Dr. Shawn Powers Speaking on The Real Cyber War: A Political Economy of Internet Freedom

LECTURE September 18 @12:30 in Faculty Lounge 4th Floor, Rutgers University Law School 217 N. 5th Street, Camden, NJ This TALK explores several cases in which governments have tried to control domestic information flows for political advantage.   China, Egypt, Denmark and the United States each implement control—through law, technology, subsidy and force—over domestic Internet space.  Using different methods and understandings … Continue reading Dr. Shawn Powers Speaking on The Real Cyber War: A Political Economy of Internet Freedom

Digital is Different SCOTUS Says When it Comes to Constitutional Privacy Protections

Continuing and strengthening a trend in U.S. privacy law, the Supreme Court decided on June 25 that the constitutional prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures (Fourth Amendment) requires police to get a warrant before searching a mobile phone incident to arrest.    Two years ago, in United States v. Jones, another unanimous Court decided that law … Continue reading Digital is Different SCOTUS Says When it Comes to Constitutional Privacy Protections

The FCC Hasn’t Really Shifted on Open Internet; Net Neutrality Was Never the Law

Reaction to the FCC’s announcement yesterday that it was circulating new open Internet rules blazed, with many claiming that the FCC had dramatically shifted course and was set to kill net neutrality.  The truth is that the FCC never endorsed the strongest versions of net neutrality and has hardly budged.  The agency’s tentative plans don’t … Continue reading The FCC Hasn’t Really Shifted on Open Internet; Net Neutrality Was Never the Law

First Amendment Liberties and the Right-to-Know – Commercial Disclosure Imperiled

Freedom of speech is probably Americans’ most celebrated individual liberty.  One thinks of the great First Amendment cases that have advanced press freedoms and the rights of individuals to voice unpopular opinions.   In the last month, however, we’ve seen a very different deployment of the First Amendment – a cynical use of individual freedoms to … Continue reading First Amendment Liberties and the Right-to-Know – Commercial Disclosure Imperiled

Comcast to Acquire Time Warner, Giving it Most of Cable Broadband Market

Philadelphia-based Comcast is set to acquire New York-based Time Warner Cable.  If the deal is approved by the FCC and the Department of Justice, this will give  Comcast nearly three quarters of the U.S. cable broadband market with about 30 million subscribers.   This amounts to about 33% of the entire subscription TV broadband market, which … Continue reading Comcast to Acquire Time Warner, Giving it Most of Cable Broadband Market