Source: https://lawandinformatics.wordpress.com/category/technology/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 02:02:16+00:00

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The Northern Kentucky Law Review and NKU Chase Law + Informatics Institute hosted their annual spring symposium, the Law + Informatics Symposium on Digital Evidence, on Friday, February 27, 2015. The event was held in the Northern Kentucky University George and Ellen Rieveschl Digitorium and was co-sponsored by the Center for Excellence in Advocacy.
The all-day symposium provided an interdisciplinary exploration of digital evidence. Discussion topics included individual autonomy and government security, evidentiary, reliability, digital privacy concerns, drone-obtained evidence, and medical reimbursement fraud. Speakers from across the country participated in the conference and in a final roundtable discussion of various current issues and topics in digital evidence.
The symposium included a student scholarship showcase luncheon. Three law review editors, Kathleen Watson, Casey Taylor, and Lauren Martin, presented on the right to confront technology, warrantless cell phone searches, and computer source code copyright, respectively.
On Thursday, February 26, 2015, as a prelude to the academic symposium, NKU Chase hosted a special screening of The Decade of Discovery, a documentary film about a government attorney on a quest to find a better way to search White House e-mail, and a teacher who takes a stand for civil justice on the electronic frontier. After the viewing, the audience discussed the film with Joe Looby, filmmaker; Jason R. Baron, former government attorney featured in the film; Erin Corken, e-discovery adjunct professor and Ricoh Legal regional review manager; and Joseph Callow, partner and leader of the Keating Muething & Klekamp E-Discovery Litigation Support Group. The film screening was sponsored by Ricoh Legal and Keating Muething & Klekamp PLL.
The symposium was sponsored by Northern Kentucky Law Review, NKU Chase Law + Informatics Institute, Center for Excellence in Advocacy, Keating Muething & Klekamp PLL (film), and Ricoh Americas Corp. Legal (film).
A complete agenda with roster of speakers, biographies, and CLE materials is available here.
Watch the webinar without CLE credit.
Through courses, symposia, publications and workshops, the Law + Informatics Institute encourages thoughtful public discourse on the regulation and use of information systems, business innovation, and the development of best business practices regarding the exploitation and effectiveness of the information and data systems in business, health care, media and entertainment, and the public sector.
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in two cases – Riley v. California and U.S. v. Wurie (collectively “Riley”) – that police may not search a person’s cell phone just because the phone is in the person’s possession when he or she is arrested. Instead, the police must either get a warrant to search or else rely on case-specific facts giving rise to individualized suspicion that evidence on the cell phone will be destroyed before a warrant can be obtained. The Riley decision was virtually unanimous, with Justice Alito joining only in part.
After David Riley was arrested in California for a firearms offense, police searched his pockets and found a smartphone. Searches of the contents of the phone disclosed: that Riley had used the term “CK,” short for “Crip Killer,” suggesting that he was a member of the Bloods street gang; videos in which unknown persons used the word “Blood”; and a photo of Riley in front of a car involved in a recent shooting. This evidence was introduced at trial against Riley in California state court to prove his involvement in the shooting and his gang membership.
In a separate case, Brima Wurie was arrested on drug charges in Massachusetts, and police seized a flip phone from him. Police noticed numerous phone calls coming from a contact identified as “My House.” Police searched the phone for the phone number of the “My House” contact, then located the address associated with that number using an online directory. Police then secured a warrant for that address and seized drugs, cash, and a firearm, all of which were introduced at his federal trial on drug and gun charges.
Riley and Wurie each conceded that police had authority to seize their phones pursuant to the “search incident to arrest” (SIA) doctrine, which permits police, without a warrant, to search the person of an arrestee and seize whatever they find. They argued, however, that police went beyond that authority by searching the contents of their phones without a warrant.
The Court agreed. The Court distinguished a 1973 case, U.S. v. Robinson, in which it had upheld as an SIA the search of a cigarette pack obtained from an arrestee. In Robinson, the Court had justified the SIA rule on two grounds: preventing the arrestee from accessing an item that could be used to injure the officer or effect an escape, and preventing him from accessing evidence that could be concealed or destroyed. In Riley, the Court determined that inthe context of a cell phone, the first justification is obviously inapplicable. And the government had shown nothing beyond speculation that searching a cell phone immediately was necessary to avoid having its contents encrypted or remotely wiped.
In some cases, the Court acknowledged, police will have sufficient suspicion both that a cell phone contains evidence of a crime and that the evidence might be destroyed before a warrant can be obtained. In those cases, the police will be able to search without a warrant, but only if they can point to particular facts and circumstances indicating a need to search imminently. Otherwise, they will have to convince a judge to issue a warrant based on probable cause that the cell phone contains evidence of a crime.
Riley has the potential to be a very significant case. Not only does the ruling have the immediate effect of barring searches of cell phones, and presumably other computer devices, incident to arrest, but it also has broader implications. For the first time, the Court has acknowledged and coherently articulated that digital data are different than non-digital data, not only in degree but in kind. In the years to come, Riley will likely be viewed as the case that brought the Fourth Amendment into the 21st century.
In an important victory for free speech advocates, the Ninth Circuit has joined other courts in establishing that authors protected by the First Amendment need not be journalists to have such robust protections.
In aligning the Ninth Circuit with other circuits which have addressed the issue, the court reaffirms that negligence is the minimum legal standard for any case involving matters of public interest (and possibly all cases). To receive general damages without suffering specific harm and to receive punitive damages, the plaintiff must establish that the defendant published the statements with actual malice, meaning intentional knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard of the truth.
In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), the Supreme Court established the modern First Amendment framework. Public officials must prove actual malice to prove liability. Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130, (1967), then extended this standard to public figures. A decade later, in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 350 (1974), the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment required a negligence standard for private defamation actions. Significantly less than the actual malice standard, it nonetheless established that there could not be liability without fault.
Crystal Cox published blog posts on several websites that she created, accusing Padrick and Obsidian of fraud, corruption, money-laundering, and other illegal activities in connection with the Summit bankruptcy. Cox apparently has a history of making similar allegations and seeking payoffs in exchange for retraction. See David Carr, When Truth Survives Free Speech, N.Y. Times, Dec. 11, 2011, at B1. Padrick and Obsidian sent Cox a cease-and-desist letter, but she continued posting allegations.
The accusations and statements, however, were difficult to view as factual assertions. Where there were assertions of fact, the court explains, the plaintiff must establish the negligence of the statements.
The Ninth Circuit also sidestepped the issue whether the Gertz negligence standard applies to matters of purely private concern. It noted the unresolved question, when it stated that “the Supreme Court has ‘never considered whether the Gertz balance obtains when the defamatory statements involve no issue of public concern.’” (quoting Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, 472 U.S. 749, 757 (1985) (plurality opinion)).
Instead, the Ninth Circuit noted that the blog was made available to the public at large, just as every blog does. Moreover, the court noted that “public allegations that someone is involved in crime generally are speech on a matter of public concern.” So instead of answering whether the negligence standard applies to private matters, the court expanded the realm of public discourse to almost any public accusation.
This strategy has the effect of expanding the negligence standard to almost any claim. It may leave certain personal matters personal, though this is unclear. It could also leave certain formats, such as personal emails, texts, and friends’ lists as matters of purely private concern, but undoubtedly many of allegedly defamatory posts on such platforms will also be matters of public concern.
The distinction between matters of public concern and purely private matters has less and less meaning, and the distinction is likely to continue to erode in the context of defamation, though perhaps remain relevant in some issues involving privacy.
Nonetheless, the case is an important victory for free speech interests. Of course, this does not mean anything can be published with impunity. Negligence is not a terribly difficult test to meet and those plaintiffs who have truly been harmed will still have their day in court. It is difficult to be the subject of online attacks, but the rules of law should apply equally to all speakers, journalists, bloggers, and citizens alike. In the Ninth Circuit, it now does.
The New York Times has been highlighting the federal government defeat in the first lawsuit over NSA surveillance of U.S. telephone and internet activity outside the FISA court jurisdiction. The decision in Klayman v. Obama represents a strong rebuke to the NSA. Written in a tone of outrage, the district court decision emphasizes the profound differences that exist in the current NSA surveillance program from the historical precedents upon which the claim of constitutionality is based.
In Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 745 (1979), the Supreme Court held that the use of a “pen register” was not a violation of the Fourth Amendment because the information sent to the telephone company was a business record provided without a reasonable expectation of privacy. The pen register records only the numbers dialed on a telephone. Any expectation of privacy that could exist in the telephone numbers a person dialed was unreasonable.
Critics of the district court opinion point to the precedent of Smith to suggest that the decision reflects an activist agenda, but proper case analysis requires a judge to look to the facts of a case rather than a simplistic summary of the rule. Factually, the public expects far more privacy in the metadata disclosed on their computers, phones, tablets, and mobile devices than the 1979 consumer expected from the telephone company.
In addition, as the court highlighted, the relationship between the telecommunications companies and the government could be viewed as making the telco’s agents of law enforcement. As agents of the police, the third party doctrine no longer applies.
More importantly, the scale of the surveillance and the mosaic of coverage creates a vastly different experience than that previously adjudicated in Smith or the other decision before the Supreme Court.
In United States v. Jones, 132 S. Ct. 945 (2012), the Supreme Court started to review the potential for wide-scale extensive surveillance. The majority decision demurred on the question, finding a search occurred using common law trespass analogies. But five justices opined that the mosaic of surveillance has a constitutional consequence that will need to be addressed.
Smith, and many other Fourth Amendment cases, need to be rethought in light of modern technology where surveillance can be so systematic and pervasive. There is a real difference between being able to engage in a small discrete amount of surveillance and having such broad and sweeping surveillance powers as the NSA is exercising. The challenge is where to draw the lines. This problem exists mainly because Smith still remains viable and must be dealt with. I think it’s time for Smith to be overturned, and so there wouldn’t be such line-drawing challenges.
The Katz approach to expectation of privacy may not be the most useful tool for assessing the scope of pervasive privacy. Despite the coverage of the NSA, I expect that few members of the public can truly comprehend the extent to which the movement of every communication, every Internet-connected device, all information on those devices, the tracking of other objects that are reported to central databases, and photographs and video taken by anyone can be integrated into a pervasive picture of movement. Is this science fiction? Or is it the goal of the NSA five-year strategic plan. Unless the courts or Congress begin to say no to a mosaic of unrelenting surveillance, this plan will be enacted soon. With taxpayer dollars. And without oversight.
The decision is being appealed.
In a widely reported copyright fair use decision, Judge Denny Chin ruled that the Google Books program constituted fair use, denying claims of the Authors Guild that the scanning of 20 million library books and posting snippets of those works online infringed the rights of authors.
The litigation history reflects the transformation that has taken place on the internet in the past decade. In 2004 Google entered into an agreement with several universities, beginning with University of Michigan.
Google began the process of digitizing books at the nation’s great libraries, starting at the University of Michigan, the alma mater of company co-founder Larry Page. “Even before we started Google, we dreamed of making the incredible breadth of information that librarians so lovingly organize searchable online,” said Page. A 2005 lawsuit resulted in three years of negotiation and a proposed settlement in 2008. That settlement collapsed among antitrust concerns and fairness of the representatives of the plaintiffs’ sub-classes.
As the Google Books program evolved, two discrete projects operated. In the Partner Program “works are displayed with the permission of the rights holder.” The rights holders had the ability to opt out of the scanning, but in 2011 the Association of American Publishers settled with Google. According to the decision, “As of early 2012, the Partner Program included approximately 2.5 million books, with the consent of some 45,000 rights holders.” The participation suggests an industry voting with its feet.
Under the publisher agreement, Google stopped displaying ads with the publisher’s books. In turn, the publishers provide Google with the books. This settlement, even more than the two district court decisions, effectively ended the dispute – leaving the two lawsuits as mop-up activities.
In the HathiTrust litigation, Judge Harold Baer determined Google’s Library Project partners who comprised the HathiTrust partnership were entitled to fair use protection for the digitization of the 20,000,000 volumes copied and used by the libraries. The decision highlighted the benefits to visually-impaired students and researchers who had access to content not previously available through audio readers or braille, the benefits of digital search functionality, and the importance of protecting the library collections from physical harm and erosion.
Mass digitization allows new areas of non-expressive computational and statistical research, often called “textmining.” One example of text mining is research that compares the frequency with which authors used “is” to refer to the United States rather than “are” over time. Quoting the brief of the Digital Humanities amicus, “it was only in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century that the conception of the United States as a single, indivisible entity was reflected in the way a majority of writers referred to the nation.”).
Google’s settlements and decisions not to commercialize the Google Books program likely tipped the scales with the publishers and may have strongly influenced the courts. Unlike Judge Baer, Judge Chin does not even discuss the potential to license the digitized database to Google. Baer rejected the potential to license the database as speculative. Moreover, since new works are added by voluntary participation with the publishers, the licenses for new works are included.
The decision appears a simplistic fair use summary that could lead casual observers to wonder why it required eight years of litigation. But changes to the conduct of both parties are what really led to this simple decision. Google adapted its behavior to limit its commercialization of the works. Publishers shifted their position from one of demanding opt-in, ex ante control to recognizing that the opt-out partnership met their needs. Eight years of experience did not produce significant evidence of authors being harmed as a result of snippet-searches replacing library purchases of academic texts.
In addition, the role of digital texts has changed. The Amazon Kindle and Apple iPad have paved the way for a fundamental shift in the relationship authors have with electronic texts. Market forces proved Google correctly anticipated a highly reconstructed book industry. Google was only one of the players bringing about this change.
Both the HathiTrust litigation and the Authors Guild v. Google litigation will likely be appealed, but there is little appeal in undoing the transformations to publishing that the Google Books program began.

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