Technology and the Law

Examining the intersection of technology and the law, particularly focusing on the legal implications of technological developments.

Cybercrime: How Can the United States Seek Justice?

March 26, 2024

Penalties for committing a crime included in the CFAA range from imprisonment for less than a year to a maximum of life imprisonment.  However, it is often difficult for the government to pinpoint the exact identity of cybercriminals to bring them to justice, especially if they are located in a different country.  [...]

Gene Editing from a Global Perspective: The Ethical Battle

March 14, 2024

The editing of genome cells is used in a number of ways, including treating and preventing hereditary diseases.  A first case look includes a “brave” scientist by the name of He Jiankui of Shenzhen, China’s Southern University of Science and Technology, shocked the world by unveiling his unique experiment where he secretly modified the embryos of nine different couples who had biological fathers with HIV positive genes and mothers with HIV negative genes.  [...]

Academic Theft – Is ChatGPT an Offender?

March 6, 2024

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has a list of activities that are banned, with the risk of termination of a user’s account if the company discovers banned activity.  Within these banned activities, OpenAI specifically prohibits academic dishonesty.  The regulation instructs its users not to misinform, misrepresent, or mislead others. [...]

Who Owns What: How to Classify Ownership of a Chatbot’s Generated Content

February 28, 2024

Tracing ChatGPT back to its conception, the core of the programming was always the Language Learning Model.  By being able to access and compress a large number of data points into a uniquely generated output mimicking speech patterns, chatbots seem to be a supreme combination of search engines and research tools.  [...]

The Future of Data Privacy in the United States

February 7, 2024

As federal policymakers research and draft data privacy legislation for the entire country to follow, there is tension between these state acts and the federal government’s plan for the future of data privacy in America. [...]

Does The Twitter-verse Smell Musky… or Musty?

August 9, 2023

What do an electric car company, a space exploration company, and a blue bird social media company all have in common?  If you guessed Elon Musk as their collective owner, then you guessed correctly.  Twitter, very recently, joined the ranks of Tesla and SpaceX when Elon Musk purchased the company for $44 billion. He wanted to make Twitter “a platform for speech around the globe” after not being satisfied with its leadership board and believing they were not advancing that mission. [...]

Tag, You’re It! – Internet Jurisdiction “Enters the Chat”

August 9, 2023

One core subject every law student learns in their Civil Procedure course is “personal jurisdiction.” “Personal jurisdiction is the power of a court to make a decision about the party being sued in a legal suit. Simply put, a person or entity can only be sued in a legal jurisdiction if the jurisdiction has the power to compel the Defendant’s attendance. This makes sense if we examine the meaning and origins of the word “jurisdiction” itself. Jurisdiction is a combination of two [...]

What White Collar Crime Threats Remain as the Country Emerges from COVID-19?

February 5, 2023

Are the 474 defendants charged with crimes for COVID-19 fraud schemes and the 1,686,121 reports of identity theft in 2021 just the tip of the iceberg?  COVID-19 steered the world into financial disruption.  As a result, the prevalence of white collar crime has skyrocketed over the last few years, particularly in the forms of government benefits fraud and identity theft. White collar criminals have targeted government benefits such as the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, the [...]

How can attorneys use AI in their practice?

January 17, 2023

Just what is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?  Almost two decades ago, Stanford University’s John McCarthy, founder of the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), outlined the definition for the layman in his paper, “What is AI?.” “AI is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs.  It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to methods that are [...]

What in the World are NFTs? A Primer

May 14, 2021

"Now what the heck's an NFT? Apparently cryptocurrency, everyone's making so much money, can you please explain what's an NFT?" - Pete Davidson of Saturday Night Live [...]

Citizen Drone Use Sparks Privacy Concerns On State And Federal Levels

April 3, 2020

Drone use by citizens has become an ever-increasing trend since they burst onto the scene in the early 2010s and sales have rapidly increased.  Drones are used by consumers and companies in a variety of contexts: promotional videos, weddings, news footage, and even the 2018 Winter Olympics.  In 2013 Amazon first introduced its idea to use drones for delivering packages, estimating such use to begin by 2015.  So why weren’t Amazon packages being delivered by drones in 2015?  One reason was [...]

The Right To Be Forgotten: New California Law Aims To Protect Consumers From Online Data Collection

March 27, 2020

Using the Internet is a daily habit for millions of individuals in our high-tech society.  Countless activities can be done online, such as sharing photos on social media sites, shopping, and reading news from around the world.  Many use the Internet for work, or to conduct mundane activities to pass the time.  The Internet has become such a major facet in our society that according to Pew Research Center approximately ninety percent of adults in the United States used the Internet in [...]
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