Drone Invasion: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and the Right to Privacy

Since the birth of the concept of a legally-recognized right to privacy in Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis’ influential 1890 law review article, The Right to Privacy, common law – with the aid of influential scholars -- has massaged the concept of privacy torts into actionable claims. But now, one of the most innovative technological advancements in recent years, the unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone, has created difficult challenges for plaintiffs and courts navigating common law privacy tort claims.This Article explores the challenges of prosecution of the specific privacy tort of intrusion into seclusion involving non-governmental use of drone technology. Specifically, it proposes that drone technology must be an added consideration when determining the two elements of the intrusion into seclusion privacy tort. The current common law invasion of privacy tort analysis is not sufficient to protect an individual’s right to privacy for torts committed using the modern and complex technology of drones. Thus, considering drone technology must be weaved into analyzing whether the plaintiff had a reasonable expectation of privacy and whether the intrusion was highly offensive to a reasonable person.Further, this Article analyzes and evaluates the practical problems that arise in prosecuting intrusion upon seclusion claims in the drone-age, and how certain states’ statutes address or fail to address these issues. From determining the owner of the drone in order to name a defendant, to proving intent, it is almost impossible for a plaintiff to survive to establish a successful intrusion upon seclusion claim. Moreover, this Article suggests that statutes may combat many of the problems in prosecuting drone-related privacy tort claims by incorporating a rebuttable presumption that the defendant intruded upon the plaintiff’s seclusion once the plaintiff has alleged a prima facie case. This presumption is similar to the presumptions found in many state statutes regarding physical damage from torts committed with aircrafts against a person or property. Thus, because the defendant, a prudent drone owner, would be in the best position to disprove the intrusion, the defendant could rebut the claim by introducing such evidence as flight path data, photo of video footage, possession at the time of the alleged intrusion.With the constantly evolving technology and innovation in the age of drones, prosecuting William Prosser’s concept of the “right to be left alone” when an individual’s right to privacy comes with many challenges. Although other scholarship discusses the relationship between drones and privacy torts, this Article is novel in that it explores the practical issues of prosecuting intrusion upon seclusion claims in the age of drones. It further recommends considerations for courts and legislators when the right to privacy and drones collide

Detection of an unknown rank-one component in white noise

We consider the detection of an unknown and arbitrary rank-one signal in a spatial sector scanned by a small number of beams. We address the problem of finding the maximal invariant for the problem at hand and show that it consists of the ratio of the eigenvalues of a Wishart matrix to its trace. Next, we derive the generalized-likelihood ratio test (GLRT) along with expressions for its probability density function (pdf) under both hypotheses. Special attention is paid to the case m= 2, where the GLRT is shown to be a uniformly most powerful invariant (UMPI). Numerical simulations attest to the validity of the theoretical analysis and illustrate the detection performance of the GLRT

Separated at Adoption: Addressing the Challenges of Maintaining Sibling-of-Origin Bonds in Post-adoption Families

This Article explores the ways children, many of whom are in foster care, are psychologically harmed by the law’s failure to ensure that the bonds they have with their siblings-of-origin are not permanently broken when one of the siblings is adopted; it therefore proposes ways that courts can better protect children from the psychological harm of having a biological sibling permanently removed from their life. It suggests that what is needed is a framework that allows visitation by biological siblings with whom children have formed attachments without unnecessarily intruding on the fundamental liberty interest of the adoptive parents at issue in Troxel v. Granville – that is, “the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children.” In the landmark Troxel v. Granville case, the United States Supreme Court struck down a Washington state third party visitation statute allowing any person to petition for visitation at any time as “breathtakingly broad,” but failed to articulate a clear standard under which third parties, including siblings, could petition for visitation with each other, if at all. Without such a provision, however, thousands of children face the real possibility that upon adoption their adoptive parents may no longer allow them to continue a relationship with their biological siblings, often causing tremendous hardship to the child. Although other scholarship has focused and critiqued Troxel’s failure to articulate a clear standard for third party visitation, this article focuses much more on the social science and psychological research related to the attachments children form with their biological siblings and the deep-rooted results of having those attachments broken, often permanently, when one of them is adopted. Set against this background, it serves to highlight the urgency behind ensuring that states provide an avenue for siblings to avoid the severing of those attachment bonds and to petition for legal visitation which would allow that bond to continue. Thus, what is needed is a provision that grants standing to siblings-of-origin to petition for visitation once they face the potential of being “separated at adoption.” In reviewing the sibling visitation petition, in recognition of the adoptive parent’s Constitutional rights as a parent, the court would employ a rebuttable presumption that the adoptive parent’s wishes are in the “best interests of the child.” In assessing, however, whether the petitioner has rebutted the presumption, the court would be required to make specific findings of fact as to the psychological harm the child would likely suffer should visitation be denied and all contact with the biological sibling cut off. By requiring the court to specifically focus on this potential harm, rather than to merely engage in a generalized “best interest of the child” analysis, the child’s interest in not having their relationship with their sibling broken will be protected. Additionally, states should provide a construct whereby, as part of the adoption process, parties can enter into agreements for post-adoption contact that will be enforceable. Because such agreements are voluntarily entered into, it is important that states create vehicles to encourage adoptive parents to allow these biological sibling relationships to continue

The Effects of Hydrocortisone And Caffeine on Memory for Word Lists

Hydrocortisone has frequently been hypothesized to increase arousal. This hypothesis was primarily based on the findings of increased adrenal size in animals who had been exposed to stressful conditions and the enhancement or impairment in cognitive abilities of humans depending on dose. There has been a lack of studies directly looking at the arousal hypothesis of the effects of hydrocortisone. The purpose of this study was to directly assess the effects of hydrocortisone on levels of arousal by manipulating both state and trait arousal. This study used caffeine as a comparison drug that alters state arousal because of its widely accepted arousing properties. Subjects were also separated according to trait arousal using the Eysenck Personality Inventory-Impulsivity Subscale. One hundred and twenty male college students were used as subjects. As was mentioned above, the subjects were divided according to their level of trait arousal. The doses used for this study were 5 mg of hydrocortisone, 40 mg of hydrocortisone, 2 mg/kg of caffeine, and a placebo. Thirty minutes after the ingestion of the hydrocortisone, caffeine, or placebo, the subjects heard 8 word lists, each containing 12 words. Four lists were heard at a slow rate and four lists at a fast rate. Subjects heard one list at a time, followed immediately by a written recall test. Subjects\u27 recall was again tested 60, 90, 120, and 150 minutes post ingestion. The proportion of words recalled from the primacy, middle, and recency portion of each list was computed. A 4 (Treatment) x 2 (Impulsivity) x 4 (Practice) x 2 (Rate) x 3 (Serial Position) mixed ANOVA was conducted on the immediate recall data. A 4 (Treatment) x 2 (Impulsivity) x 4 (Delay Interval) x 3 (Serial Position) mixed ANOVA was computed on the delayed recall data. A treatment by impulsivity interaction and a treatment by rate interaction were found with the immediate recall data. The 40 mg dose of hydrocortisone impaired high impulsive subjects\u27 performance while caffeine enhanced low impulsive subjects\u27 performance. High impulsive subjects recalled more words than low impulsive subjects in the placebo condition. The 40 mg dose of hydrocortisone impaired subjects\u27 performance at the slow rate of presentation and caffeine facilitated recall at the fast rate of presentation. In addition, a marginal main effect of treatment was found with the delay data such that caffeine facilitated recall and the 40 mg dose of hydrocortisone impaired recall. The results were discussed with regard to their fit to an arousal model

Game of Drones: Rolling the Dice with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Privacy

This Article offers a practical three-part test for courts and law enforcement to utilize when faced with drone and privacy issues. Specifically addressing the question: how should courts analyze the Fourth Amendment’s protection against ‘unreasonable searches’ in the context of drones? The Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence produced an intricate framework to address issues arising out of the intersection of technology and privacy interests. In prominent decisions, including United States v. Katz, California v. Ciraolo, Kyllo v. United States, and most notably, United States v. Jones, the Court focused on whether the use of a single technology, such as the use of photography, audio recording, heat sensors, or GPS violated an individual’s Fourth Amendment right to privacy. But now, one of the most complex and innovative technological advances in recent years, the unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone, has created an especially difficult issue for courts. Because a single drone can be fitted with multiple technologies, courts need to employ a multidimensional analysis to determine whether an individual’s Fourth Amendment rights have been violated. Thus, with technology advancing quicker than the Court can address, lower courts are left without direction on how to handle this important constitutional quandary, leaving individual right to privacy vulnerable. This Article builds on other scholars’ work promoting a “technology-based” definition of what constitutes a search, by creating a three-factor test for courts to utilize when faced with a drone privacy issue. Specifically arguing that courts should apply a presumption that a warrant is necessary absent exigent circumstances when law enforcement uses drones to survey an individual’s home or curtilage by considering: 1) What type of technology is the drone employing in the search, 2) What is the extent of the surveillance?; and 3) What is the extent of the privacy interference? No longer are the days of addressing the use of a singular technology, as courts will soon, if not already, be inundated with cases involving the intersection of multiple technologies through the use of drones and privacy. Although other scholarship explores drones and privacy concerns, this Article is novel in that it offers a practical approach for courts and law enforcement to utilize, while offering the historical framework for each factor. Guiding courts and law enforcement to handle privacy concerns with the use of drones will provide a structured and approachable analysis that can apply regardless of the drone-in-question’s capabilities and the amount of technologies used

Note on recursive maximum likelihood for autoregressive modeling, A

Includes bibliographical references.In this paper, we rederive recursive maximum likelihood (RML) for an autoregressive (AR) time series using the Levinson decomposition. This decomposition produces a recursive update of the likelihood function for the AR parameters in terms of the reflection coefficients, prediction error variances, and forward and backward prediction errors. A fast algorithm for this recursive update is presented and compared with the recursive updates of the Burg algorithm. The comparison clarifies the connection between Burg's algorithm and RML.This work was supported by Bonneville Power Administration under Contract no. DEBI7990BPO7346 and by the Office of Naval Research, Statistics, and Probability Branch under Contract no. N00014-89-J-1070

Interference estimation with applications to blind multiple-access communication over fading channels

Includes bibliographical references.We consider the detection of nonorthogonal multipulse signals on multiple-access fading channels. The generalized maximum-likelihood rule is employed to decode users whose complex fading gains are unknown. We develop geometrical interpretations for the resulting detectors and their corresponding asymptotic efficiencies. The generalized maximum-likelihood detection rule is then applied to find a matched subspace detector for the frequency-selective fading channel, under the assumption of a short coherence time (or long coherence time without the computational power to track the fading parameters). We propose blind implementations of these detectors for nonorthogonal multipulse signaling on both frequency-nonselective and frequency-selective multiple-access fading channels. These blind detectors extend the results of Wang and Poor to multipulse modulation and fast frequency selective fading. For comparison, the minimum mean-squared error decision rules for these channels are derived and blind implementations of their corresponding detectors are developed.This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Contract ECS 9979400 and by the Office of Naval Research under Contracts N00014-89-J-1070 and N0014-00-1-0033