Topics in Surveillance: Law and Technology

Topics in Surveillance: Law and Technology
This 1-credit seminar will be co-taught by law professor Margo Schlanger (http://margoschlanger.net) and computer science professor Alex Halderman (https://jhalderm.com/). It will meet for six or seven sessions of 2 hours each, with half law students and half computer science graduate students. It will address 6 current controversies in surveillance — chosen from topics like: smartphone hacking by the FBI; internet and telephone metadata collection; border searches of electronic devices; “vacuum cleaner” content collection or screening of email or phone calls; cellphone geolocation tracking. For each, we’ll explore both law and technology, looking particularly at privacy/civil liberties vulnerabilities and shields. Law students and computer science students will be graded separately. Each student will be required to write a 10 page paper on one of the topics covered by the class. NOTE: Half the class sessions will be at the law school and half on North Campus.