[liberationtech] Stanford course: Surveillance Law

[James S. Tyre]

This was January 2015, not forthcoming.

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James S. Tyre
Law Offices of James S. Tyre
10736 Jefferson Blvd., #512
Culver City, CA 90230-4969
310-839-4114/310-839-4602(fax)
jstyre at jstyre.com
Special Counsel, Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://www.eff.org

From: liberationtech [mailto:liberationtech-bounces at lists.stanford.edu] On Behalf Of Yosem Companys
Sent: Saturday, January 02, 2016 12:17 PM
To: Liberation Technologies
Cc: Richard Forno
Subject: [liberationtech] Stanford course: Surveillance Law

From: Richard Forno <rforno at infowarrior.org>
FYI, my Stanford CIS colleague (a securitylegalgeek rockstar) is offering a 6-week online course on surveillance law.  Well worth checking out, if you're able and/or interested!   -- rick

Surveillance Law

Learn how police and intelligence agencies can access your data, and how the law (might) protect you! Hackers, attorneys, and concerned citizens are all welcome.

6 weeks of study
1-3 hours/week
English
Jonathan Mayer / Stanford University

It’s easy to be cynical about government surveillance. In recent years, a parade of Orwellian disclosures have been making headlines. The FBI, for example, is hacking into computers that run anonymizing software. The NSA is vacuuming up domestic phone records. Even local police departments are getting in on the act, tracking cellphone location history and intercepting signals in realtime.

Perhaps 2014 is not quite 1984, though. This course explores how American law facilitates electronic surveillance—but also substantially constrains it. You will learn the legal procedures that police and intelligence agencies have at their disposal, as well as the security and privacy safeguards built into those procedures. The material also provides brief, not-too-geeky technical explanations of some common surveillance methods.

Course Syllabus

I. Introduction
We will begin with a brief overview of how surveillance fits into the American legal system. We will also discuss how surveillance issues can be litigated. 

II. The Basics of Surveillance Law
Next, we will review established police surveillance procedures. Using telephone technology as a simple starting point, we will work through various sorts of data that investigators might seek to access—and the constitutional and statutory safeguards on that data.

III. Applying Surveillance Law to Information Technology
Having learned the basics, we will turn to more modern technologies. We will discuss snooping on email, web browsing, and mobile phone location, as well as hacking into devices.

IV. Compelled Assistance to Law Enforcement
What happens when data is technically protected? In this section, we will talk about the government’s (limited) ability to mandate backdoors and to require decryption.

V. The Structure of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Law
The law that applies to foreign intelligence activities runs parallel to the law that applies to police activities. We will compare the two systems of law and review key distinctions. The section places particular emphasis on Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, and Executive Order 12333.

VI. Controversial NSA Programs
In the final section, we will review the conduct and legality of controversial National Security Agency programs. We will discuss in detail the domestic phone metadata program, PRISM, and “upstream” Internet monitoring.

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https://www.coursera.org/course/surveillance

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It's better to burn out than fade away.