Volume 108, Spring 2025 Masthead

None

My Body, My Voice: Defining Vocal Identity Rights to Combat AI-Generated Deception

Kamran Moos emphasizes the growing risk of nonconsensual AI-generated voice misappropriation and suggests a novel legal framework to address the issue. Moos explains how AI models have made voice replication quick and easy, in some cases requiring only a two-second voice clip to produce a convincing audio recording. These AI-generated recordings can be used to carry out identity theft, misinformation, and commercial exploitation. Moos argues that current legal frameworks, such as the right of publicity, misappropriation, and copyright law, are inadequate to protect individuals from AI-generated voice misappropriation. He advocates for a new legal framework rooted in copyright and property law, which would grant individuals exclusive control over AI replications of their voice. The proposed framework emphasizes consent, transparency, and data protection and would require lawmakers to explicitly define vocal identity rights. Moos then addresses the First Amendment and Supremacy Clause challenges lawmakers and individuals should consider when implementing and enforcing the proposed framework

Table of Contents

None

FOIA Fellows as Freedom Fighters: An Independent and Privately Funded FOIA Commission of Rotating Professionals

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a hallmark of U.S. democracy, designed as an outsider element that foists transparency on a government bureaucracy whose centripetal forces spin inexorably toward self-preservation and secrecy. The United States pioneered the worldwide Freedom of Information (FOI) movement in 1966, but other countries have since surpassed the United States in FOI design and performance. For example, when the author’s colleague sent parallel FOI requests to six Western democratic countries, all but the United States responded substantively within days, weeks, or months; the United States took four and a half years. This Article analyzes the FOI regimes of the six countries and emphasizes the political pressures that led each country to enact FOI legislation, despite persistent executive and bureaucratic opposition. Yet even while identifying other countries’ successful FOI innovations, the Article also pinpoints the inherent conflicts of interest that today’s flawed FOI models retain. Consequently, the Article’s thesis advances a unique, outsider proposal to remedy such intractable conflicts of interest. First, an independent FOIA commission in the United States should be led by FOIA Fellows—professionals from the private sector, such as technologists, lawyers, organizational managers, and journalists—who rotate into short-term government fellowships to implement FOIA with an independent mindset, on behalf of the people, not on behalf of the bureaucracy. Second, FOIA Fellows should be funded by wealthy private parties that have an interest in preserving and protecting democracy and transparency, such as individuals like Elon Musk or organizations like George Soros’ Open Society. The Article’s proposal is exceptionally timely in view of the recent and ongoing work of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), initially headed by Elon Musk. DOGE’s goals are complementary to this Article’s FOIA proposal, as DOGE is intended to “take suggestions and concerns from everyday Americans” and post all its actions “online for maximum transparency.” As Musk declared in reference to DOGE, “Threat to democracy? Nope, threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!” Building on the outsider momentum of DOGE, now is the opportune time to redesign FOIA so that outsiders can bring transparency to the inside of a stubbornly opaque bureaucracy

Volume 108, Winter 2024 Masthead

None

Substituting One Judge for Another: The Lax Standard of Review in Involuntary Commitment

Wisconsin involuntarily commits individuals at a rate nearly five times the national average, stripping them of core constitutional rights—including liberty, the ability to refuse treatment, and firearm possession. Yet, when these life-altering orders are appealed, they are almost always reviewed by a single appellate judge. This Comment argues that such a limited review undermines the constitutional weight of involuntary commitments, which closely mirror criminal convictions in the scope of rights deprived. Tracing the historical development of Wisconsin’s civil commitment statutes, this Comment demonstrates how commitments implicate both substantive and procedural due process concerns. It then compares Wisconsin’s one-judge review framework to the multi-judge approaches of neighboring states, analyzes the risks of judicial error, and weighs the minimal fiscal costs of reform. Ultimately, this Comment contends that Wisconsin should join its neighbors in requiring three-judge appellate panels for involuntary commitment appeals, ensuring that these cases—so central to personal liberty—receive the scrutiny they deserve

Don’t Trust the Process: The Viability of Eighth Amendment Claims for Ultra-Processed Food Overconsumption in Prisons

With the largest prison population worldwide, American prisons serve more food than anywhere else. To cut costs, American prisons overwhelmingly (or even entirely) serve prisoners ultra-processed foods, which, if overconsumed, have detrimental and long-lasting health effects. Prisoners taking issue with the food being served to them rely on the courts to counteract any inappropriate prison dietary practices, wielding the Eighth Amendment as a constitutional guarantee to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. But courts are failing to protect this constitutional guarantee by relying on precedent that is at odds with modern Eighth Amendment principles. Indeed, when it comes to prison dietary claims, courts currently rely on an antiquated legal standard that renders food constitutionally permissible so long as there is sufficient caloric content in prisoners’ meals. Applying this standard, courts take no issue with even the most disingenuous prison dietary practices— meaning that the overconsumption of ultra-processed food comes nowhere near an Eighth Amendment violation. This cannot stand. As this Article contends, the courts’ current caloric content standard for prison dietary claims is unworkable because it betrays the Eighth Amendment’s “evolving standards of decency” framework, as articulated by the Supreme Court in Helling v. McKinney. By (rightfully) applying the Court’s Helling framework to prison dietary claims, there is a possibility of ultra-processed food overconsumption in prison diets being considered an Eighth Amendment violation if courts find these diets to be against the current standards of decency. This Article then incorporates a communication frame, providing theoretical and practical solutions to address society’s excessive tolerability for ultra-processed foods— thereby giving prisoners a meaningful path to success in Eighth Amendment claims under Helling. Ultimately, this Article provides a workable path toward respecting and protecting prisoners’ Eighth Amendment rights and personal health by minimizing the provision of ultra-processed foods in prisons

Volume 29, Spring 2025 Masthead

None

Volume 108, Summer 2025 Masthead

None