Posts about Law Enforcement by Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness and security training company.
The gloves are off. Dave Hoffman has lodged another challenge to my position, and I want to take a quick moment to defend myself. I believe that Dave mischaracterizes my arguments in several places and exaggerates some of my claims. So I’ll attempt to clear up any confusion as to my positions and try to defend my […]
So much for concurring opinions . . . I’ve been attacked by not only one co-blogger, but two. Earlier on, I posted a critique of the court’s decision upholding the NYC subway searching policy against a Fourth Amendment challenge.
In a concurring opinion in United States v. McClain, No. 04-5887 (6th Cir., Dec. 2, 2005), Chief Judge Danny Boggs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit seeks to explain what “probable cause” entails. Under the Fourth Amendment, law enforcement officials often must have probable cause to believe that the place to be searched contains […]
In a recently issued opinion, Judge Berman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York upheld New York’s subway searching policy. Back in July, New York began randomly searching people’s bags at NYC subways. I criticized the policy:
In a very interesting case, U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer recently held a Washington Post reporter in contempt of court for not revealing the source of a leak in the investigation of Wen Ho Lee. [Click here for the court’s opinion.] The case involves a civil suit by Lee against a number of federal agencies for […]
Brian Bergstein writes in an AP article about the issue of law enforcement surveillance and technology: With each new advance in communications, the government wants the same level of snooping power that authorities have exercised over phone conversations for a century. Technologists recoil, accusing the government of micromanaging — and potentially limiting — innovation. Today, this tug […]
Did you know that the FBI can issue a letter to an Internet Service Provider or a financial institution demanding that they turn over data on a customer? The letter doesn’t require probable cause. No judge must authorize the letter. The FBI simply issues the letter and gets the information. There’s a gag order, too, […]
According to this article, the drab and dismal world portrayed in George Orwell’s 1984 was in part influenced by his bouts with illness:
The Senate recently voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. But nestled in the Act was an amendment by Senator Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) to add arrestee information to the national DNA database. The national DNA database, which is run by the FBI, is called the Combined DNA Index System (“CODIS”), and it includes DNA from over two […]
I just wrote a post about the possibility of cell phones being used to nab speeders. This raises a larger question regarding law enforcement. If we employ new technologies of surveillance to achieve a more efficient enforcement of various laws, the most obvious concern that comes to mind is the threat posed to privacy. There’s also another […]