Note: Tweeting the Police: Balancing Free Speech and Decency on Government-Sponsored Social Media Pages
By Alysha L. Bohanon. Full text here. Government entities increasingly rely on their social media pages to inform and interact with their constituents. These posts can attract a wide range of comments from the public—some of which are thoughtful and informed, while others are downright hateful, racist, threatening, or vulgar. May a government entity remove…
Continue ReadingNote: Guardians of Your Galaxy S7: Encryption Backdoors and the First Amendment
By Allen Cook Barr. Full text here. Since Apple brought encryption technology into wide public use with its inclusion on the iPhone, there have been calls from law enforcement for technology companies to include backdoors—the ability to bypass the encryption and access information even if one does not have the password, fingerprint, et. cetera normally required…
Continue ReadingNote: Address Confidentiality and Real Property Records: Safeguarding Interests in Land While Protecting Battered Women
By Jonathan Grant. Full text here. Over thirty states have instituted address confidentiality programs to protect victims of sexual assault, domestic abuse, stalking, and other crimes from perpetrators who try to track them through public records. The protections states offer vary widely. Minnesota has applied its address confidentiality program more broadly than any other state, extending…
Continue ReadingNote: Maximizing the Min-Max Test: A Proposal To Unify the Framework for Rule 403 Decisions
By Leah Tabbert. Full text here. Rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence applies to virtually every piece of evidence introduced in federal proceedings, permitting the trial judge to exclude evidence if the danger of unfair prejudice substantially exceeds the evidence’s probative value. By requiring that the danger of prejudice substantially outweigh probative value in…
Continue ReadingNote: Anticompetitive Until Proven Innocent: An Antitrust Proposal To Embargo Covert Patent Privateering Against Small Businesses
By Kyle R. Kroll. Full text here. Policy-makers have become increasingly wary of a new patent litigation strategy called “patent privateering.” Through licensing or transfers of patents, companies can sponsor and direct—or privateer—other entities (often called patent assertion entities (or PAEs)) to sue competitors for patent infringement. Unlike patent trolling, patent privateering is not purposed on…
Continue ReadingNote: You Should Be Free To Talk the Talk and Walk the Walk: Applying Riley v. California to Smart Activity Trackers
By Katharine Saphner. Full text here. In 2014, the Supreme Court held in Riley v. California that law enforcement officers must obtain a warrant before searching a cell phone. Though the Court intended that this holding would provide clear guidance to law enforcement officers, it may ultimately provide even more confusion. Riley distinguishes an arrestee’s…
Continue ReadingNote: Live Long and Prosper: How the Persistent and Increasing Popularity of Fan Fiction Requires a New Solution in Copyright Law
By Brittany Johnson. Full text here. For decades, fans have written stories that extend the plotlines of popular films, novels, and television shows in a practice known as fan fiction. But with the advent of the Internet, the popularity of this practice has grown exponentially as these stories are easily posted online and accessible for free.…
Continue ReadingNote: The Shoe Doesn’t Fit: General Jurisdiction Should Follow Corporate Structure
By Seungwon Chung. Full text here. Increasingly, corporations are moving away from a centralized corporate structure toward decentralization and fragmentation of corporate functions. At the same time, the corporate general jurisdiction doctrine functions anachronistically—assuming that corporations exist solely as centralized structures. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Daimler AG v. Bauman reflects this assumption. By drawing…
Continue ReadingNote: Hard Choices: Where To Draw the Line on Limiting Selection in the Selective Reduction of Multifetal Pregnancies
By Mary A. Scott. Full text here. In the last few years, a growing number of states have enacted or proposed laws that limit a woman’s right to have an abortion when her reasons for seeking the abortion are based on a specific characteristic of the fetus, most notably sex or the presence of a genetic…
Continue ReadingNote: Incorporating Cost into the Return of Incidental Findings Calculus: Defining a Responsible Default for Genetics and Genomics Researchers
By Emily Scholtes. Full text here. The debate over returning incidental findings has been a hot topic in medical and legal circles for many years and is described as “one of the thorniest current challenges.” Currently, no federal or state laws regulate the disclosure of these findings. Although many agree that ethical duties arise in returning…
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