Sample Quiz 2

The quiz will be given in class on December 01 (Thursday). The quiz will be open-note (but not open-book); I will audit your notes while you take the quiz. Expect this process to take less than five minutes. I will also give you feedback about your class participation grade during this time.

The quiz will primarily cover material post-midterm: statutory privacy protections (the Wiretap Act, the Pen Register and Trap/Trace statutes, and the Stored Communications Act), including the material from the text and other assigned readings; Mosaic Theory; and National Security law.

The quiz will be written to take about twenty-five minutes, but you will be given about fifty. It will not be the whole class meeting; we will cover some new material beforehand.

Example questions include:

• Consider a telephone (voice) call on a traditional land line, where both parties are located in their own homes and have no reason to believe there are eavesdroppers within or outside their home.
  • Does the 4A protect the numbers dialed before the call connects? Why or why not? Do any statutory privacy protections apply to the numbers dialed?
  • Does the 4A protect the contents of the call? Why or why not? Do any statutory privacy protections apply to the contents?
  • Suppose the connection were instead a DSL connection. Does the 4A protect the contents of the communications? Why or why not? Do any statutory privacy protections apply to the contents of the communications?
• Imagine a large state university that provides Internet access to students who reside on campus. It is a crime for the university to monitor the Internet communication of students who use the service it provides under certain circumstances.
  • Identify at least one statute or act under which the university is potentially incurring criminal liability by monitoring the Internet communication of students who use the service.
  • There are circumstances where this liability does not exist. Give two specific and legally distinct actions or situations where this is true.
• On its face, the SCA (and in particular, §2703(d) orders) appear to violate the Fourth Amendment by allowing the government to compel the contents of communications with less process than a probable cause warrant. Why is this conclusion incorrect? Cite specific precedent or doctrine to justify your answer.
• What regulates surveillance in each of the following circumstances?
  • Surveillance of non-US persons located outside of the United States, where the monitoring site is located outside the US.
  • Surveillance of non-US persons located outside of the United States, where the monitoring site is located inside the US (for example, when the communication is routed through the US).
  • Surveillance of non-US persons located inside the United States.
  • Surveillance of US persons located inside the United States
• Consider US v. Jones. Describe and compare how Justices Alito and Sotomayor’s concurrences both agreed with the original ruling (that the monitoring was a 4A search), and explain how their reasoning differed.

The actual quiz will not have this many questions!