This interdisciplinary course is about us, our data, and the myriad ways in which websites, the government, and even our friends pose threats to our privacy. We will touch on the development of tort, contract, statutory, and constitutional law, and we will address several questions throughout the class, including: How, if at all, can we protect information known to some others? How has technology changed our relationships with each other and with the government? Can traditional privacy rules and laws accommodate today's needs? And, how privacy law as well as new surveillance technologies and other automated tools entrench traditional hierarchies of power and facilitate racist, sexist, and discriminatory institutions?
We meet (almost) every Monday and Wednesday from 9:30 AM - 10:55 via Zoom. Most of our Monday classes will be taken up by either a recorded lecture or out-of-class activity. That will be the asynchronous part. Our Wednesday classes will always be live, via Zoom.
CONTACT: My email address is a.waldman@northeastern.edu.
By the end of this semester, you should ...
learn how networked technologies have and will continue to impact legal questions related to the collection, use, sale, and analysis of our personal data,
be able to discuss different understandings of privacy and relate them to real world privacy problems,
apply current law to vanguard legal and technological issues, including those associated with robots, driverless cars, drones, and more,
learn to summarize the relevant facts of cases, identify patterns among seemingly disparate cases, and continue to perfect a variety of lawyering skills, including legal writing, advocacy, negotiation, and dispute resolution, through in-class, practice-based activities,
understand the impact of implicit biases in technology law, and
have fun!
1. Waldman, Privacy As Trust (2018).
2. Any supplemental materials I post to this website.
Note that I have included a book I wrote as part of the reading. You can buy it or not. I never require my students to buy my book. I have made the book available in the library, as well as on this website.
As the semester unfolds, I will supplement, subtract, revise the readings based on our interests, the news, and our pace. I appreciate the flexibility and I hope you will too.
Please note that I have provided questions to guide your reading. You will find them on the next page. These are not assignments that you have to hand in; no one will see your answers save you, assuming you write them down. However, they may help focus your reading on the topics and skills we will discuss in class. You should not restrict yourself to answering these questions, but you may use them as guides.
Participation is essential for success in this class and in law school generally. Class is a discussion among all members of our community, and you should come to class prepared to participate. In the event that there are either an insufficient number or an insufficient variety of volunteers, I will call on you at random. You needn't worry about being called on if you're prepared for class.
Being prepared for class means:
1. You did the reading ... of course. Sometimes, you read it more than once.
2. You reflected on the readings through the questions in the text.
3. You looked up any terms you didn't understand.
4. You came to class with your readings annotated and your notes available.
You are not permitted to record our synchronous classes. Consider this my only real rule. The asynchronous lecture will be available for you for the semester, as will the class presentations.
We will maintain a courteous and professional learning environment. Professionalism means many things. For example, it means answering questions using appropriate tone and language. It means handing in assignments that reflect the same. Most importantly, it means treating everyone with respect. It means not using racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, anti-Indigenous, homophobic, anti-Latinx, and other hateful language. I will not tolerate it. I believe in robust discussion, but robust discussion for all. A classroom that tolerates hateful language is an oppressive classroom. We are all in this together.