Tag Archives | Student Jobs

My EPIC Summer

By on October 22, 2014 in Journalism, Privacy

In a humble office above a Dupont Circle bagel shop in Washington, D.C., a very small army of dedicated attorneys fights to protect your digital privacy. They vigilantly watch the watchers, among them the actual U.S. Army with its “surveillance blimps.” They comb through public records to expose secret surveillance. They use their expertise to champion privacy at every level of the courts. They educate the public and government officials about the many threats to privacy and civil liberties created by government and private data collection. They are EPIC. In its twenty years of existence, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has been privacy’s best advocate since Justices Warren and Brandeis defined the right to privacy in 1890. During the summer of 2014, I got to join EPIC as an Internet Public Interest Opportunities Program (IPIOP) Clerk.

During my first week at EPIC, I met Edward Snowden’s parents. They were accepting EPIC’s annual Champions of Freedom award on Snowden’s behalf. During a celebratory dinner, some of the foremost privacy scholars spoke about EPIC’s vital contributions to privacy and civil liberties. I knew I had come to a special place.

IPIOP is designed to educate and train law students in the practice of public interest privacy law. Aside from working on exciting cases, we had weekly training sessions on aspects of privacy advocacy: amicus briefs, comments on agency rulemakings, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), etc. This combination of work and training not only deepened my knowledge of privacy law but also gave me insight into how to use litigation, FOIA, administrative remedies, and other tools to protect privacy and civil liberties in the digital world. Different privacy problems call for different remedies, and throughout the summer I learned to identify those channels for relief. For example, the Federal Trade Commission’s authority to prevent unfair and deceptive trade practices has become a relatively promising (if sometimes disappointing) avenue for protecting consumers’ privacy against commercial data collection. When we learned that Facebook had disclosed users’ data for psychological research, I helped EPIC file an FTC complaint claiming that the practice was unfair and deceptive.

I also learned how to use FOIA to uncover hidden details about government surveillance and data collection. I filed (and appealed) a FOIA request to find out more information about the FBI’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) program, which is currently being implemented by state and local law enforcement agencies. The program outfits law enforcement with facial recognition, iris scanning, and other technologies to identify individuals using a large biometric database compiled by the FBI. I asked for information about the use of mobile biometric applications—cell phone apps that officers can use in the field to identify individuals based on their faces, irises, fingerprints, etc.—in connection with NGI.

Of course, the courts are an important forum for privacy law. EPIC uses its privacy expertise to file amicus briefs in cases that can use its help. I was able to propose and help draft EPIC’s amicus brief in Smith v. Obama, a Ninth Circuit appeal challenging the NSA’s collection of phone records. This was a fun extension of my work at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where I also worked on a phone records collection case.

When it comes to digital data, individuals cannot fully protect their own privacy, in part because data collection practices are not transparent. Advocacy organizations like EPIC perform the necessary functions of uncovering and pushing back against these surreptitious, overreaching, and often illegal practices. My IPIOP clerkship was a unique opportunity to learn not only the substantive law of privacy but also the processes through which public interest groups accomplish their goals.

Natasha Duarte is a dual-degree student and Roy H. Park Fellow in the J.D./M.A. program in the Schools of Law and Journalism. Her areas of interest are technology law and digital civil liberties, particularly privacy and free speech issues.

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A UNC Student’s Summer Experience at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

By on October 8, 2014 in Journalism

reporterlogoThis summer, I worked as a legal intern at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a leading organization that advocates on behalf of journalists’ First Amendment rights. My experience there was, to say the least, outstanding.

I had the opportunity to work on a wide range of First Amendment issues. I helped craft amicus briefs; performed legal research on important issues like net neutrality, freedom of information laws, and the issuance of subpoenas to journalists; and wrote stories for the Reporters Committee’s website and news magazine. Most importantly, the internship enabled me to apply the knowledge I learned in the classroom to real-life settings. My experiences at the Reporters Committee will make me a better law student and, when I begin practicing, lawyer.

In addition to my legal work, the Reporters Committee arranged for me to visit numerous historic sites in Washington, D.C. I visited the White House, Supreme Court, and Capitol Building.

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I also had the opportunity to tour the Washington Post and visit the garage where Bob Woodward met with Deep Throat, the source Woodward received confidential information from regarding the Watergate investigation.

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The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has been in existence for more than 40 years. And for all those years, the Reporters Committee has played an instrumental role in protecting journalists’ First Amendment rights. I am proud to have been part of the organization. I would strongly recommend the internship to any Carolina law student interested in media law.

Kevin Delaney is a 3L at the University of North Carolina School of Law and a third-year master’s student at the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Continue Reading →

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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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A UNC Student’s Summer Experience at the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, a Project of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society

By on January 14, 2014 in Copyright, First Amendment, Internet

Berkman Center LogoLet me start by saying that I really like information. Numbers, lists, facts, data, trivia. I like them all. I’m an information junkie. I also happen to love the First Amendment. Given this, it’s not surprising that I was so excited to spend this past summer interning with the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Chilling Effects collects threats to free expression online, mostly in the form of DMCA take-down notices and similar intellectual property infringement claims, although Chilling Effects receives notices of other threats to free speech as well. All of that information is compiled into a searchable database. Being able to work with Chilling Effects, to explore this database, and to see “under the hood” was a great way to combine my interest in data with my passion for the First Amendment.

The summer was jumpstarted with a joint project involving myself and the two other Chilling Effects interns. Our task was to track down questionable trademark infringement claims in the database. We sorted through hundreds of these claims, looking to see if the people who filed them had concerns beyond trademark infringement — for example, someone whose real issue might be closer to a defamation claim than a trademark claim, but the latter might more quickly and effectively take down the content in question, since defamation claims can be costly to pursue and difficult to win. In other words, we scoured the database looking at potentially fraudulent trademark infringement claims that were being used to stifle free expression online. Once we wrapped up our search we worked with Jeff Hermes at the Digital Media Law Project to turn our findings into content for a presentation he was giving. One of the best parts of summer at the Berkman Center was a project like this one because I got to work with the other interns, all of whom were passionate, curious, and eager to spend the summer researching and working on a variety of Berkman projects.

On top of working with these great people, interns attended weekly presentations by leaders in the technology and policy fields. One week we got to hear from NYU privacy scholar Helen Nissenbaum, who spoke about transparency and privacy issues in accessing online court records. Earlier in the summer many of us attended a book launch for ReWire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection by Ethan Zuckerman of the MIT Center for Civic Media. But perhaps the most fun “intern hour” was an interactive demonstration of Google Glass. We might have looked ridiculous, but we loved being among the first to check out this new wearable computing technology.

The summer flew by. When news broke about the NSA’s PRISM program, I started reading everything I could about the issue and turned my research into a blog post featuring a timeline of Edward Snowden’s leaks and related news about the program. The best part about the blogging for Chilling Effects was that I got to use the Chilling Effects database to add color, facts, and figures to the stories that were already out there. For example, when Twitter released it’s annual Transparency Report in July, I combined their reported data with information stored in the Chilling Effects database. By layering the Chilling Effects’ data on top of Twitter’s, it was easy to start to see the bigger picture for how Twitter handles attempts by countries to censor tweets or account holders.

My summer internship at the Berkman Center gave me the opportunity to work with an area of the law that I am passionate about and introduced me to dozens of new friends and peers who are equally excited about the future of technology, law, and policy. It was by far the most exciting and memorable summer I’ve had and it was an honor to work with some of the world’s leading tech and policy thinkers. Summer 2014 Berkman Center internship applications just opened up and are being accepted until February 16.  If you’re interested applying you can find more information on the Center’s Internship page here.

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A UNC Student’s Summer Experience at the Berkman Center’s Digital Media Law Project

By on October 7, 2013 in First Amendment, Internet, Journalism

IMG_4639This summer, I was fortunate enough to intern for the Digital Media Law Project (DMLP) at the Berkman Center in Cambridge, MA. Our office facility — fondly referred to as the “big yellow house” — was home to a large number of Berkman Center projects, of which the DMLP was one.

The Berkman Center is a wonderful place to work, as the house is constantly filled to the brim with scholars in a variety of fields. It seemed that wherever you went, from the front porch to the kitchen, you were welcomed in eavesdropping on a conversation about an interesting new research project or developing body of law. Berkman also houses a number of fascinating software development projects.

My day-to-day life as a DMLP intern was filled with media law — a complex world of legal issues like defamation, copyright, trademark, anti-SLAPP motions, Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act, DMCA takedown notices, shield laws for reporters, first amendment issues, and more.

I worked on a number of projects for the DMLP throughout the summer. In my legal threat research, my supervisors, Jeff Hermes and Andy Sellars, encouraged me to delve into complex litigation procedures while analyzing court documents for recent media law cases. Through this research, I gained an understanding of how pervasive media law issues are in our court system and in our lives.

On another project, I researched and wrote detailed legal guides on issues such as how to form a journalism cooperative in Pennsylvania and how to operate under Tennessee’s recording laws. The legal guide work is essential for reporters and citizen journalists who need to understand in non-legalese the legal implications of publishing within their state.

IMG_4737Finally, every two weeks, I was encouraged to develop a blog post on my topic of choice. The DMLP blogs provided me the freedom to delve into specific areas of media law including a patent on podcasts, the federal shield law, and how journalist organizations are using Instagram.

My research at the DMLP wasn’t all that Berkman had to offer. One week, my supervisors, my fellow DMLP interns, and I were invited to attend a Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education course at which our supervisor, Jeff Hermes, was presenting. This experience was certainly one of the highlights of my summer as I was able to hear first-hand about the most recent issues and case law in this field.

Each week, my fellow “Berkterns” and I were invited to attend lunchtime and afternoon seminars on a variety of topics, legal and otherwise, given by scholars at the top of their fields. These presentations were followed by intellectually stimulating discussions which often challenged me to consider new ideas and viewpoints. (Another summer highlight: at one such lunchtime presentation, representatives from Google Glass came by and let us try on Glass(es)! The demo led to a great discussion about the legal, social, and privacy implications of the new technology.)

IMG_6199I would highly recommend an internship at the Digital Media Law Project to anyone interested in studying recent media law cases and understanding the protections needed to prevent chilling effects. I made great friends, had a wonderful time traveling around Boston and Cambridge, and embraced everything the area had to offer. Through the DMLP’s collaborative work environment, I was able to learn so much about media law and witness first-hand how this relatively new area of law is influencing a wide range of people across the country.

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