Science and Technology Law Commons^™

Technological Opacity, Predictability, And Self-Driving Cars, Harry Surden, Mary-Anne Williams

Cardozo Law Review

Autonomous or "self-driving" cars are vehicles that drive themselves without human supervision or input. Because of safety benefits that they are expected to bring, autonomous vehicles are likely to become more common. Notably, for the first time, people will share a physical environment with computer-controlled machines that can both direct their own activities and that have considerable range of movement. This represents a distinct change from our current context. Today people share physical spaces either with machines that have free range of movement, but are controlled by people (e.g. automobiles) or with machines that are controlled by computers, but highly …

How Computer Automation Affects Occupations: Technology, Jobs, And Skills, James Bessen

Faculty Scholarship

This paper investigates basic relationships between technology and occupations. Building a general occupational model, I look at detailed occupations since 1980 to explore whether computers are related to job losses or other sources of wage inequality. Occupations that use computers grow faster, not slower. This is true even for highly routine and mid-wage occupations. Estimates reject computers as a source of significant net technological unemployment or job polarization. But computerized occupations substitute for other occupations, shifting employment and requiring new skills. Because new skills are costly to learn, computer use is associated with substantially greater within-occupation wage inequality.

Sales Suppression: The International Dimension, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Sales transaction taxes are highly susceptible to technology fraud, which is an inevitable result of today’s widespread reliance on technology to document taxed transactions. Technology can be (and is) manipulated to defeat the collection of these taxes. Both the U.S. retail sales tax (RST) and the European value added tax (VAT) are vulnerable to technology-based fraud. This Article concerns sales suppression — intentionally not recording sales — in the RST, and at the final stage of the VAT, the retail stage, when tax is collected from final consumers.

The modern electronic cash register (ECR)/point of sale (POS) system is vulnerable …

Testimony On Unmanned Aircraft Systems Rules And Regulations, Stephen Henderson

Other Faculty Publications

Chairman Barrington, Vice Chair Brooks, members of the Committee on Public Safety, Senators, and distinguished guests, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to you today about unmanned aerial systems, or drones, and more particularly about their federal constitutional implications and what might be the constitutional restrictions on any legislation you might like to enact. I am the Judge Haskell A. Holloman Professor of Law at the University of Oklahoma, where my teaching and research focus on criminal law and procedure and privacy, including the constitutional rights pertaining thereto.My topic is not an easy one. The constitutional law is …

Ebola, Experimental Medicine, Economics, And Ethics: An Evaluation Of International Disease Outbreak Law, Sara L. Dominey

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Marine Law Symposium: Legal And Policy Approaches To Reduce Marine Debris In New England 11/04/2016, Roger Wiliams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Our Time Is Better Spent Influencing Future Disruption: A Call To End The Indiscriminate War Against Self-Help Legal Technology, Olivia Holder

The University of Cincinnati Intellectual Property and Computer Law Journal

Under the guise of consumer protection, lawyers and bar associations have used disparate litigious mechanisms to thwart, inadvertently or not, the use of self-help legal technology. This paper will demonstrate that such adversity is not logical after a consideration of the technical functions that the software performs and unduly restricts underserved populations’ access to the law because of the misapplication of policy to vaguely worded laws. This paper will provide a thorough analysis of legal action taken against the high-profile company LegalZoom under the theory of unauthorized practice of law provides direct support of this claim. Summary and critique of …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Linn F. Freedman's Post: The Goal Of Gender Equality In Cybersecurity 08/23/2016, Linn F. Freedman

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

"I'Ll See": How Surveillance Undermines Privacy By Eroding Trust, Robert H. Sloan, Richard Warner

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

"I'll See": How Surveillance Undermines Privacy By Eroding Trust

Can Digital Speech Loosen The Gordian Knot Of Reputation Law?, Elizabeth A. Kirley

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

Can Digital Speech Loosen the Gordian Knot of Reputation Law?

Anonymous Armies: Modern “Cyber-Combatants” And Their Prospective Rights Under International Humanitarian Law, Jake B. Sher

Pace International Law Review

Cyber-attacks take many forms, only some of which are applicable to the law of war. This Comment discusses only those attacks sponsored by a government or non-state entity that have the goal of affecting morale or gaining political advantage, or those attacks amounting to tactical strikes on state or civilian infrastructure. In that vein, this Comment proposes the adoption of a new legal framework for determining the threshold that marks a participant in such a cyber-attack as a “cyber-combatant” by adapting the framework set by the Geneva Conventions and existing custom. This definition should encompass cyber-attacks perpetrated by states, unrecognized …

After O2 Micro: The Court's Evolving Duty To Map Words To Things, Peter E. Gratzinger

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

After O2 Micro: The Court's Evolving Duty to Map Words to Things

The Lautenberg Act: Chemical Safety Overhaul Of The Toxic Substances Control Act, Alyssa S. Rosen

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

On June 22, 2016, President Obama signed the Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Lautenberg Act), a landmark bipartisan compromise legislation designed to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The Lautenberg Act makes it easier for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate toxic substances while providing the chemical industry with regulatory clarity and certainty. Law Librarians, practicing lawyers, and academics have taken note of this groundbreaking law that most likely will set the template for the next generation of environmental reform by tackling issues such as preemption of state law, protection of vulnerable populations, …

That ‘70s Show: Why The 11th Circuit Was Wrong To Rely On Cases From The 1970s To Decide A Cell-Phone Tracking Case, David Oscar Markus, Nathan Freed Wessler

University of Miami Law Review

In light of society's increasing reliance on technology, this article explores a critical question – that of the Fourth Amendment’s protection over privacy in the digital age. Specifically, this article addresses how the law currently fails to protect the privacy of one’s cell phone records and its ramifications. By highlighting the antiquated precedent leading up to the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling in United States v. Davis, this article calls on the judiciary to find a more appropriate balance for protecting the right to privacy in a modern society.

Cellphones, Stingrays, And Searches! An Inquiry Into The Legality Of Cellular Location Information, Jeremy H. D'Amico

University of Miami Law Review

Can the Fourth Amendment protect an individual’s right privacy by preventing the disclosure of her location through cell site location information? Does it currently? Should it? Many court opinions answer these questions in both the affirmative and the negative. The rationale underlying each conclusion is disparate. Some rely on statutory regimes, others rely on the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of reasonableness. However, Cell Site Location Information is a technology that requires uniformity in its interpretation. This note investigates the different interpretations of the Fourth Amendment as it relates to Cell Site Location Information. It explains the technology behind Cell …

Vatcoin: The Gcc's Cryptotaxcurrency, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Musaad Alwohaibi, Mike Cheetham

Faculty Scholarship

Bitcoin is the world’s first peer-to-peer cryptocurrency. VATCoin is similar, but it is used in tax compliance. Both Bitcoin and VATCoin are distributive ledger applications built upon blockchain technology. Bitcoin’s ledger is public; VATCoin’s is private. If adopted, VATCoin could well become the world’s first government-mandated cryptotaxcurrency. Unlike Bitcoin, VATCoin will not be a speculative currency. It is always fixed to the home currency.

This paper proposes that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) adopt VATCoin in its VAT Framework. The GCC is expected to have multiple 5% VATs in place by January 1, 2018. There is an ample amount of …

Vat In The Gcc - Missing Trader Frauds, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Musaad Alwohaibi

Faculty Scholarship

All VATs are susceptible to missing trader (MT) fraud. VATs adopted in an economic community are particularly more susceptible. The EU, for example, loses in excess of €100b annually to this fraud. Given the anticipated adoption of a European-style credit-invoice VAT in the GCC by January 1, 2018, this paper offers a technology-based solution involving the real-time tracking of taxable transactions with centrally collected (securely encrypted) data flows that are risk-analyzed by artificial intelligence (AI).

Wearable Fitness Devices: Personal Health Data Privacy In Washington State, Steven Spann

Seattle University Law Review

Private entities are increasingly targeting individuals in the United States and around the world to gather personal data for such purposes as product development, market identification, and insurance risk assessment. While credit card records and online browsing histories have long been the medium through which this data is gathered, in more recent years, wearable fitness devices have added a new dimension to data production and collection. These devices are capable of gathering a significant amount of data regarding a person’s physical and physiological characteristics, thereby exposing these data producers to personal privacy infringement. Washington State lawmakers and citizens must be …

Neuroimaging Evidence: A Solution To The Problem Of Proving Pain And Suffering?, Brady Somers

Seattle University Law Review

Envision a plaintiff who was injured on the job at a construction site due to his employer’s negligence. The plaintiff has chronic back pain, but it is not verifiable on an X-ray, nor is a physical injury readily discernible by any other technology. Presently, fact finders are given the broad discretion to decide whether they find this plaintiff credible, and accordingly, whether they believe he is truly in pain and deserves damages for pain and suffering. However, neuroimaging—specifically functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)—could allow those fact finders to visualize whether this plaintiff was hurting by depicting the unique signatures that …

A New Take On An Old Problem: Employee Misclassification In The Modern Gig-Economy, Jennifer Pinsof

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

For decades, U.S. labor and employment law has used a binary employment classification system, labeling workers as either employees or independent contractors. Employees are granted a variety of legal protections, while independent contractors are not. However, the explosion of the gig-economy—which connects consumers with underutilized resources—has produced a growing number of workers who do not seem to fit into either category. Though far from traditional employees, gig-workers bear little resemblance to independent contractors. Forced to choose, however, most gig-economy companies label their workers as independent contractors, depriving them of many basic worker-protections. Gig-workers have turned to the courts, hoping to …