Dec

20

New Law Review Comments Cover Social Networking, Wind Farms, Deceptive Trade Practices Act, Open Records Law, and Purchase Money Security Interests

Posted by: | December 20, 2010 | 1 Comment

Now available online, the recently published student comments in the Marquette Law Review cover a wide range of topics.  They include Nathan Petrashek’s comment on the impact of online social networking on Fourth Amendment privacy.  Since social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace attract both criminals (e.g., sexual predators, identity thieves) and the police who investigate [...]

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Oct

6

NASA v. Nelson and Public Employee Informational Privacy

Posted by: | October 6, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument in the public employee informational privacy case of NASA v. Nelson (oral tanscript here). Rather than reinvent the wheel on this one, I want to direct reader’s to Prof. Lior Strahilevitz’s (Chicago Law) excellent analysis of the oral argument on PrawfsBlawg. Here are some highlights:  Having [...]

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Sep

28

Can You Be Forced to Turn Over Your Social Network Passwords in a Civil Case?

Posted by: | September 28, 2010 | 5 Comments

Let’s say you’re the plaintiff in a civil case against a neighbor, an employer, or a company you’ve done business with. One of the many pains of litigation is the discovery process–the process whereby each side collects information that it believes will help it win the case. Discovery can come in many forms, such as [...]

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Apr

7

Intimate Associations and Public Employment

Posted by: | April 7, 2010 | Leave a Comment

In the past, I have written about my belief that public employees’ rights to sexual privacy should enjoy the same protection afforded First Amendment rights to speech and religion. So far, courts have been unreceptive to my claims that post-Lawrence v. Texas, the right to sexual privacy represents a heightened constitutional right which should lead [...]

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Mar

8

Supreme Court Takes Public Employee Informational Privacy Case

Posted by: | March 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment

The United States Supreme Court granted cert today in the public employee privacy case of NASA v. Nelson, No. 09-530 (petition for cert here). The case will consider whether NASA, a federal agency, violated the informational privacy rights of employees, who worked in non-sensitive contract jobs, by asking certain invasive questions during background investigations. General [...]

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Feb

17

Does Google Buzz Violate COPPA?

Posted by: | February 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Danielle Citron over at Concurring Opinions invited me to write a guest post expanding on a comment I wrote yesterday on her post on the Google Buzz story. I’m reposting it here with more of the links enabled, which got lost in translation: Google’s new social networking service, Google Buzz, has obviously been all over [...]

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Nov

20

Work Email: “I Always Feel Like … Somebody’s Watching Me”

Posted by: | November 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment

No, this post is not about the singer Rockwell or that annoying Geico commercial, but about whether you should just assume that your boss monitors your email. A new Wall Street Journal article suggests that is what exactly may be happening, but now there is some push back from employees and their advocates: Big Brother [...]

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Apr

13

More Thoughts on Marriage

Posted by: | April 13, 2009 | 2 Comments

Sean Samis has posted a lengthy response to my post expressing “different” thoughts on the Iowa decision on same-sex marriage. I thank him for his response and, while I think he has got it wrong, he’d get a great grade for his efforts in my Law & Theology seminar or Wisconsin Supreme Court class and so [...]

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Feb

26

Is Congress About to Require Home Users to Keep Wi-Fi Logs?

Posted by: | February 26, 2009 | 1 Comment

According to this breathless story on CNET, sinister congressional forces are afoot attempting to impose a record-keeping requirement on home networks. But as I warn my Internet Law students every year, you just can’t rely on CNET posts on legislative developments, particularly the more sensational the headline. And that turns out to be true here [...]

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Feb

17

Can You Bug Your Own Cellphone?

Posted by: | February 17, 2009 | 3 Comments

This recent post over at Consumerist caught my eye: A person loses his cell phone. Before he lost it, he set it up to blind-copy him on all emails sent from the cell phone. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that he did this (as the post recommends) as a “pretty brilliant low-tech security [...]

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Jan

5

Wisconsin Court of Appeals Decides Important Video Privacy Case

Posted by: | January 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Over on Concurring Opinions, Dan Solove reports on a recent Wisconsin Court of Appeals case involving Wisconsin’s video voyeurism law, Wis. Stat. § 942.09(2)(am). The case is State v. Jahnke, 2007AP2130-CR (Dec. 30, 2008). Wisconsin is one of a number of states that have adopted such statutes, which generally bar videotaping someone without their consent [...]

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Sep

13

Privacy Interests in Extremis

Posted by: | September 13, 2008 | 1 Comment

In a fascinating case decided this week, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed the suppression of a video recording apparently showing a husband having sexual intercourse with his wife, a stroke victim who was unconscious and lived in a nursing home.  See State v. Johnson (Appeal No. 2007AP1485-CR, 9/11/2008).  The husband was charged with second [...]

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