Stanford Center for Internet and Society

September 2008 amendments to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act broaden the already extensive reach of the law, and fail to clarify the most vexing question about the statute, the definition of “unauthorized access”.

On April 21st, the Ninth Circuit held in United States v. Arnold (pdf) that the Fourth Amendment does not require government agents to have reasonable suspicion before searching laptops or other digital devices at the border, including international airports.

In this week's Circuit Court column, I write about the legislative battle over changing our communications eavesdropping laws and a related issue of giving telcos immunity for illegally helping the government surveil us. This issue is so important, now that the nominee for Attorney General, Judge Michael Mukasey, says that the President does not have to obey the law if he believes it contradicts his national security responsibilities. Of course, you could argue that the laws are actually less important if the President isn't even going to follow them. However, if that's true, lawsuits against telcos may be the only way for the public to find out what our government is actually doing. Read more about one possible future of freedom and privacy here: What's at Stake in the Surveillance Debate in Congress

Proposed Reporters' Shield Law Overdue but Underpowered
This week's Circuit Court column is about the proposed federal reporters' shield law that just came out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. While we need a shield law, this one has a loophole for situations where the leak is criminal or tortious activity, and the loophole may just be too large for this version of a shield to do the trick.

Did you know the government can track your movements by your cell phone?

This week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked satellite television provider DirecTV's heavy-handed legal tactics and protected security and computer science research into satellite and smart card technology.

In yesterday's Wired News Circuit Court column "Free the Spam King" I take on the question of whether criminal prosecutions will stop spam, or are even fair. This one has engendered a lot of hate mail. It seems people really, really hate spam.

Cellphone users try to wrest some of carriers control - The Boston Globe

Paul Ohm and I wrote an amicus brief in the 10th Circuit case of US v. Andrus, the opinion I wrote about in last week's Wired News column.

The Sixth District Court of Appeal in California has granted Cyberlaw Clinic client John Doe's motion to unseal records in H.B. Fuller v. Doe. In the trial court, Doe and Fuller stipulated to sealing documents Fuller claimed contained confidential information. On appeal, we moved to unseal the records in the appellate court because they do not contain confidential information.