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Surveillance as Loss of Obscurity
Get PDFEveryone seems concerned about government surveillance, yet we have a hard time agreeing when and why it is a problem and what we should do about it. When is surveillance in public unjustified? Does metadata raise privacy concerns? Should encrypted devices have a backdoor for law enforcement officials? Despite increased attention, surveillance jurisprudence and theory still struggle for coherence. A common thread for modern surveillance problems has been difficult to find.
In this article we argue that the concept of ‘obscurity,’ which deals with the transaction costs involved in finding or understanding information, is the key to understanding and uniting modern debates about government surveillance. Obscurity can illuminate different areas where transactions costs for surveillance are operative and explain why making surveillance hard but possible is the central issue in the government-surveillance debates. Obscurity can also explain why the solutions to the government-surveillance problem should revolve around introducing friction and inefficiency into process, whether it be legally through procedural requirements like warrants or technologies like robust encryption.
Ultimately, obscurity can provide a clearer picture of why and when government surveillance is troubling. It provides a common thread for disparate surveillance theories and can be used to direct surveillance reform
Foreword: The Restatement of Employment Law Project
Get PDFAfter over a dozen years of work, the American Law Institute (ALI or Institute)\u27s Restatement of Employment Law has been completed. The membership of the ALI, the nation\u27s leading private organization dedicated to clarifying and improving the law, approved the proposed final draft, subject to editing, at its May 2014 annual meeting. The final edits are done and the volume is now available both electronically and as a book to practitioners, judges, scholars, and law libraries around the country and world.
We have had the honor to serve as Reporters for the Restatement of Employment Law and are pleased to have this opportunity to discuss the project for the Cornell Law Review symposium, the first academic analysis of the completed project. We are fast becoming ex-reporters, and in this Essay we do not speak on behalf of the Institute
Contemporary Family Law, 4th ed.
No full textIn the fourth edition, all 17 chapters are fully updated to reflect the latest family law developments. Developments based on Obergefell v. Hodges are treated fully throughout the new edition.This popular family law casebook engages students with the significant changes to the American family and the corresponding evolution of family law doctrine and policy. The book emphasizes that contemporary families take a variety of forms, including marital and nonmarital relationships, and that constitutional considerations play an increasingly important role in family law. The fourth edition preserves and builds on the approach of the earlier editions: presenting core substantive family law doctrine while also exploring ongoing and emerging policy debates and discussing the importance of cross-disciplinary collaborations with experts in fields such as psychology and accounting. The book introduces the myriad issues central to family law practice and to a lawyer’s ethical and professional responsibilities. New cases have been substituted where appropriate, and the notes following each lead case, statute or article have been thoroughly updated. In addition, new Problems expand the number of opportunities for actively engaging students.Contemporary Family Law highlights the issues of professional and ethical responsibility that arise in family law, not only by using Problems that invite students to engage in role playing, but also by devoting separate chapters to legal ethics, alternative dispute resolution, and private ordering. While providing a grounding in the historical and contemporary regulation of marriage, the book also devotes chapters to nonmarital couples and to establishing parenthood. The book also emphasizes concrete aspects of legal practice and professional responsibility by, for example, including material at the end of the first chapter on shifting paradigms within family law practice and the roles of family lawyers, by addressing jurisdictional issues in one integrated chapter, and by presenting problems for discussion in each chapter that enable students to apply doctrine in real-life settings that lawyers face.Moreover, because child custody arrangements lead to some of the most acrimonious family disputes, this casebook devotes two chapters to custody: the first treats the initial custody decision, and the second explores continuing litigation concerning visitation, custody, and key childrearing decisions after the initial disposition, including disputes involving third parties such as cohabitants and grandparents. Both custody chapters include disputes involving nonmarital children.New and expanded material in the fourth edition includes full treatment of Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the Supreme Court’s ruling on the fundamental right of same-sex couples to marry and to have every state recognize their marriage, and its ramifications throughout family law. This edition has added a separate chapter on nonmarital couples, including a section on domestic partnerships, civil unions, and other legal statuses in the wake of Obergefell; extensive coverage of debt and family finances, reflecting the current economic climate, as well as new material on how taxes affect families; substantially updated discussion of the impact of gender in child custody decisions and the current legal status of shared parenting; an expanded Section on the Hague Convention; detailed discussion of new and emerging reproductive technologies; and major revisions to the chapter on child support (including recent data on the central role of child support in low-income families). The chapter on private ordering integrates the new Uniform Premarital and Marital Agreements Act.https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/books/1238/thumbnail.jp
Labor Law: Cases, Materials, and Problems, 8th ed.
No full textA rigorous, analytical, modern, and practical approach to the issues and challenges of labor law and labor policy.
Key Features of the New Edition Includes the most significant developments since the publication of the previous edition. An up-to-date rendering of new developments, including a new chapters on immigration and labor law and cross-border labor law Inclusion of recent decisions of the Obama Board and discussion of unresolved questions, such as the scope of joint employment and status of worker centershttps://scholarship.law.bu.edu/books/1173/thumbnail.jp
Federal Civil Practice
No full textKnowledge of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is essential for any federal litigator. Federal Civil Practice takes a step-by-step approach to federal practice, discussing the intricacies of federal civil procedure and providing key insights on applicable rules. Understanding the timeline of a case in this manner is vital for all litigators. Indeed, the only way to be proactive, rather than simply reactive, in litigating a case is to know what is going to happen in the next stage, and in the next stage after that, and so on. When you know what\u27s going to happen next, you can plan your strategy and tactics more effectively. Planning how to litigate a case is just as important as actually litigating it. Federal Civil Practice goes beyond simple explanations of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and helps you plan your litigation strategy and tactics.
Even before a complaint is filed, the Federal Rules play a significant role in litigation. Federal Civil Practice helps you understand the Preliminary Considerations you should think about prior to filing, such as conducting an investigation pursuant to Rule 11, choosing a forum, and conducting legal research. Federal Civil Practice also discusses Key Details which are seemingly small, but nevertheless important, as well as pre-trial conferences, discovery practice, and summary judgment. Federal Civil Practice will benefit new and seasoned attorneys alike.https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/books/1330/thumbnail.jp
Explaining the Blurred Line Between Employment and Independent Contracting
Get PDFAs the Reporter primarily responsible for the chapter defining the employment relationship in the recently completed Restatement of Employment Law, I thought I had fully considered and taken account of the origins and various instances of judicial confusion in distinguishing employees from independent contractors. Thus, I was especially surprised to have my understanding of the confusion substantially enhanced by Julia Tomassetti’s recent conceptually deep article. Tomassetti argues that an understanding of the unusual and contradictory nature of employment contracts and their development is necessary to explain judicial confusion when defining employment, and that it is not sufficient simply to highlight the challenges posed for courts by the nontraditional work relationships in the modern economy and the many multifactor indeterminate tests that have been developed to supplement the traditional but inadequate “right to control the means and manner of work” test
Increasing the Transaction Costs of Harassment
Get PDFWouldn’t it be nice if the rules, agreements, and guidelines designed to prevent online harassment were sufficient to curb improper behavior? As if. Wrongdoers are not always so easily deterred. Sometimes these approaches are about as effective as attacking tanks with toothpicks.
As Danielle Citron contends in her critically important work, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace, the design of the Internet facilitates vitriol and abuse, even when it is legally, contractually, and normatively prohibited. Communicating almost effortlessly at distance—sometimes anonymously and typically with minimized body language—can heighten emotional detachment and blunt moral sensitivity. Tragically, when a mediated environment makes it easy to harass others, harassment occurs, all things being equal
Should Patient Responsibility for Costs Change the Doctor-Patient Relationship?
Get PDFCopays, deductibles, coinsurance, and reference prices all now expose patients to increasingly larger shares of the costs of health care. Extant research on cost sharing has primarily focused on its impact on patients, their health care spending, and their health outcomes. Scholars have paid much less attention to the question of how patient exposure to health care costs may impact physicians and their relationships with their patients. This Essay is given on the occasion of a symposium motivated by two recent books by David Schenck, Larry Churchill, and Joseph Fanning that highlight the relational aspects of health care ethics. Accordingly, this Essay explores the impact of cost sharing on the doctor-patient relationship, specifically and argues that the patient’s exposure to cost should be understood as an essential part of that relationship. This insight implies changes in the ways that doctors establish their relationships with patients (making price more salient), in the ways they communicate with patients (affirmatively disclosing cost information to secure informed consent), and ultimately in the substance of their treatment recommendations for patients (broadening the considerations applicable to the legal standard of care for medical malpractice)
Copyright in a Global Information Economy, 4th ed.
No full textCopyright in a Global Information Economy explores the full range of copyright law and its relationship to technological innovations and globalization. Written with precision and clarity, this ambitious yet manageable casebook elucidates the fundamental disputes of copyright law with incisive and balanced perspective. The book features comprehensive coverage of domestic and international copyright law, a balanced treatment of controversial issues, as well as a wide selection of concisely edited cases, engaging and practical examples and discussions, and photographs that facilitate and stimulate discussion of cases.
Key Features of the New Edition Reorganization of materials on the copyright owner s exclusive rights New section on copyright due diligence, licensing, and litigation Updated, streamlined notes and questions Practice exercises designed to engage students from a variety of perspectives including advocacy, client counseling, and legislative Draftinghttps://scholarship.law.bu.edu/books/1119/thumbnail.jp