NSA Metadata Collection and the Fourth Amendment
The Snowden disclosures have sparked public controversy and provoked constitutional challenges in federal courts. This Note aims to contribute to that debate in two ways. First, it collects information scattered across numerous government documents — some of which Edward Snowden has disclosed, others of which the government has declassified — to tell the story of the NSA’s telephony metadata collection program since September 11, 2001. Second, it assesses the government’s argument that call record data lacks protection under the Fourth Amendment. In particular, this Note asks whether the NSA’s prolonged collection of telephony metadata is consistent with Fourth Amendment doctrine in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in United States v. Jones, in which the Court raised serious doubts about the constitutionality of unfettered metadata collection and analysis.
A Shattered Looking Glass: The Pitfalls and Potential of the Mosaic Theory of Fourth Amendment Privacy
On January 23, 2012, the Supreme Court issued a landmark non-decision in United States v. Jones. In that case, officers used a GPS-enabled device to track a suspect’s public movements for four weeks, amassing a considerable amount of data in the process. Although ultimately resolved on narrow grounds, five Justices joined concurring opinions in Jones expressing sympathy for some version of the “mosaic theory” of Fourth Amendment privacy. This theory holds that we maintain reasonable expectations of privacy in certain quantities of information even if we do not have such expectations in the constituent parts. This Article examines and explores the mosaic theory and concludes that it exposes an important quantitative dimension of Fourth Amendment privacy but raises serious practical challenges, which, as we argue elsewhere, can be met by regulating surveillance technologies capable of facilitating broad programs of indiscriminate surveillance.
Church, state and schools in Britain, 1800-1970
Originally published 1971, this volume unravels the complicated history of the religious question in British education. The background of the key Acts of Parliament which established the "dual" system - of Church and Local Authority school - is examined. The changing policies of different religious groupings are analyzed, and their outcome in legislation brought out.