Databases, Doctrine, and Constitutional Criminal Procedure

Over the past twenty years there has been an explosion in the creation, availability, and use of criminal justice databases. Large scale database systems now routinely influence law enforcement decisions ranging from formal determinations to arrest or convict an individual to informal judgments to subject a person to secondary pre-flight screening or investigate possible gang membership. Evidence gathered from database-related sources is now commonly introduced, and can play a pivotal proof role, in criminal trials. Although much has been written about the failure of constitutional law to adequately respond to the threat to privacy rights posed by databases, less attention has focused upon the awkward fit between database-generated evidence and the conventional modes of analysis in constitutional criminal procedure. This Essay examines databases as a tool of law enforcement and sets forth tentative steps toward a theory of constitutional violations in this area

Validating an Operations Centre Model

An airline operations centre determines the imminent and future operations of an airline by assessing the current situation, considering current constraints and then issuing a high level plan, describing which flights are operating, which are cancelled, which are delayed or rerouted, impacting aircraft, air crew, flight cabin crew, passengers and ground staff. Other departments of the airline transform the high level plan into detailed execution instructions. In the event, the system consists of a mixture of humans and machines both of which often provide and receive incomplete information, on which they make a decision, striving to execute as close as possible the ‘Ideal Plan’, which is the published timetable. The Airline Operations Decision Making Process is the ‘planning’ portion determining the next course of action, and the Airline Operations is the execution portion, putting the plans into action. In this context, the Study Group was asked to address the following problem: How do you validate a model of an airline’s decision processes to ensure a faithful representation of reality? By analysing model outputs and actual data, we found that the model does not satisfy any of our proposed “validation” criteria and have therefore suggested a series of possible ways forward for the model development team. We have provided visualisation tools in both Matlab and R, which will be of use in analysing subsequent model versions. We have also provided a series of statistical indicators of model quality. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, we have described in detail what can be done if additional information were to be made available, for instance further runs of the model or extra data from the operations centre

The 2007 Meltdown in Structured Securitization: Searching for Lessons not Scapegoats

The intensity of recent turbulence in financial markets has surprised nearly everyone. This paper searches out the root causes of the crisis, distinguishing them from scapegoating explanations that have been used in policy circles to divert attention from the underlying breakdown of incentives. Incentive conflicts explain how securitization went wrong, why credit ratings proved so inaccurate, and why it is superficial to blame the crisis on mark-to-market accounting, an unexpected loss of liquidity or trends in globalization and deregulation in financial markets. Our analysis finds disturbing implications of the crisis for Basel II and its implementation. We argue that the principal source of financial instability lies in contradictory political and bureaucratic incentives that undermine the effectiveness of financial regulation and supervision in every country in the world. We conclude the paper by identifying reforms that would improve incentives by increasing transparency and accountability in government and industry alike.Financial crisis, Securitization, Regulation and Supervision, Safety Nets

The 2007 Meltdown in Structured Securitization: Searching for Lessons not Scapegoats

The intensity of recent turbulence in financial markets has surprised nearly everyone. This paper searches out the root causes of the crisis, distinguishing them from scapegoating explanations that have been used in policy circles to divert attention from the underlying breakdown of incentives. Incentive conflicts explain how securitization went wrong, why credit ratings proved so inaccurate, and why it is superficial to blame the crisis on mark-to-market accounting, an unexpected loss of liquidity or trends in globalization and deregulation in financial markets. Our analysis finds disturbing implications of the crisis for Basel II and its implementation. We argue that the principal source of financial instability lies in contradictory political and bureaucratic incentives that undermine the effectiveness of financial regulation and supervision in every country in the world. We conclude the paper by identifying reforms that would improve incentives by increasing transparency and accountability in government and industry alike.Financial crisis, Securitization, Regulation and Supervision, Safety Nets

PriLok: Citizen-protecting distributed epidemic tracing

Contact tracing is an important instrument for national health services to fight epidemics. As part of the COVID-19 situation, many proposals have been made for scaling up contract tracing capacities with the help of smartphone applications, an important but highly critical endeavor due to the privacy risks involved in such solutions. Extending our previously expressed concern, we clearly articulate in this article, the functional and non-functional requirements that any solution has to meet, when striving to serve, not mere collections of individuals, but the whole of a nation, as required in face of such potentially dangerous epidemics. We present a critical information infrastructure, PriLock, a fully-open preliminary architecture proposal and design draft for privacy preserving contact tracing, which we believe can be constructed in a way to fulfill the former requirements. Our architecture leverages the existing regulated mobile communication infrastructure and builds upon the concept of "checks and balances", requiring a majority of independent players to agree to effect any operation on it, thus preventing abuse of the highly sensitive information that must be collected and processed for efficient contact tracing. This is enforced with a largely decentralised layout and highly resilient state-of-the-art technology, which we explain in the paper, finishing by giving a security, dependability and resilience analysis, showing how it meets the defined requirements, even while the infrastructure is under attack

Local Voices: Citizen Conversations on Civil Liberties and Secure Communities

The informed and active involvement of citizens in government at all levels has long been a goal of the League of Women Voters. The League has also been highly attentive to issues of civil rights and civil liberties throughout its history. As a result, the League of Women Voters Education Fund, the citizen education and research arm of the League, initiated a multi-faceted approach to enhancing both public and policymaker understanding of the issues involved in the complex interaction of civil liberties and homeland security.In 2005, with generous funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Education Fund launched a project entitled Local Voices: Citizen Conversations on Civil Liberties and Secure Communities. The project has three main components.One component involved facilitating ten public deliberations in communities across the country in June 2005. The League asked the Study Circles Resource Center (SCRC), a national organization that works to advance deliberative democracy, to be a partner in this project. In collaboration with the League, SCRC developed a discussion guide, provided advice to local Leagues as they prepared for the public deliberations, and trained local discussion facilitators at the ten sites. The hosts were the Leagues in: Baltimore, Maryland; Black Hawk-Bremer counties, Iowa; Brookhaven, New York; Columbia, Missouri; Dallas, Texas; Lexington, Kentucky; Los Angeles, California; Miami, Florida; North Pinellas County, Florida; and Seattle, Washington. Each site hosted between 50 and 100 community members for four to six hours of conversation. Insights from these forums were collected in two forms: observations recorded by trained note takers in break-out discussions (approximately six to ten participants in each) at every site and a post-deliberation individual participant survey. Questionnaires, developed by Lake Snell Perry Mermin/Decision Research (LSPM/DR), were completed by more than 650 participants. The results areiincluded in the report. (See Appendix A for more information.)The other two components of the project involved qualitative and quantitative public opinion research to explore attitudes and values toward homeland security and civil liberties. The League hired LSPM/DR to conduct six focus groups in three cities: Bakersfield, California; Dallas, Texas; and Richmond, Virginia. In addition, LSPM/DR conducted an analysis of national polling data that provide reflections of Americans' opinions toward homeland security and civil liberties.The findings from all components of the Local Voices project are chronicled in this report. Neither this report nor the ultimate Congressional action on the USA PATRIOT Act by any means signals the end of the issue or the need for conversation on this important topic.The issues -- and the decisions -- involved in the intersection between civil liberties and homeland security will continue to evolve and manifest themselves in various ways. The consequences of the decisions this country makes will have lasting effects on every American, in their lives and communities, and on the nation as a whole.This report presents a number of findings and insights gleaned from the range of public input obtained during the Local Voices project. These findings are identified and then described at length in the following pages. Some are focused on specific topics within the current debate, and some are more general and far-ranging.At the conclusion of this report, the League presents a series of recommendations. These relate to the ways government at all levels, as well as community institutions, the media, and the public itself, can work to strengthen public understanding, public involvement and public confidence in the conversations, decisions and trade-offs that have been and will continue to be made about homeland security and civil liberties

Algorithmic Jim Crow

This Article contends that current immigration- and security-related vetting protocols risk promulgating an algorithmically driven form of Jim Crow. Under the “separate but equal” discrimination of a historic Jim Crow regime, state laws required mandatory separation and discrimination on the front end, while purportedly establishing equality on the back end. In contrast, an Algorithmic Jim Crow regime allows for “equal but separate” discrimination. Under Algorithmic Jim Crow, equal vetting and database screening of all citizens and noncitizens will make it appear that fairness and equality principles are preserved on the front end. Algorithmic Jim Crow, however, will enable discrimination on the back end in the form of designing, interpreting, and acting upon vetting and screening systems in ways that result in a disparate impact

SCIENCE AND GOVERNANCE IN THE NATIONAL SYSTEMS OF INNOVATION APPROACH

The aim of this article is to analyse the process of technology regulation as a sub-system in the National System of Innovation approach. Firstly, the article discusses the limits of the evolutionary approach by analysing the conflicts of interest involved in the regulation of technology. Then, by analysing with the experience of regulating biotechnology in countries of the European Union and Brazil the article discusses the practices of managing conflicts of interest through the respective regulation models. This discussion turns to the governance of science and technology as a fundamental element of operationalisation of policies for risk analysis and management.National Innovation System, power, technology, institutions, regulation, gmo