Schedule

This page is a master list of all topics, lectures, and readings for the course. Some important notes:

  • The schedule may change at my discretion.
  • The assignments themselves (which cases to briefs, notes to respond to, and so on) are on Moodle.
  • For your convenience, I have linked some opinions here that are also in the book. Generally, use the book’s version, as Kerr shortens the opinions to just the relevant parts. I have provided some shortened/excerpted opinions that are not in Kerr; these are marked as such in the list below.

Submitting assignments. You are expected to complete all assigned assignments and readings (including the numbered end-of-section notes) before each class meeting. You are responsible for submitting assignments by the course meeting in which they are discussed.

Assignments can be turned in only via Moodle and only in PDF format. Do not hand in a printout or email the course staff your submissions, as we won’t accept them or give you credit. Assignments are technically due at 9:00am, but as a grace period, Moodle will accept submissions until 1:00pm (the start of class). You can re-submit an assignment at any point until then. Assignments will not be accepted after this time. If you’re running close to the deadline, it’s a a good idea to submit some version of your assignment as you finish parts before 1:00pm, and then keep resubmitting to avoid any trouble with the server. Do not email the course staff after 9:00am with questions about the assignment or to notify us of trouble with Moodle, as we will not reply.

Grading. Each case you brief will be graded according to the briefing rubric. Each note you brief will be graded according to the note rubric. Other items will be graded as marked.

Overview, briefing, Katz test

September 05 Tue, 07 Thu

Please read the following chapters from Delaney and the cases before class. Olmstead will be discussed on September 5, but the brief is not due until September 7. After the first class meeting, you must read and brief cases before lecture — the first meeting is the only exception to this rule!

  • Delaney, Learning Legal Reasoning.
    • Read pages 1–5 of Chapter 1, which is offered free on the author’s web site.
    • Read all of Chapter 2.
  • Olmstead v. US, 277 U.S. 438 (1928)
  • Katz v. US, 389 U.S. 347 (1967)
  • Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979)

Optional/Related:

  • Oyez has a case summary and the oral arguments for Katz; if you have about forty minutes, most of the arguments are fascinating. Highlights include a prescient discussion that will be revisited in Kyllo (around 11:30), and the attorney for Katz bringing up the idea of a new test for 4A applicability (starting around 21:00).

Computer misuse crimes

September 12 Tue

(Sections, like §2C, refer to sections from Kerr. You should generally read the entire section, including the any opinions and end-of-chapter Notes, though you need only brief the cases as listed in the Moodle assignments.)

  • §2C Unauthorized Access Statutes
    • §2C1 Statutes (18 U.S.C. § 1030)
    • §2C2 What is “Access”? (State v. Riley)
    • §2C3 (you needn’t read US v. Morris, but feel free to do so to get the legal perspective on a legendary bit of malware – one of the first Internet worms)
    • §2C4 Breaking contract-based restricted access (just the two introductory paragraphs; we’ll do Nosal next class)
    • US v. Drew
    • §2C5 Breaking community norms-based restricted access

Optional/Related:

September 14 Thu

Optional/Related:

4th amendment

September 19 Tue

September 21 Thu

September 26 Tue

  • §5C Exceptions to the Warrant Requirement, continued
    • §5C3 Search Incident to Arrest (You needn’t read Schlossberg v. Solesbee, as Riley v. California is better case law for our purposes)
    • Riley v. California is not in the text. Here is a shortened version of the opinion that you can use to brief it; if you have the 2017 supplement it is there as well.
    • §5C4 Border Searches (Arnold is further clarified by US v. Cotterman, so you don’t have to brief Arnold (but you should probably still read it))
    • US v Cotterman 709 F.3d 952 (an excerpted version is in the 2017 supplement).

Optional/Related:

September 28 Thu

  • §5D Searching and Seizing a Computer With a Warrant

Optional/Related:

October 03 Tue

  • §5E The Fourth Amendment and Computer Networks
    • Analogies to Speech, Letters, and Telephone Calls
    • 4th Amend. protection for non-content Information (US v Forrester, 9th Circuit 2007)
    • 4th Amend. protection for content information (US v. Warshak, 6th Circuit 2010)

Optional/Related: - No need to read Forrester’s more recent Supreme Court decision, but here it is: No. 09-50029 2009

Quiz in class today! The last 30 minutes of class will be set aside for a short written quiz. You may use your notes from class and your homeworks (briefs / responses), but not the textbook.

Sample quiz questions are available to peruse.

October 04 Wed (special announcement)

(This is a special announcement. We have class as usual on Tuesday and Thursday of this week.)

Becky Richards, the NSA Civil Liberties and Privacy Director, will be speaking this Wednesday from 5:30–6:30pm at the Old Chapel. Please consider attending!

TOR, NITs

October 05 Thu

Becky Richards will be sitting in on class today.

(and, it turns out, we’ll spend the entire class talking with her)

See also:

  • Top changes in Tor since the 2004 design paper (Part 1) (Part 2) ; part 2 described guard nodes

October 12 Thu

We will continue our explanation of Tor.

Optional/Related:

October 17 Tue

We will finish our overview of Tor, and discuss some of the readings from last week. Please also read:

Midterm

October 19 Thu

There will be an in-class midterm exam on this date. Any material (Delaney, Kerr, other assigned readings, class discussion, notes) covered before the date of the exam may appear on the exam.

This exam is closed-book, but you are permitted to use your notes and graded briefs as reference during the exam. You may not include wholesale excerpts from the text in these briefs and notes. Expect us to audit the notes you are using during the exam. This should take less than five minutes per student. No collaboration between students is permitted. Violating these rules or any portion of the University’s Academic Honesty Policy will be considered academic dishonesty, and we will pursue the maximum possible sanction.

Statutory privacy protections

October 24 Tue

  • §6, §6.A Statutory Privacy Protections, and The Wiretap Act
  • §6.A.1. The Wiretap Act: The Basic Structure, O’Brien v. O’Brien. As usual, and especially here, don’t skip the notes in Kerr; they are particularly important in this chapter.
  • §6.A.2. The Consent Exception (Griggs-Ryan v. Smith)

Optional/Related:

October 26 Thu

Optional/Related:

October 31 Tue

Optional/Related:

November 02 Thu

Cellular network

November 07 Tue

Optional/Related:

November 09 Thu

Optional/Related:

GPS, remote monitoring, Mosaic theory

November 14 Tue

Optional/Related:

November 16 Thu

Optional/Related:

FISA and national security

November 28 Tue

Optional/Related:

November 30 Thu

  • The oral arguments of the Klayman v. Obama case [audio]; focus on:
    • 0m:00s–18m:22s (Main argument of the Gov’t)
    • 40m:33s–59m:35s (Main argument of the EFF)
  • background from Wikipedia

Optional/Related:

Review and wrap-up

December 05 Tue

We’ll cover the U.S. v. Carpenter oral arguments (hot off the presses from last Wednesday: [audio and transcript at Oyez], [PDF of transcript]) in lecture today.

Quiz in class today! The last half of class will be set aside for a short written quiz. You may use your notes from class and your homeworks (briefs / responses), but not the textbook.

Sample quiz questions are available to peruse.

December 07 Thu

We’ll review the Snowden leaks in class, covering the surveillance programs that revealed by these leaks. This material will be a review and roundup of much of the FISA / National Security material from last week and also touch on things our visitor described earlier in the semester.

December 12 Tue

We’ll review the entire course, have a brief-wrap up discussion, and go over possible final exam questions. I’ll also harangue you to fill out the end-of-semester SRTIs, which are once again online this semester.

Final Exam

Our exam is scheduled for:

12/14/2017
Thursday
10:30–12:30
Engineering Laboratory room 304

Please note (from the Academic Rules and Regulations):

…it is University policy not to require students to take more than two final examinations in one day of the final examination period. If any student is scheduled to take three examinations on the same day, the faculty member running the chronologically middle examination is required to offer a make-up examination if the student notifies the instructor of the conflict at least two weeks prior to the time the examination is scheduled. The student must provide proof of the conflict. This may be obtained from the Registrar’s Office, 213 Whitmore.