Featured Paper: Bridging the Cellular Divide: A Search for Consensus Regarding Law Enforcement Access to Historical Cell Data

From the February 2014 Issue of the Cardozo Law Review: Zachary Ross, Bridging the Cellular Divide: A Search for Consensus Regarding Law Enforcement Access to Historical Cell Data. Excerpt: Technological change is often a double-edged sword--it enables and enriches our lives, but also allows for new means of exploitation and control. As social, architectural, and market barriers protecting longstanding notions of personal space erode, individuals increasingly rely on the legal system as a defense to arbitrary invasions of privacy. Paradoxically,...

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Personal Data Protection and Breach Accountability Act of 2014 would enact criminal penalties for "intentionally or willfully" concealing a security breach

Thanks in part to the recent security breaches at Target and Neiman Marcus, pressure for a federal response to data security has become increasingly popular. Numerous bills have been introduced in the House and the Senate that call for new legislative enactments to answer the data security problem. A somewhat popular proposal for many of these bills is a new criminal statute for individuals who knowingly and willingly fail to report a known security breach. I recently introduced readers to Senator Patrick Leahy’s Personal Data Privacy and Security...

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Quick note: Oklahoma Appellate Court: No reasonable expectation of privacy in text messages sent to another person's phone

The case is State v. Marcum, No. S-2012-976 (OK App. Ct. Jan. 28, 2014). FourthAmendment.com's summary of the case (with slight modifications): A search warrant was used to obtain [cell phone text records]. [The court held] that [t]here is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the records of another person’s account <even if those records pertain to you>. When you hit “send” and [transmit a] text message to another person, you’ve lost any reasonable expectation of privacy in the message. The court's holding can be boiled down to the...

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Wis. Sup. Ct. 4th Amendment case: if a probation condition bans possessing a PC (i.e. contraband), you can seize it, but can you search it?

The Wisconsin Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in State v. Purtell, 2012AP001307 - CR (Wis. Sup. Ct. 2014) (link to PDF of docket). A summary from the Wisconsin Public Defender's "On Point site" gives a good synopsis: Purtell was on probation for animal cruelty convictions, and as a condition of probation was allowed access to computers only for school or work. After Purtell admitted having a laptop at home, his agent went to his home and removed the laptop. She found files showing females, some appearing to be very young, engaged...

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Massive round-up of new law articles, covering privacy, Fourth Amendment, GPS, cell site, cybercrime, big data, revenge porn, drones, and more

Spencer, Shaun B., The Surveillance Society and the Third-Party Privacy Problem (2013). South Carolina Law Review, Vol. 65, No. 2, 2013. Abstract:  This Article examines a question that has become increasingly important in the emerging surveillance society: Should the law treat information as private even though others know about it? This is the third-party privacy problem. Part II explores two competing conceptions of privacy — the binary and contextual conceptions. Part III describes two features of the emerging surveillance society that...

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11th Cir. upholds pre-Jones warrantless GPS under good faith exception; precedent was 1981 beeper case

Another circuit court (the 11th) has jumped on the good faith exception bandwagon and upheld pre-Jones warrantless GPS use, finding that law enforcement reasonably relied on "binding" precedent at the time the GPS tracker was installed. The case is United States v. Ransfer, __ F.3d __ (11th Cir. 2014). --Note: While Ransfer was pending, the 11th Cir. decided United States v. Smith, __ F.3d__ (11th Cir. 2013), which involved Ransfer's co-defendants. The court upheld warrantless GPS under the good faith exception in that case, as well,...

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