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Dilemmas in Digital Abuse
No full textDigital abuse is on the rise. People are increasingly using networked technologies to engage in harassment, stalking, privacy invasions, and surveillance. The law will often adapt to deal with harmful technologies, but is it adapting quickly enough? Is law even the right tool to confront digital abuse? If it is, which laws work best and who should enforce them?
One of the pressing challenges of our time is deciding whether and how to regulate digital abuse. Through a range of “dilemmas” involving digital abuse, this book will interrogate responses to various harms enabled by networked technologies, exploring issues related to civil rights, consumer protection, cybercrime, free speech, privacy, and private self-governance. In covering these topics, this book confronts issues related to gender, race, class, sexuality, and intersectionality, all of which are crucial to understanding how our society shapes and is shaped by technology.
My goal in publishing these dilemmas is to do my part to make legal education more affordable, accessible, and adaptable. That’s why I’m making the book available to all for free. By using a CC BY-NC license, I’m also inviting others to adapt these materials for their own use, so long as they adhere to the non-commerciality and attribution terms. (Anyone interested in “remixing” this book for their own purposes should feel free to contact me at [email protected], including if you’d like a more adaptable non-PDF version.)
You’re welcome to print any part of this book if you want a hard copy to accompany the digital version. If you do print it, I ask that you please be environmentally conscious by using double-sided pages. Because the digital version can be easily searched, it contains no index or other finding aids that are conventional for printed books. You should also be able to enhance your experience with the digital version by highlighting text, adding comments, and annotating it in any other ways you find helpful.
You may also purchase a hard copy for around $14 here. This paperback version is made and distributed by Lulu, and I make no revenue from any sales.
Given that this book focuses extensively on different forms of abuse and violence, I caution that some of the dilemmas might induce trauma or distress. I worry that providing individualized content warnings before each dilemma would reflect my own perspectives and experiences but exclude what might trigger other people, especially because the legal and social issues surrounding digital abuse challenge us to confront difficult and disturbing issues in ways I can’t always predict in advance. Individualized warnings might also bias a reader’s analysis when responding to the questions following each dilemma. As a result, I offer this general content warning here and encourage readers to be in the right headspace—whatever that might mean to you—when engaging with these dilemmas.
Finally, I welcome any reactions to this book. Please reach out if you think important perspectives are missing or if you find errors or typos. I surely have blind spots in the way I present some topics, plus I lack a professional editor to catch my linguistic blunders. You can contact me at [email protected] with any constructive criticism.
Some of the dilemmas in this book can be addressed without conducting outside research, while others build on materials covered in my Digital Abuse course. If you’d like to see the syllabus designed to accompany these dilemmas, please visit www.thomaskadri.com/digital-abuse.https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/books/1169/thumbnail.jp
It\u27s Not My Fault! : Inequality Among Posthumously Conceived Children and Why Limiting the Degree of Benefits To Innocent Babies Is a Big No-No!
No full textGirl meets boy. Boy likes girl. Girl and boy decide to get married. Like most young adults, the boy and girl dream of having children. But what if the possibility of having children came with a price? Many situations arise that can either foster or hinder a young couple’s ability to start a family. For example, suppose Fitz and Marie got married in 2010. Three years later, unexpectedly and to the devastation of both Fitz and Marie, Fitz is diagnosed with cancer causing the young couple to put their plans for a family on hold. Told that a side effect of chemotherapy and radiation treatment is infertility, the couple decides to utilize a sperm bank to freeze Fitz’s sperm. In the event that Fitz could overcome cancer, the frozen sperm could give the couple the opportunity to have the family they always wanted. Sadly, Fitz dies six months later. Still desiring a child, Marie, through assisted reproductive technologies (“ART”), uses Fitz’s frozen sperm to become pregnant with a baby boy. Should this baby, who was conceived after the death of his father, have less of a right to inherit benefits from Fitz’s estate just because Fitz died before he was born? The answer to that question is “it depends,” and the outcome will be determined by what state Fitz and Marie resided in at the time of Fitz’s death
Specialty Courts: Time For a Thorough Assessment
No full textBroadly, the purpose of specialty courts is to address the needs of the individuals in the criminal justice system to reduce recidivism. Most specialty courts adopt the philosophy that the criminal justice system can do more than just impose sanctions; it can address underlying social and health problems that contribute to criminal behavior. The purpose of this article is to discuss the general advantages and disadvantages of specialty courts and to highlight the importance of using research evaluations to determine if the benefits of specialty courts outweigh the costs. This will help determine if courts have achieved their goal of benefiting defendants, courts, and society
Manna from Heaven: The Benefits of a Uniform Drone Statute in the State of Mississippi
No full textDrones surround us. They are in the Middle East, assisting the United States military in carrying out its missions. They are around our businesses, used by professional photographers, farmers, insurance adjusters, and countless other professionals in a growing number of commercial applications. With the sales of drones expected to skyrocket over the next several years, the state of Mississippi should enact regulations in order to restrict and take advantage of their use
Off the Marques: An Exploration of Arbitrariness in Immigration Law Through Marques v. Lynch
No full textRonaldo de Lima Marques appeared to hit the jackpot. He paid a United States citizen to marry him, submitted immigration paperwork on the basis of that fraudulent marriage, and waited. His goal: become a permanent resident of the United States; stay in the country as long as he pleased; perhaps become a U.S. citizen. He succeeded. On September 9, 2006, Mr. Marques received authority from the United States government to make this country his permanent home. He did it. He hoodwinked the system.
His days of peace, however, were limited. Despite an initial failure to detect his sham marriage, the Department of Homeland Security did not remain fooled. Federal authorities uncovered a scheme in which Marques\u27 fake marriage was one of many. They sought to remove him from the United States - yet failed. Taking cover in an apparent gap in immigration law, Marques defeated his deportation order before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The first time, the functionality and effectiveness of the system had failed; this time, it appeared the law itself had failed. An alien committed marriage fraud yet avoided deportation even after being discovered and subjected to removal proceedings.
This Note will examine the law surrounding Marques\u27s surprising victory. It will introduce the reader to key concepts within immigration law including the process by which an alien becomes a permanent legal resident
De-Facto-Life and the Rare Juvenile
No full textWe have all been young once. We all remember doing stupid things with our friends growing up. Now imagine if one of those decisions caused you to be thrown into prison for the rest of your life. Despite the United States Supreme Court[s decisions that sentencing juveniles to life in most cases is unconstitutional, lower courts are still giving juveniles de-facto-life sentences.
The United States Supreme Court has recognized that children are different from adults in several recent cases. In 2005, Roper v. Simmons, the Court held that it is unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile to death. More pertinent to this paper, the Court said in 2010 in Graham v. Florida and in 2012 in Miller v. Alabama that it is unconstitutional to mandatorily sentence a juvenile to life without parole without considering mitigating factors, such as how children are different from adults. Then in 2016 in Montgomery v. Louisiana, the Court said sentencing authorities must consider not only the factors in Miller, but can only sentence the juvenile to life without parole after consideration of whether the juvenile is the rare juvenile whose crime reflects irreparable corruption. The Court deemed that life without parole did not provide juveniles with a meaningful opportunity for release. De-facto-life sentences are sentences that exceed the defendant\u27s life expectancy. Exceeding life expectancy and for life both mean that a juvenile will never have a meaningful opportunity to return to society; thus, the sentences are the same.
De-facto-life sentences, like life without parole sentences, go against the parens patriae and earlier philosophies of the juvenile court, which focused on helping children rather than punishing them. These sentences also go against the idea that children are different from adults by giving them an adult sentence. Because de-facto-life sentences are essentially life without parole sentences, Graham and Miller should apply and also make de-facto-life sentences unconstitutional
Parks and Separation: How the Mississippi Legislature Decided Just Compensation in Bay Point Properties, Inc. v. Mississippi Transportation Commission
No full textAt first glance, Bay Point comes across as the standard, run-of-the-mill eminent domain case: the government contracts with a citizen for an express easement over privately-owned land limited to a certain use; the government then exceeds the scope of that easement, resulting in a taking. Governmental taking is usually not anything outside of the norm. But with a potential seven billion dollars\u27 worth of federally funded highway projects destined for Mississippi highway only a Presidential signature away from being approved, this decision is not one Mississippi landowners should ignore. Further, the crux of Bay Point lies with an issue of separation of powers. Because of the Supreme Court of Mississippi\u27s holding, gone are the days when the judiciary determines just compensation in takings cases involving the state\u27s highway department. Instead, courts will yield to statutory provisions of the legislatively determined result. Justice Gorsuch, in dissenting to the United States Supreme Court\u27s denial of a writ of certiorari in the case, seemed to recognize the national implications of the Bay Point decision and encouraged the Court to take up [the issue] at its next opportunity.
This Note argues the Supreme Court of Mississippi erred in its approach in Bay Point by relying on Mississippi Code section 65-1-123, instead of common law abandonment precedent