Over at De Novo, PG points out that lots of second-year law students at law schools around the country are looking for law review note topics right now. Let me offer a self-interested suggestion: write something in the area of computer crime law. Computer crime law is a new and growing field, and the relatively small number of existing cases means that the courts haven’t yet settled The Big Questions. It’s a perfect area for a student note. There are lots of enormously important topics in the field that courts haven’t resolved and no scholar has touched (or, if someone has touched on them, there isn’t much yet); the issues can be a bit technical, meaning that judges often need help and look for outside scholarship to help them; and the field will likely grow more important over time.
I’m writing a casebook on Computer Crime law for West right now, and I can attest to the need for scholarly input; anyone who writes something in the field can make an important contribution. What are some possible topics that you could write on? Here are a few possibilities:
(1) Is it possible to establish a Fourth Amendment “reasonable expectation of privacy” in remotely stored Internet files such as e-mail, or do you lose Fourth Amendment protection in e-mail when you send it? If you can retain protection, when? (No Article III court has answered this essential question yet, and it turns out to be a suprisingly difficult problem that has received very little scholarly attention.)
(2) Many computer crime laws prohibit unauthorized access to computers. But what does “access” mean? What does “authorization” mean? (I wrote an article on this last year with some ideas, but the issue is very much open.)
(3) What Fourth Amendment test should courts use to determine when a computer file is “seized”? The Supreme Court has held that seizing requires dispossession; does this mean that if you merely copy a computer file you are not seizing it, and that the FBI can copy your files without implicating the Fourth Amendment? (Almost no scholarhip on this, although I am working on a piece that will touch on it.)
(4) In the context of sentencing computer criminals, are cybercrime-specific rules needed? Is it fair to treat a virus-writer who inadvertently causes $100 million worth of damage the same as a con man who reaps $100 million of profit from his victims? For that matter, how do you calculate how much harm a computer virus causes? (Basically no scholarship on this yet.)
(5) Child pornography laws prohibit the “possession” of images of child pornography. But what does it mean to “possess” a computer file? If you view a file on your computer, are you possessing it? Does it depend on how much you understand how computers work? (Three of four cases on this so far, but no scholarship yet.)
These are just five note topics off the top of my head; there are lots and lots more out there.
If anyone does end up writing something in the field, please let me know; I am working on the casebook this winter and spring, and there is always room for discussions of helpful student scholarship in the “Notes and Questions.”
Comments are closed.