Page 10 of 14
Extending the Fourth Amendment beyond the home: Ex parte Jackson (1878)
Ex parte Jackson, which dealt with government agents opening mail in search of banned lottery materials, hints at the future Court’s ruling on wiretaps in Katz v. United States that the Fourth Amendment “protects people, not places.”
January 2011 / 2 min.
Stepping stone to Internet privacy: the telegraph
There have been four pivotal technologies that have forced modern American law and society to re-examine its notions of privacy and confidentiality.
January 2011 / 2 min.
Cassirer and the Enlightenment
Cassirer’s work on the Enlightenment is quite unlike many of the other works of science studies I have worked on over the last couple of years.
December 2010 / 9 min.
The 1971 Supreme Court on WikiLeaks
In a 1971 case, New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 US 713, the Supreme Court ruled against an attempt by the Nixon Administration “to enjoin the New York Times and the Washington Post from publishing the contents of a classified study entitled ‘History of U. S. Decision-Making Process on Viet Nam Policy.
December 2010 / 4 min.
Review of “Changing Fashions in Advocacy: 100 Years of Brief-Writing Advice”
Helen A. Anderson of the University of Washington School of Law brings us “Changing Fashions in Advocacy: 100 Years of Brief-Writing Advice.”
December 2010 / 3 min.
Science and Sociability in Mary Terrall’s The Man Who Flattened the Earth: Maupertuis and the Sciences in the Enlightenment
For the enlightened of the mid-eighteenth century, the most fundamental aspect of their enlightenment was “sociability,” according to Mary Terrall in The Man Who Flattened the Earth.
November 2010 / 7 min.
Thinking about theories of historiography
Recently, I’ve been struck by the sense that what seems to drive history as a profession is not specifically the investigation of new archives, new materials, new places, or new times, but rather simply the larger desire to always pursue what is new qua new.
November 2010 / 3 min.
A quick history of the changing lengths of copyright protection
Since its codification in Britain in 1710, the length of copyright protection has continued to be extended, from an initial 14 years to today’s 70-120 or more years.
November 2010 / 4 min.
Considering comparative approaches in legal histories
I have proposed comparative/transnational approaches between legal and societal understandings of privacy in the face of new technologies. Micol Siegel’s work suggests that I should, at the very least, consider my approach more critically.
November 2010 / 3 min.
Going beyond national legal histories
“Lived history,” writes Bender, “is embedded in a plenitude of narratives. … [O]ver time, different themes or concepts, different narratives, will be deemed significant and emphasized” (page 1). The “plenitude of narratives” is formed by the stories historians tell about the past, by people at the time speaking and living their own experiences, by groups (ethnicities, races, classes, nations, cities) sharing common understandings, and is thus never simple nor unitary.
November 2010 / 3 min.