I recently participated in a New York Times “Room for Debate” blogfest on the question of how new technologies impact employee privacy. The participants were Tim Lee of Princeton; Jennifer Granick and Kurt Opsahl of EFF; Kashmir Hill of ATL; Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard Law School; and myself. You can read our posts here.
Author Archive | Orin Kerr
Career Polarization Among Former Supreme Court Law Clerks
Adam Liptak has a Sidebar column in the New York Times about a new article in the Vanderbilt Law Review on the career paths of former Supreme Court clerks. The article is The Liberal Tradition of the Supreme Court Clerkship: Its Rise, Fall, and Reincarnation, by William E. Nelson, Harvey Rishikof, I. Scott Messinger, and […]
“Cuffing Digital Detectives”
The latest issue of National Journal has this interesting article on United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, 579 F.3d 989 (9th Cir. 2009), the computer search case that may go super en banc. As far as I know, no federal court has agreed with CDT in a written opinion since the decision came down in […]
Open Thread
We haven’t had an open thread in a while. Comment away.
House of Representatives Honors “Kind of Blue”
Yesterday the House of Representatives passed a unanimous resolution honoring the classic jazz album Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. I don’t know whether to laugh that the House wastes its time honoring great records or smile that for a brief second the House wasn’t doing something else. The text of the resolution is available […]
Computer Search & Seizure / Miranda v. Arizona Slides
Tomorrow I will be in San Juan, Puerto Rico giving a Continuing Legal Education lecture to the federal district court bar and otherwise ignoring my grading duties. My lecture will cover two topics: Computer Search and Seizure law (2 hours) and an Overview of Miranda v. Arizona and the law of police interrogations (1 hour). […]
C-Span’s Video Archives — Another Great Internet Time Waster
Over the last year or two, C-SPAN has been putting its archived shows online. As I understand it, the ultimate goal is to make every non-copyrighted program that has ever appeared on C-SPAN online, available for free whenever you want to watch it. Incredible, isn’t it? There’s lots of great stuff on there already for […]
Munich Intellectual Property Summer Program
This coming summer I will be teaching a 1-credit version of my Computer Crime Law course as part of a summer program open to all U.S. law students in Munich, Germany that is part of the Munich Intellectual Property Summer Program hosted by The George Washington University Law School. I taught in the program in […]
Reader Poll on the New West Casebook Covers
For many decades, casebooks by the West Publishing Company have featured a brown faux leather look with gold print. The first edition of my Computer Crime Law casebook came out in 2006, and it had the traditional cover: A few months ago, West introduced a new casebook cover. Yes, it’s true: A new cover. […]
Teacher’s Manual for Computer Crime Law
I have written a short teacher’s manual for professors who are using the new Second Edition of my Computer Crime Law casebook. I don’t know if West will distribute the manual in time for the start of classes in January. If you’re teaching the class this spring, however, please contact me and I’ll e-mail you […]
Supreme Court of Ohio Rejects Search of Cell Phone Incident to Arrest
The decision in State v. Smith is here, and the vote was 4-3. The majority’s reasoning is that while you can search a “closed container” found on a person incident to arrest, a cell phone is not a “closed container.” From the majority opinion: The state argues that we should follow [United States v. Finley, […]
Will the Supreme Court Rethink Public Employee Privacy Rights in Quon?
The announcement of the cert grant in City of Ontario v. Quon means that the Supreme Court will revisit for the first time the splintered decision in O’Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709 (1987), that created the modern framework of public employee privacy rights. That raises the possibility that the Court might change the basic […]
Supreme Court Grants Cert on Fourth Amendment Protection in Text Messages
The Supreme Court announced this morning that it has granted cert in City of Ontario v. Quon, a case on whether a city employee’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated when city employees accessed text messages he sent on a city-provided pager when the city’s formal policy was that he had no privacy rights in his […]
Does the Fourth Amendment Prohibit Warrantless GPS Surveillance?
Does the Fourth Amendment require a warrant to conduct surveillance of a government-installed GPS device, such as a device installed on a suspect’s car to monitor the car’s location? This issue comes up occasionally, and the DC Circuit has a case pending on the issue. I don’t think I have ever blogged about it, so […]
Former Solicitors General on the Role of the SG
C-SPAN has the video here. The abstract: A panel of former U.S. solicitors general discussed the role of the solicitor general, the duties associated with the job, and arguing before the Supreme Court. The moderator was former Deputy Solicitor General Kenneth Geller. Justice Anthony Kennedy made opening remarks. The 2009 National Heritage Lecture, “The Office […]