Online Personal Data Processing and EU Data Protection Reform. CEPS Task Force Report, April 2013

This report sheds light on the fundamental questions and underlying tensions between current policy objectives, compliance strategies and global trends in online personal data processing, assessing the existing and future framework in terms of effective regulation and public policy. Based on the discussions among the members of the CEPS Digital Forum and independent research carried out by the rapporteurs, policy conclusions are derived with the aim of making EU data protection policy more fit for purpose in today’s online technological context. This report constructively engages with the EU data protection framework, but does not provide a textual analysis of the EU data protection reform proposal as such

The Utilization of Mobile Technology for Crime Scene Investigation in the San Francisco Bay Area

The research presented aims to explore factors affecting the decision to adopt a mobile crime scene investigation application in police departments throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. To accomplish this goal, the mobile technology acceptance model was used in designing a survey for data collection. This model utilizes four categories to interpret the factors that influence a police officer’s decision to accept or reject mobile technologies: performance, security and reliability, management style, and cognitive acceptance. Nine police departments were sampled through a series of in-person and over-the-phone interviews to obtain data regarding factors affecting the adoption of a mobile crime scene investigation application. Results suggest that if a mobile crime scene investigation application were made available, a vast majority of the police departments in the Bay Area would implement this new technology

Disappearing Legal Black Holes and Converging Domains: Changing Individual Rights Protection in National Security and Foreign Affairs

This Essay attempts to describe what is distinctive about the way the protection of individual rights in the areas of national security and foreign affairs has been occurring in recent decades. Historically, the right to protection under the U.S. Constitution and courts has been sharply limited by categorical distinctions based on geography, war, and, to some extent, citizenship. These categorical rules carved out domains where the courts and Constitution provided protections and those where they did not. The institutional design and operating rules of the national security state tracked these formal, categorical rules about the boundaries of protection. There have been many “legal black holes” historically, domains where legal protections did not exist for certain people. Foreign affairs and national security have historically been areas defined by their legal black holes. In recent years, legal black holes are disappearing, and previously distinct domains are converging. The importance of U.S. citizenship to protection under the Constitution and courts is decreasing, formal barriers to legal protection and judicial review based on geography and war are dissolving, and the dissolution of these categorical boundaries is changing the design and operation of the national security state. National security and foreign affairs law is being domesticated and normalized, as rights protections available in ordinary, domestic, peacetime contexts are extended into what were previously legal black holes. The jurisprudence of categorization and boundary-marking is fading away. The core of this Essay identifies, names, and discusses these trends, seeking to give a vocabulary and conceptual and historical coherence to current discussions of individual rights protection in national security and foreign affairs contexts. Secondarily, this Essay suggests some factors that might be driving convergence and closing of legal black holes today. Because most of these potential causal drivers are still exerting their force on the shape of the law, this Essay concludes that the future of national security law will likely see more convergence and fewer black legal holes and then offers several specific predictions

Disappearing Legal Black Holes and Converging Domains: Changing Individual Rights Protection in National Security and Foreign Affairs

This Essay attempts to describe what is distinctive about the way the protection of individual rights in the areas of national security and foreign affairs has been occurring in recent decades. Historically, the right to protection under the U.S. Constitution and courts has been sharply limited by categorical distinctions based on geography, war, and, to some extent, citizenship. These categorical rules carved out domains where the courts and Constitution provided protections and those where they did not. The institutional design and operating rules of the national security state tracked these formal, categorical rules about the boundaries of protection. There have been many “legal black holes” historically, domains where legal protections did not exist for certain people. Foreign affairs and national security have historically been areas defined by their legal black holes. In recent years, legal black holes are disappearing, and previously distinct domains are converging. The importance of U.S. citizenship to protection under the Constitution and courts is decreasing, formal barriers to legal protection and judicial review based on geography and war are dissolving, and the dissolution of these categorical boundaries is changing the design and operation of the national security state. National security and foreign affairs law is being domesticated and normalized, as rights protections available in ordinary, domestic, peacetime contexts are extended into what were previously legal black holes. The jurisprudence of categorization and boundary-marking is fading away. The core of this Essay identifies, names, and discusses these trends, seeking to give a vocabulary and conceptual and historical coherence to current discussions of individual rights protection in national security and foreign affairs contexts. Secondarily, this Essay suggests some factors that might be driving convergence and closing of legal black holes today. Because most of these potential causal drivers are still exerting their force on the shape of the law, this Essay concludes that the future of national security law will likely see more convergence and fewer black legal holes and then offers several specific predictions