scholarly journals The Fourth Amendment and New Technologies: Constitutional Myths and the Case for Caution

2004 ◽  
Vol 102 (5) ◽  
pp. 801 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orin S. Kerr
2021 ◽  
pp. 265
Author(s):  
Matthew Tokson ◽  
Ari Waldman

Courts often look to existing social norms to resolve difficult questions in Fourth Amendment law. In theory, these norms can provide an objective basis for courts’ constitutional decisions, grounding Fourth Amendment law in familiar societal attitudes and beliefs. In reality, however, social norms can shift rapidly, are constantly being contested, and frequently reflect outmoded and discriminatory concepts. This Article draws on contemporary sociological literatures on norms and technology to reveal how courts’ reliance on norms leads to several identifiable errors in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Courts assessing social norms generally adopt what we call the closure principle, or the idea that social norms can be permanently settled. Meanwhile, courts confronting new technologies often adopt the nonintervention principle, or the idea that courts should refrain from addressing the Fourth Amendment implications of new surveillance practices until the relevant social norms become clear. Both approaches are flawed, and they have substantial negative effects for equality and privacy. By adopting norms perceived as closed, courts may embed antiquated norms in Fourth Amendment law—norms that often involve discrimination on the basis of race, gender, or class. By declining to intervene when norms are undeveloped, courts cede power over norm creation to companies that design new technologies based on data-extractive business models. Further, judicial norm reliance and nonintervention facilitate surveillance creep, the extension of familiar data-gathering infrastructures to new types of surveillance. This Article provides, for the first time, a full, critical account of the role of social norms in Fourth Amendment law. It details and challenges courts’ reliance on social norms in virtually every aspect of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. And it explores potential new directions for Fourth Amendment law, including novel doctrinal paradigms, different conceptions of stare decisis in the Fourth Amendment context, and alternative institutional regimes for regulating government surveillance.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Law enforcement has an opacity problem. Police use sophisticated technologies to monitor individuals, surveil communities, and predict behaviors in increasingly intrusive ways. But legal institutions have struggled to understand—let alone set limits on—new investigative methods and techniques, for two major reasons. New technologies of surveillance, often procured from or otherwise reliant on the private sector, tend to operate in opaque and unaccountable ways, augmenting police power while remaining free of meaningful oversight. At the same time, shifts in Fourth Amendment doctrine have expanded law enforcement’s ability to engage in surveillance free of oversight or scrutiny by courts or by the public. The result is that modern policing is not highly visible to oversight institutions, and is becoming even less so.In light of these informational dynamics, transparency litigation has become a core technique for rendering obscure investigative practices visible and holding police accountable. These new lawsuits form a criminal procedure “shadow docket”—they resolve important questions about democratic governance of policing without deciding on the constitutionality of searches and seizures. This Article builds on the government secrecy literature to explore the significance of this “shadow docket” and the relationship between transparency obligations and constitutional limits on police action. In the absence of meaningful Fourth Amendment safeguards, the Article shows, transparency makes policing practices increasingly visible to the public and to democratic institutions in areas in which constitutional criminal procedure today has minimal reach. These efforts to make policing visible bear important lessons for advocates and scholars of criminal procedure, criminal justice reform, and transparency itself.


Author(s):  
Klaus-Ruediger Peters

Only recently it became possible to expand scanning electron microscopy to low vacuum and atmospheric pressure through the introduction of several new technologies. In principle, only the specimen is provided with a controlled gaseous environment while the optical microscope column is kept at high vacuum. In the specimen chamber, the gas can generate new interactions with i) the probe electrons, ii) the specimen surface, and iii) the specimen-specific signal electrons. The results of these interactions yield new information about specimen surfaces not accessible to conventional high vacuum SEM. Several microscope types are available differing from each other by the maximum available gas pressure and the types of signals which can be used for investigation of specimen properties.Electrical non-conductors can be easily imaged despite charge accumulations at and beneath their surface. At high gas pressures between 10-2 and 2 torr, gas molecules are ionized in the electrical field between the specimen surface and the surrounding microscope parts through signal electrons and, to a certain extent, probe electrons. The gas provides a stable ion flux for a surface charge equalization if sufficient gas ions are provided.


2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 1247-1257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateusz Dyla ◽  
Sara Basse Hansen ◽  
Poul Nissen ◽  
Magnus Kjaergaard

Abstract P-type ATPases transport ions across biological membranes against concentration gradients and are essential for all cells. They use the energy from ATP hydrolysis to propel large intramolecular movements, which drive vectorial transport of ions. Tight coordination of the motions of the pump is required to couple the two spatially distant processes of ion binding and ATP hydrolysis. Here, we review our current understanding of the structural dynamics of P-type ATPases, focusing primarily on Ca2+ pumps. We integrate different types of information that report on structural dynamics, primarily time-resolved fluorescence experiments including single-molecule Förster resonance energy transfer and molecular dynamics simulations, and interpret them in the framework provided by the numerous crystal structures of sarco/endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase. We discuss the challenges in characterizing the dynamics of membrane pumps, and the likely impact of new technologies on the field.


2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-261
Author(s):  
Jessica E. Fellmeth ◽  
Kim S. McKim

Abstract While many of the proteins involved in the mitotic centromere and kinetochore are conserved in meiosis, they often gain a novel function due to the unique needs of homolog segregation during meiosis I (MI). CENP-C is a critical component of the centromere for kinetochore assembly in mitosis. Recent work, however, has highlighted the unique features of meiotic CENP-C. Centromere establishment and stability require CENP-C loading at the centromere for CENP-A function. Pre-meiotic loading of proteins necessary for homolog recombination as well as cohesion also rely on CENP-C, as do the main scaffolding components of the kinetochore. Much of this work relies on new technologies that enable in vivo analysis of meiosis like never before. Here, we strive to highlight the unique role of this highly conserved centromere protein that loads on to centromeres prior to M-phase onset, but continues to perform critical functions through chromosome segregation. CENP-C is not merely a structural link between the centromere and the kinetochore, but also a functional one joining the processes of early prophase homolog synapsis to late metaphase kinetochore assembly and signaling.


2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 279-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Hey ◽  
Panagiota Anastasopoulou ◽  
André Bideaux ◽  
Wilhelm Stork

Ambulatory assessment of emotional states as well as psychophysiological, cognitive and behavioral reactions constitutes an approach, which is increasingly being used in psychological research. Due to new developments in the field of information and communication technologies and an improved application of mobile physiological sensors, various new systems have been introduced. Methods of experience sampling allow to assess dynamic changes of subjective evaluations in real time and new sensor technologies permit a measurement of physiological responses. In addition, new technologies facilitate the interactive assessment of subjective, physiological, and behavioral data in real-time. Here, we describe these recent developments from the perspective of engineering science and discuss potential applications in the field of neuropsychology.


2000 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 437-439
Author(s):  
Michele Knobel
Keyword(s):  

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