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The Drone as Privacy Catalyst

March 22, 2012 Comments off

The Drone as Privacy Catalyst (PDF)
Source: Stanford Law Review

Recent shifts in technology and attendant changes to business practices have not led to similar shifts in privacy law, at least not on the order of 1890. Computers, the Internet, RFID, GPS, biometrics, facial recognition—none of these developments has created the same sea change in privacy thinking. One might reasonably wonder whether we will ever have another Warren and Brandeis moment, whether any technology will dramatize the need to rethink the very nature of privacy law.

One good candidate is the drone. In routine use by today’s military, these unmanned aircraft systems threaten to perfect the art of surveillance. Drones are capable of finding or following a specific person. They can fly patterns in search of suspicious activities or hover over a location in wait. Some are as small as birds or insects, others as big as blimps. In addition to high-resolution cameras and microphones, drones can be equipped with thermal imaging and the capacity to intercept wireless communications.

That drones will see widespread domestic use seems inevitable. They represent an efficient and cost-effective alternative to helicopters and airplanes. Police, firefighters, and geologists will—and do—use drones for surveillance and research. But drones will not be limited to government or scientific uses. The private sector has incentives to use drones as well. The media, in particular, could make widespread use of drones to cover unfolding police activity or traffic stories. Imagine what drones would do for the lucrative paparazzi industry, especially coupled with commercially available facial recognition technology.

Categories: privacy and security, Stanford Law Review, technology and internet

What Judges Think of the Quality of Legal Representation

March 19, 2011 Comments off

What Judges Think of the Quality of Legal Representation
Source: Stanford Law Review

Studying the legal profession poses several challenges. The evolution of law has moved lawyers away from a generalist practice towards increased specialization. This makes it difficult to compare lawyers across different practice areas meaningfully and to provide a comprehensive assessment of the legal profession. Judges are well situated to provide such an evaluation, given their experience and scope of cases. This Article reports the responses of federal and state judges to a survey we conducted in 2008. The questions relate to their perceptions of the quality of legal representation, generally and in criminal and civil cases; how the quality of legal representation influences how they and juries decide cases; and their recommendations for change in the profession. We find that judges perceive significant disparities in the quality of legal representation, both within and across areas of the law. In many instances, the underlying causes of these disparities can be traced to the resources of the litigants. The judges’ responses also suggest that they respond differently than juries to these disparities, and that the effect of these disparities on juries may be more pronounced in civil than in criminal cases.

+ Full Paper (PDF)

Categories: attorneys, legal and law enforcement, social and cultural issues, Stanford Law Review
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