Archive | Privacy

Students Receive Support Grants for Summer Internships

By on May 16, 2014 in Internet, Journalism, Privacy

The UNC Center for Media Law and Policy has awarded $1,000 summer grants to two students in the center’s dual-degree program.

The grants went to Natasha Duarte and Kevin Delaney to support their summer internships. Kevin will be at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Arlington, Va.  Natasha will be at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington, D.C., working in the Internet Public Interest Opportunities Program.

The media law center grant program, which is in its second year, supports journalism and law students doing unpaid and low-paying summer internships in the field of media law and policy.  In conjunction with a similar program at the law school, the center ensures that each student has at least $5,000 in summer pay.

Students in the dual-degree program earn both a J.D. and a master’s in journalism.

Congratulations to Natasha and Kevin!

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Congratulations to UNC Students: Publications and Conference Papers

By on February 13, 2014 in First Amendment, Journalism, Privacy

What’s more fun that sharing good news about our great media law students?  Absolutely nothing!  So here it goes. . . .

UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication Ph.D. student Karen McIntrye has had an article accepted for publication in the Newspaper Research Journal.  The title of her paper is “Drone Journalism: Exploring the Potential Privacy Invasions of Using Unmanned Aircraft to Gather News.”

Also, three other students and a University of Oklahoma student who will join the J-School faculty next fall had papers accepted for presentation in the Law and Policy Division at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Southeast Colloquium at the University of Florida in March.  The papers went through a process of blind review, with students and faculty competing in the same category.  UNC student papers will represent 25 percent of the papers to be presented at this conference.

These are the students and the titles of their papers:

Kevin Delaney:  “Rube Goldberg-Like Contrivances and Broadcasting: The Litigation Challenging Aereo and FilmOn.”  Kevin is in our dual-degree program, earning an M.A. in mass communication and a J.D.

Natasha Duarte: “I Know Whom You Called Last Summer: Government Collection of Telephony Metadata and the Freedom of Association.”  Natasha is in our dual-degree program.

Liz Woolery:  “The Element that Ate the Tort: Newsworthiness and the Public Disclosure of Private Facts.”  Liz is a Ph.D. student in the J-School.

Also, Adam Saffer, a Ph.D. student at the University of Oklahoma and a soon-to-be public relations professor in the J-School, had this paper accepted:  “Practitioners as Publishers: Examining Public Relations Practitioners’ Claims for Legal Protections Traditionally Associated with the Institutional Press” (with co-author Jared Schroeder from Augustana College).

Congratulations Tar Heel scholars!

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Supreme Court won’t hear challenge to NSA surveillance

By on November 18, 2013 in Internet, Privacy, Transparency

The Supreme Court Friday declined to consider the legality of the National Security Agency’s collection of Verizon customers’ phone call records.

The Court declined without comment to decide whether the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court exceeded its jurisdiction when it issued orders to Verizon to turn over the records of all phone calls made wholly within the United States or between the United States and abroad.

The challenge came from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which asked the Court for a “writ of mandamus,” a process by which the Supreme Court directly reviews a case that has not been appealed through lower courts. A writ of mandamus is only proper when the plaintiff has no other adequate means of obtaining relief. In this case, EPIC argued that it could not pursue relief in lower district and appellate courts because those courts have no jurisdiction over the FISC, and that only the government or the recipient of a FISC order can appeal that order to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.

In its response, the Justice Department argued that EPIC must file its challenge in federal district court as other plaintiffs have done. However, the government didn’t concede that EPIC would be a proper party to challenge the FISC order in district court — only that EPIC could not seek relief from the Supreme Court that it could not obtain in district court. SCOTUSblog reported that “the government has attempted to thwart court review of challenges…already filed [in lower court].”

The Justice Department also argued that EPIC did not show that the NSA had reviewed phone records relating to EPIC’s members, “particularly given the stringent, FISC-imposed restrictions that limit access to the database to counterterrorism purposes.” No court has ruled on this issue, and it could come up again in the district court challenges to the NSA’s phone records collection program.

A federal court has yet to rule on the legality of the NSA’s domestic surveillance program since a series of leaks in June revealed that the NSA had been collecting Americans’ phone call records for at least seven years.

Natasha Duarte is a 2L at the University of North Carolina School of Law and a first-year master’s student at the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

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New York AG wants Airbnb to turn over user information

By on November 13, 2013 in First Amendment, Internet, Privacy

airbnb

Short-term rental website Airbnb provides an alternative to hotels and makes it easier for people to sublet their homes while they’re out of town, but its New York users could be in legal trouble.

The state of New York has subpoenaed Airbnb in an attempt to prove that some users renting out rooms on the site have violated state rental and tax laws. The site, which allows users to rent or sublet their homes on a short-term basis, is fighting the state’s request for the names, email addresses, physical addresses, gross revenue, and tax-related communications of its New York users.

The state of New York is attempting to prove that Airbnb users have violated occupancy tax laws and a state law against subletting a dwelling for fewer than 30 days. Its subpoena applies to all “hosts” who rent New York accommodations on Airbnb and do not stay in the accommodations during the rental period.

Airbnb has filed a motion to quash the subpoena, calling it an overly broad “fishing expedition.”

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States Regulate Access to Online Accounts After Death

By on October 31, 2013 in Internet, Privacy

pfycdwtotStates have taken matters into their own legislative hands over who can gain access into an individual’s online account information after death.

A great deal of personal information lives online: important financial records are stored in online banking accounts and email, and social media sites contain personal data including photos and videos. After death, unless that individual entrusted another with their password information, an individual’s log-in and password information can remain online.

According to a 2012 report, 30 million former Facebook users have died — yet their online profiles continue to exist, prompting online memorials and providing an online outlet for mourning relatives and loved ones. Although a number of websites have policies relating to how accounts are handled after death, some individuals are creating “digital estate plans” in order to better prepare for their digital passing.  Others want access to the deceased’s account information to shut down these social media profiles and to access important financial accounts postmortem.

This year, seven states passed laws concerning the management of digital accounts after death: Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Maine. A handful of other states have also proposed legislation that would aid an executor or personal representative in gaining access to an individual’s digital assets. Although these laws are generally uniform in purpose, their execution and administration vary widely.

Some online social media sites argue that a few of these state laws may be unconstitutional as, under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Stored Communications Act, sites are prohibited from disclosing account information without a court order.

Samantha Scheller is a 2L at UNC Law.

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