A while back, it was reported that the Bush Administration authorized the NSA to engage in warrantless wiretapping. Based on the information released so far, the program was likely illegal. Now, it appears that the warrantless wiretapping program (more innocuously renamed the “Terrorist Surveillance Program,” or “TSP”) is just the tip of a larger iceberg.
The tragic suicide of Tyler Clementi has been raising awareness of the profound issue of privacy and young people. Two students, Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, have been criminally charged with invasion of privacy for secretly recording Clementi’s sexual activities in his dorm room and then disseminating the video on the Internet.
Professor Paul Schwartz (Berkeley School of Law) and I recently published a new book, PRIVACY LAW FUNDAMENTALS. This book is a distilled guide to the essential elements of U.S. data privacy law. In an easily-digestible format, the book covers core concepts, key laws, and leading cases.
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The U.S. Supreme Court has decided NASA v. Nelson, reversing the 9th Circuit 8-0. My thoughts about the case are here and here [links no longer available], and as I predicted, the Court rejected the 9th Circuit holding that the government employment background check questionnaires violated the constitutional right to information privacy. Fortunately, the Court kept its opinion narrow and didn’t use it as an opportunity to wipe out the constitutional right to information privacy, a right that the Court mentioned just a few times but that has taken on more of a life in the circuit courts.
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I’m pleased to announce the publication of my new book, NOTHING TO HIDE: THE FALSE TRADEOFF BETWEEN PRIVACY AND SECURITY (Yale University Press, May 2011). Here’s the book jacket description:
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I just uploaded the final published version of my essay, Fourth Amendment Pragmatism, 51 B.C. L. Rev. 1511 (2010) to SSRN. Here’s the abstract:
I’ve been following the recent controversy over the TSA’s body imaging X-ray machines, otherwise known as the “backscatter” or “exhibit-yourself-in-the-nude” devices. It made me reminisce about an old post I wrote about the Playmobil airline screening playset.
I had not used the playset for a while. Five long years have elapsed since my post, and I had outgrown this toy and moved on to more advanced ones. But this recent controversy made me regress. . . .
The ABA Journal reports [link no longer available] that the number of libel suits has been steadily dropping in the United States:
A new poll by Common Sense Media reveals some interesting data about privacy and youth. The poll was conducted by Zogby International:
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