a matter of receding historical interest, the diminution of the poor’s right to privacy has accelerated in recent years and now represents a powerful theme within the jurisprudence of poverty. Triggering this development has been a series of challenges to aggressive administrative practices adopted by localities in the …

Photo Enforcement Programs: Are They Permissible Under The United States Constitution?, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 463 (2010), Paul Mcnaughton

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Discipline In Schools After Safford Unified School District #1 V. Redding, Dennis D. Parker

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Substitution Effects: A Problematic Justification For The Third-Party Doctrine Of The Fourth Amendment, Blake Ellis Reid

Publications

In the past half-century, the Supreme Court has crafted a vein of jurisprudence virtually eliminating Fourth Amendment protection in information turned over to third parties - regardless of any subjective expectation of privacy or confidentiality in the information on the part of the revealer. This so-called “third-party” doctrine of the Fourth Amendment has become increasingly controversial in light of the growing societal reliance on the Internet in the United States, where nearly every transaction requires a user to turn information over to at least one third party: the Internet service provider (“ISP”).

Citing the scholarship that has criticized the third-party …

Separated By A Common Language? An Examination Of The Transatlantic Dialogue On Data Privacy Law And Policy In The Fight Against Terrorism, Yesha Yadav

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This paper examines recent controversies in the legal and policy debate between the U.S. and the EU on the sharing of data in the implementation of transatlantic counter-terrorism measures. The nexus between law and policy in this area is particularly close, reflecting the preferences each jurisdiction has in protecting civil liberty and security interests. While the U.S. and the EU offer differing legal frameworks on data privacy, the strategic importance of data in counter-terrorism law and policy necessitates a joint approach. A failure to arrive at such an approach can result in a series of bilateral agreements between the U.S. …

Do We Need A New Fourth Amendment?, Orin S. Kerr

Michigan Law Review

Slobogin's book offers a new conceptualization of the Fourth Amendment rooted in what he calls the proportionality principle: An investigative technique should be permitted under the Constitution only if the strength of the government's justification for the technique is roughly proportionate to the level of intrusion it causes . Slobogin roots this principle in Terry v. Ohio and its pragmatic balancing of law-enforcement and privacy interests. To determine how much justification the Fourth Amendment requires, Slobogin argues, courts should assess the intrusiveness of the investigatory technique and then set a proportionate threshold of proof that the government must show. The …

Legal Aspects Of Prior Informed Consent On Access To Genetic Resources, Kuei-Jung Ni

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Since the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has been in force, national implementation of the access to and benefit-sharing (ABS) requirement on genetic resources has been flourishing. A requirement of prior informed consent (PIC) by the people controlling access to genetic resources constitutes a major instrument to deter illegal bioprospecting and to ensure fair access to genetic resources.

This Article aims to analyze the continuing global lawmaking on PIC and to conduct a comparative study on how genetically rich nations implement the PIC requirement with a view to examining whether the genuine mandate of the CBD has been fulfilled.

This …

Islam's Fourth Amendment: Search And Seizure In Islamic Doctrine And Muslim Practice, Sadiq Reza

Articles & Chapters

Modern scholars regularly assert that Islamic law contains privacy protections similar to those of the FourthAmendment to the U.S. Constitution. Two Quranic verses in particular - one that commands Muslims not to enter homes without permission, and one that commands them not to 'spy' - are held up, along with reports from the Traditions (Sunna) that repeat and embellish on these commands, as establishing rules that forbid warrantless searches and seizures by state actors and require the exclusion of evidence obtained in violation of these rules. This Article tests these assertions by: (1) presenting rules and doctrines Muslim jurists of …

How Privacy Killed Katz: A Tale Of Cognitive Freedom And The Property Of Personhood As Fourth Amendment Norm, Christian Halliburton

Faculty Articles

This article seeks for the very first time to inform that debate with a notion of property as an essential aspect of human identity in a "mash-up of sorts that might be called Fourth Amendment jurisprudence meets the Radinesque Property of Personhood. Using an expanded version of the notion of property developed by Professor Margaret Radin in her pioneering work Property and Personhood, the Fourth Amendment must contend with the social reality that some aspects of "ownership" or entitlement to property, and some level of vindication of those interests, are essential to the formation and viability of complete human beings. …

The 'High Crime Area' Question: Requiring Verifiable And Quantifiable Evidence For Fourth Amendment Reasonable Suspicion Analysis, Andrew Ferguson, Damien Bernache

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article proposes a legal framework to analyze the "high crime area" concept in Fourth Amendment reasonable suspicion challenges.Under existing Supreme Court precedent, reviewing courts are allowed to consider that an area is a "high crime area" as a factor to evaluate the reasonableness of a Fourth Amendment stop. See Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119 (2000). However, the Supreme Court has never defined a "high crime area" and lower courts have not reached consensus on a definition. There is no agreement on what a "high-crime area" is, whether it has geographic boundaries, whether it changes over time, whether it …

‘Move On’ Orders As Fourth Amendment Seizures, Stephen E. Henderson

Faculty Articles

If a police officer orders one to move on, must the recipient comply? This article analyzes whether there is a federal constitutional right to remain, and in particular whether a police command to move on constitutes a seizure of the person for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Although it is a close question, I conclude that the Fourth Amendment typically does not restrict a move on (MO) order, and that substantive due process only prohibits the most egregious such orders. It is a question of broad significance given the many legitimate reasons police might order persons to move on, as …

Monitoring For Quality Assurance: Employer Regulation Of Off-Duty Behavior, James A. Sonne

Georgia Law Review

This Article offers a unique and timely treatment of the dual, yet divergent, rise in employer regulation of off-duty behavior and employee privacy law. Recent trends show that technology has expanded the supervisory tools available to employers and made the workplace a more fluid concept; in addition, financial pressures have grown from expensive employee benefits and other business costs. As a result, employers have been increasingly interested in reaching beyond their office walls to gather pertinent information for making personnel decisions. On the other hand, a movement is building in law to segregate off-duty activity from employer purview, particularly in …

Government Data Mining And The Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The government's ability to obtain and analyze recorded information about its citizens through the process known as data mining has expanded enormously over the past decade. Although the best-known government data mining operation (Total Information Awareness, more recently dubbed Terrorism Information Awareness) supposedly no longer exists, large-scale data mining by federal agencies devoted to enforcing criminal and counter-terrorism laws has continued unabated. This paper addresses three puzzles about data mining. First, when data mining is undertaken by the government, does it implicate the Fourth Amendment? Second, does the analysis change when data mining is undertaken by private entities which then …

Garbage Pails And Puppy Dog Tails: Is That What Katz Is Made Of?, Aya Gruber

Publications

This Article takes the opportunity of the fortieth anniversary of Katz v. U.S. to assess whether the revolutionary case's potential to provide broad and flexible privacy protection to individuals has been realized. Answering this question in a circumspect way, the Article pinpoints the language in Katz that was its eventual undoing and demonstrates how the Katz test has been plagued by two principle problems that have often rendered it more harmful to than protective of privacy. The manipulation problem describes the tendency of conservative courts to define reasonable expectations of privacy as lower than the expectations society actually entertains. The …

The Chains Of The Constitution And Legal Process In The Library: A Post-Usa Patriot Reauthorization Act Assessment, Susan Nevelow Mart

Publications

Since the Patriot Act was passed in 2001, controversy has raged over nearly every provision. The controversy has been particularly intense over provisions that affect the patrons of libraries. This article follows those Patriot Act provisions that affect libraries, and reviews how they have been interpreted, how the Patriot Reauthorization Acts have changed them, and what government audits and court affidavits reveal about the use and misuse of the Patriot Act. The efforts of librarians and others opposed to the Patriot Act have had an effect, both legislatively and judicially, in changing and challenging the Patriot Act. Because libraries are …

Bringing An End To Warrantless Cell Phone Searches, Bryan A. Stillwagon

Georgia Law Review

Cell phones keep society connected, and exploring their contents reveals a glimpse into the user's life. As technology develops and these phones advance, this glimpse becomes a more complete picture of the user's life. The Fourth Amendment speaks of a right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, but this right is threatened when judges permit the few exceptions to the warrant requirement to envelop the general rule. This Note begins with a brief review of the history of both cellphones and warrantless searches, followed by the recent history of warrantless cell phone searches. While focusing on the search- …

Tied Up In Knotts? Gps And The Fourth Amendment, Renee Mcdonald Hutchins

Journal Articles

Judicial and scholarly assessment of emerging technology seems poised to drive the Fourth Amendment down one of three paths. The first would simply relegate the amendment to a footnote in history books by limiting its reach to harms that the framers specifically envisioned. A modified version of this first approach would dispense with expansive constitutional notions of privacy and replace them with legislative fixes. A third path offers the amendment continued vitality but requires the U.S. Supreme Court to overhaul its Fourth Amendment analysis. Fortunately, a fourth alternative is available to cabin emerging technologies within the existing doctrinal framework. Analysis …

Beyond The (Current) Fourth Amendment: Protecting Third-Party Information, Third Parties, And The Rest Of Us Too, Stephen E. Henderson

Faculty Articles

For at least thirty years the Supreme Court has adhered to its third-party doctrine in interpreting the Fourth Amendment, meaning that so far as a disclosing party is concerned, information in the hands of a third party receives no Fourth Amendment protection. The doctrine was controversial when adopted, has been the target of sustained criticism, and is the predominant reason that the Katz revolution has not been the revolution many hoped it would be. Some forty years after Katz the Court's search jurisprudence largely remains tied to property conceptions. As I have demonstrated elsewhere, however, the doctrine is not the …

The Physics Of Fourth Amendment Privacy Rights, Omar Saleem

Journal Publications

Einstein's esteem for theoretical physics and Dostoyevsky serve as a conduit for this article's discussion about the similarities between the evolution of theoretical physics and the criminal process related to Fourth Amendment privacy rights. Part I of this Article demonstrates that law and science share traits of rationality, a quest for universality, and theoretical evolution. Part II traces the parallel paths of Fourth Amendment privacy rights and theoretical physics. Part III illustrates the radical alterations in theoretical physics created by Einstein's relativity discoveries and the radical alterations in Fourth Amendment privacy rights created by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in …