{"title":"Small Data Surveillance v. Big Data Cybersurveillance","authors":"Margaret Hu","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2731344","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2731344","url":null,"abstract":"This Article highlights some of the critical distinctions between small data surveillance and big data cybersurveillance as methods of intelligence gathering. Specifically, in the intelligence context, it appears that “collect-it-all” tools in a big data world can now potentially facilitate the construction, by the intelligence community, of other individuals’ digital avatars. The digital avatar can be understood as a virtual representation of our digital selves and may serve as a potential proxy for an actual person. This construction may be enabled through processes such as the data fusion of biometric and biographic data, or the digital data fusion of the 24/7 surveillance of the body and the 360° surveillance of the biography. Further, data science logic and reasoning, and big data policy rationales, appear to be driving the expansion of these emerging methods. Consequently, I suggest that an inquiry into the scientific validity of the data science that informs big data cybersurveillance and mass dataveillance is appropriate.As a topic of academic inquiry, thus, I argue in favor of a science-driven approach to the interrogation of rapidly evolving bulk metadata and mass data surveillance methods that increasingly rely upon data science and big data’s algorithmic, analytic, and integrative tools. In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), the Supreme Court required scientific validity determinations prior to the introduction of scientific expert testimony or evidence at trial. I conclude that to the extent that covert intelligence gathering relies upon data science, a Daubert-type inquiry is helpful in conceptualizing the proper analytical structure necessary for the assessment and oversight of these emerging mass surveillance methods.","PeriodicalId":82287,"journal":{"name":"Pepperdine law review","volume":"42 1","pages":"773"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.2139/SSRN.2731344","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68278003","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Practical Solution to the Marriage Penalty","authors":"Margaret Ryznar","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2643832","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2643832","url":null,"abstract":"The marriage penalty in the federal income tax continues to persist despite universal condemnation of it. This article proposes a novel way to eliminate the marriage penalty: to create another tax filing status for dual-income couples that earn an amount within a particular percentage of each other. This filing status would be the same as the current married filing status, except that it would offer double the rates of single filers because it accommodates two incomes.This approach represents a break from the status quo of separating single taxpayers from married ones without considering that in reality there are two types of married couples: one-income couples and two-income couples. This approach is also different from previously proposed solutions that require married couples to file as single individuals or that ignore marital status for tax reasons. Adding another filing status for only two-income married couples is a practical solution to the marriage penalty that causes the least upheaval to the general legal framework because it continues to treat spouses as a single economic unit. It has the additional attribute of no longer penalizing a significant subset of women who work and marry, as well as same-sex couples. Finally, high divorce rates, the decrease in alimony awards, and cohabitation as a substitute for marriage all support a solution to the marriage penalty, particularly one that is consistent with the general framework of treating households as a single economic unit.","PeriodicalId":82287,"journal":{"name":"Pepperdine law review","volume":"44 1","pages":"647-690"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68237254","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Constitutional Considerations: Government Responsibility and the Right Not to Be a Victim","authors":"Richard l. Aynes","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2562530","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2562530","url":null,"abstract":"Within a democratic society, citizens are provided with certain rights and liberties. Among those rights and liberties is the right not to be a victim. In this article, the author examines and analyzes the growing concern for the protection of victims of crimes. Recent legislative enactments have been designed to alter the role of the victim in the civil and criminal justice systems by defining and implementing a series of \"victims' rights.\" The author concludes by recognizing that one of the most important duties of government is to provide for the physical safety of those within its jurisdiction. To implement this duty, the interest and consequential standing of the victim must be recognized within the American court system.","PeriodicalId":82287,"journal":{"name":"Pepperdine law review","volume":"11 1","pages":"6"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68205009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Islamic Law” in US Courts: Judicial Jihad or Constitutional Imperative?","authors":"Faisal Kutty","doi":"10.1017/9781108380768.010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108380768.010","url":null,"abstract":"At the beginning of 2014, about a dozen states introduced or re-introduced bills to ban the use of Sharī’ah law. They hope to join the seven states that have ostensibly banned it to date. Anti-Sharī’ah advocates have cited a number of cases to back their tenuous claim that Sharī’ah is stealthily sneaking in through the doctrine of comity, but a close examination of the cases they cite contradicts their claim. Comity, when one court defers to the jurisdiction of another, has been accepted and denied based on legal principles and public policy, on a case-by-case basis. There is no creeping Sharī’ah overtaking the American legal system, but plenty of plain bigotry in the form of Islamophobia. The evidence suggests that courts treat claims by Muslims using religious law the same way they deal with claims brought by those of other faiths and those of no faith — sometimes they are accepted and sometimes they are rejected. The Paper concludes that, far from evidencing creeping Sharī’ah or a surrender to judicial Jihad, the cases only confirm that the American Constitution and legal principles stand firm and pre-eminent; Muslims merely have had access to the dockets, nothing more.","PeriodicalId":82287,"journal":{"name":"Pepperdine law review","volume":"11 1","pages":"1059"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/9781108380768.010","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"56919740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The End of Religious Freedom: What is at Stake?","authors":"N. Tebbe","doi":"10.31228/osf.io/uh5m2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31228/osf.io/uh5m2","url":null,"abstract":"In recent work, Steven Smith argues that the American tradition of religious freedom is newly imperiled and may even be nearing exhaustion. This Review puts to one side the substance of that argument and focuses instead on what the stakes might be, should it turn out to be correct. It concludes that the consequences would not be as severe as many people fear.","PeriodicalId":82287,"journal":{"name":"Pepperdine law review","volume":"41 1","pages":"963-982"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69640913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dicta and the Rule of Law","authors":"Ryan S. Killian","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2224530","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2224530","url":null,"abstract":"The rule of law stands as a fundamental property, or at least ideal, of American law. Hard to define and even harder to attain, the standard has captivated a generation of scholars. Dicta, on the other hand, has received only intermittent scholarly attention. While dicta is an indispensable ingredient of practically all judicial opinions, it is often derided by advocates and dismissed by jurists — and for good reason; it represents no binding authority.Despite this essential quality, those same lawyers and judges also treat dicta as authority. This inconsistent usage of dicta raises serious rule-of-law concerns. Dictum must be defined both consistently and according to a working standard if the case law is to yield the predictability demanded by the rule of law. Further, the conflation of dictum and holding strips the common law method of protections long thought to be necessary if judges are to make retroactive law and apply it to the cases before them.Courts should seek, where possible, to take incremental steps toward reaching the rule of law ideal. Accordingly, judges would do well to clarify the definition of dictum and distinguish it carefully from holding.","PeriodicalId":82287,"journal":{"name":"Pepperdine law review","volume":"2013 1","pages":"1"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68005917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Saving the First Amendment from Itself: Relief from the Sherman Act Against the Rabbinic Cartels","authors":"Barak D Richman","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.1808005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.1808005","url":null,"abstract":"America’s rabbis currently structure their employment market with rules that flagrantly violate the Sherman Act. The consequences of these rules, in addition to the predictable economic outcomes of inflated wages for rabbis and restricted consumer freedoms for the congregations that employ them, meaningfully hinder Jewish communities from seeking their preferred spiritual leader. Although the First Amendment cannot combat against this privately-orchestrated (yet paradigmatic) restriction on religious expression, the Sherman Act can. Ironically, however, the rabbinic organizations implementing the restrictive policies claim that the First Amendment immunizes them from Sherman Act scrutiny, thereby claiming the First Amendment empowers them to do what the First Amendment was arguably designed to prevent. This essay evaluates this interesting intersection between the Sherman Act and the First Amendment, and it argues that the Sherman Act can, and must, be vigorously applied against the private rabbinic cartels.","PeriodicalId":82287,"journal":{"name":"Pepperdine law review","volume":"39 1","pages":"1347"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67750359","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What Counts as \"Speech\" in the First Place?: Determining the Scope of the Free Speech Clause","authors":"R. Wright","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2020567","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2020567","url":null,"abstract":"The most fundamental problem in free speech law is not whether to protect the speech in question. Rather, it is whether ‘speech’ for First Amendment purposes is present in the first place. The Supreme Court will have another opportunity to address what counts as ‘speech’ this term in the Stevens animal cruelty video case. But the Court has historically offered inconsistent guidance in this area. This Article rejects several pessimistic approaches, but recognizes that any convincing approach to what counts as ‘speech’ for First Amendment purposes must be complex and multi-layered, with sensitive concern for broad as well as specific considerations. We begin with the constitutional text and drafter intent, but move on to the role and limitations of functionalist approaches, to the roles of symbolism and pre-symbolism in speech, to literary theory and the philosophy of vagueness and ambiguity, and then to the interaction of specific context, helpful mid-level rules, and broad theory of the purposes of protecting speech in the first place.","PeriodicalId":82287,"journal":{"name":"Pepperdine law review","volume":"37 1","pages":"2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67860039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}