PRIVACY + SECURITY BLOG

News, Developments, and Insights

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Should Courts Issue Unpublished Opinions?

Unpublished Judicial Opinions

NOTICE: This is an unpublished blog post. It may not be cited by any court or any party to any litigation.

A common practice for many courts is to issue unpublished opinions that may not be cited as precedent. These opinions are often short and consist of a few paragraphs. They are generally supposed to be limited to cases that can be resolved by clearly-established legal rules. According to one news article: “California courts of appeal issued 11,852 opinions during the 2004-2005 fiscal year. Of these, only 1,047 were published. About one-third of federal appellate-court decisions reviewed in 2002 came in unpublished opinions.” These statistics are staggering. Are there really so many cases that do not warrant having precedential value?

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Michael Sullivan’s Legal Pragmatism: Community, Rights, and Democracy

Legal Pragmatism

It seems as though books are the theme of my blogging this week, so I thought I’d recommend another great new book: Professor Michael Sullivan’s Legal Pragmatism: Community, Rights, and Democracy (Indiana Univ. Press 2007). From the book jacket:

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The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet

Future of Reputation

I‘m very excited to announce that my new book, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy, is now hot off the presses! Copies are now in stock and available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble’s website. Copies will hit bookstores in a few weeks.

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Judge Strikes Down Part of USA Patriot Act

Surveillance

In Mayfield v. United States, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken (District of Oregon) held that parts of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, which were altered by the USA Patriot Act in 2001, are unconstitutional. The case was brought by Brandon Mayfield, a who was put under extensive surveillance and then detained for two weeks because the FBI suspected him of involvement in the Madrid train bombing of 2004. The FBI thought Mayfield’s fingerprint was at the scene of the bombing, but it was gravely mistaken. According to the AP:

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The Lives of Others

The Lives of Others

I recently saw The Lives of Others and was thoroughly impressed with this film. After having seen the amazing Pan’s Labyrinth, I was stunned that another movie could win the Oscar for best foreign film of 2006 (one of the rare categories in the Oscars where worthy films actually win). But after finally seeing it, I now know why. It’s a spectacular film.

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The Do Not Call List’s Memory Lapse

Phone

So you signed up for the federal Do Not Call List and expect not to receive any more of those annoying telemarketing calls ever again. Think again. Signing up expires after 5 years, so if you signed up back when the list first came into existence, you’ll need to sign up all over again soon. It’s the FTC’s way of making us feel like Sisyphus. Lame.

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Can the TB Patient Sue the CDC?

Lungs

The WSJ blog points to this interesting update [link no longer available] about the TB patient who was quarantined for having a highly-resistant strain of TB. I blogged about the case here and here. According to the news story, times aren’t very good from Andrew Speaker, the TB patient:

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The FBI’s New Surveillance System

Surveillance

Remember the good old days, when the FBI used tools such as Carnivore, the device that sifted through email traffic at ISPs. The FBI renamed the device DCS-1000 to sound less ominous and mean, but the name Carnivore stuck. Later on, Carnivore no longer became necessary, as ISPs could deliver the goods to the FBI without its help. Attention then shifted to the NSA, the new king of surveillance.

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The Problems With Terrorist Watch Lists

Terrorist Watch Lists

From the Washington Post:

The government’s terrorist screening database flagged Americans and foreigners as suspected terrorists almost 20,000 times last year. But only a small fraction of those questioned were arrested or denied entry into the United States, raising concerns among critics about privacy and the list’s effectiveness.

A range of state, local and federal agencies as well as U.S. embassies overseas rely on the database to pinpoint terrorism suspects, who can be identified at borders or even during routine traffic stops. The database consolidates a dozen government watch lists, as well as a growing amount of information from various sources, including airline passenger data. The government said it was planning to expand the data-sharing to private-sector groups with a “substantial bearing on homeland security,” though officials would not be more specific.

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