“Big Data” has attracted considerable public attention of late, garnering press coverage both optimistic and dystopian in tone. Some of the stories we tell about big data treat it as a computational panacea—a key to unlock the mysteries of the human genome, to crunch away the problems of urban living, or to elucidate hidden patterns…
Big data’s big utopia was personified towards the end of 2012. In perhaps the most underplayed tech moment in the first dozen years of the new millennium, Google brought The Singularity nearer,[1] hiring Ray Kurzweil not as its chief futurist but as its director of engineering. The man the Wall Street Journal dubbed a restless…
Legal debates over the “big data” revolution currently focus on the risks of inclusion: the privacy and civil liberties consequences of being swept up in big data’s net. This Essay takes a different approach, focusing on the risks of exclusion: the threats big data poses to those whom it overlooks. Billions of people worldwide remain…
Big data is transforming individual privacy—and not in equal ways for all. We are increasingly dependent upon technologies, which in turn need our personal information in order to function. This reciprocal relationship has made it incredibly difficult for individuals to make informed decisions about what to keep private. Perhaps more important, the privacy considerations at…
Introduction Big data is all the rage. Its proponents tout the use of sophisticated analytics to mine large data sets for insight as the solution to many of our society’s problems. These big data evangelists insist that data-driven decisionmaking can now give us better predictions in areas ranging from college admissions to dating to hiring.[1]…
Classification is the foundation of targeting and tailoring information and experiences to individuals. Big data promises—or threatens—to bring classification to an increasing range of human activity. While many companies and government agencies foster an illusion that classification is (or should be) an area of absolute algorithmic rule—that decisions are neutral, organic, and even automatically rendered…
Introduction How should privacy risks be weighed against big data rewards? The recent controversy over leaked documents revealing the massive scope of data collection, analysis, and use by the NSA and possibly other national security organizations has hurled to the forefront of public attention the delicate balance between privacy risks and big data opportunities.[1] The…
Introduction On March 19, 2013, the Supreme Court issued its highly anticipated decision in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. At issue was the geographic scope of copyright law’s first-sale doctrine. Historically, this doctrine has functioned as a significant limitation on the rights of copyright holders by allowing lawful owners of copyrighted works to…
Introduction The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) has raised the stakes for financial regulation by requiring more than twenty federal agencies to promulgate nearly 400 new rules. Scholars, regulated entities, Congress, courts, and the agencies themselves have all recognized—even before Dodd-Frank—the lack of rigorous cost-benefit analysis in the context of financial…
In December, the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, thrust the Second Amendment into the forefront of national media attention once again. The massacre of schoolchildren by assault rifle reignited a debate among pundits about the meaning of the right to bear arms, but it may surprise many Americans to learn that the Second Amendment continues to…
The Supreme Court has added to its upcoming docket Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., to consider the question: “Are human genes patentable?” This question implicates patent law’s “products of nature” doctrine, which excludes from patentability naturally occurring materials. The Supreme Court has previously recognized that “anything under the sun that is made…
On December 14, 2012, and in the weeks thereafter, our country mourned the deaths of twenty children and six educators who were brutally shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Since that horrific event, parents, educators, and lawmakers have understandably turned their attention to implementing stronger school security measures to prevent…
In one of the most closely watched litigation matters in recent years, the Supreme Court will soon consider Edith Windsor's challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The Court surprised many observers by granting certiorari, not only on the merits of Windsor's equal protection and due process claims, but also on the question whether…
What are the implications of the Court’s decision to grant certiorari in Hollingsworth v. Perry? Advocates of marriage equality may worry that the Court granted certiorari to overturn the decision. But they should also worry that the Court accepted certiorari to affirm the decision on the same narrow legal and factual grounds relied upon by…
In 2001, two Irish scholars living in the United States set out to compile the recollections of men and women involved in the decades-long conflict in Northern Ireland. The result was the Belfast Project, an oral history project housed at Boston College that collected interviews from many who were personally involved in the violent Northern…
When is software speech for purposes of the First Amendment? This issue has taken on new life amid recent accusations that Google used its search rankings to harm its competitors. This spring, Eugene Volokh coauthored a white paper explaining why Google’s search results are fully protected speech that lies beyond the reach of the antitrust…
Over the past year, states have shown increasing angst about noncitizens registering to vote. Three states—Tennessee, Kansas, and Alabama—have passed new laws requiring documentary proof of U.S. citizenship in order to register. Arizona was the first state to pass such a requirement, but the Ninth Circuit struck it down in April 2012, finding it incompatible…
In December 2007, Angelo Dahlia, a detective for the City of Burbank, California, allegedly witnessed his fellow police officers using unlawful interrogation tactics. According to Dahlia, these officers beat multiple suspects, squeezed the throat of one suspect, and placed a gun directly under that suspect’s eye. The Burbank Chief of Police seemed to encourage this…
The reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), set to expire this year, has elicited predictable partisan rancor. While there is little chance of the reauthorization being enacted by Congress so close to an election, the Senate draft includes a provision that raises interesting issues for the rights of students involved in sexual assault…
Most people probably figured that the debate over where to try alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (“KSM”) had ended. Indeed, it has been well over a year since Congress forced Attorney General Eric Holder to reluctantly announce that KSM’s prosecution would be referred to the Department of Defense for trial before a Guantanamo military…
