Domestic Legal Aspects of Cyber

Catalog description

This course surveys U.S. law and policy relating to data security and privacy. Part I begins with essential civil rights principles and their relationship to content moderation, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and the protection of minors online, including efforts to curtail CSAM and to require child-safe design. Part II discusses the rights of privacy and against self-incrimination as they relate to online surveillance by the government and cooperation in such surveillance by private entities. This Part examines how common cyber-investigative techniques relate to individual and mass surveillance and the “going dark” problem. Part III looks at U.S. federal law on “personal” cyber crimes such as harassment and catfishing and “economic” cybercrimes including data exfiltration and ransomware attacks. Part IV covers cyber “infrastructure” as a unique problem in which resources that are mostly privately owned make up the bulk of a major national security and strategic asset. The Part explores how both public law and private law work together in this domain and concludes with a survey of issues relating to the next frontier, in data privacy and security: artificial intelligence.