Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Fall Semester, 2007

MIT 6.805/STS085: Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier (3-0-9)

Calendar

Class meetings: Thursdays, 2-5 in room 4-231

Many of the writing assignments will be done with the writing rotisserie, as described in the course general information. Everyone who is admitted to the course should register for the writing rotisserie on Thursday evening, September 6, in order to get the writing assignment that will be posted on Friday morning.

Each week, you should check the link to the "assignment for the following week" to see what you should start working on for the next week. If there is text in the box, but no link, that means we have not yet posted the final version of the assignment.

Nov. 29Dec. 6
Class Topic Assignment for the following week.
Unit A: Regulating the decentralized Internet
Sept. 6 First class: Course overview and introduction; policy making and the structure of law; Reno v. ACLU Reading about personal information, case briefing practice. See assignment here
Sept. 13 Personal information on the web. Readings in international issues; generating a FOAF file. See assignment here
Sept. 20 (1) Accountability architectures for the Web
(2) International issues
Read seminal Fourth Amendment cases. See assignment here
Unit B: Government surveillance and data mining
Sept. 27 Fourth Amendment foundations Prepare for Oct. 4 moot court. See assignment here
Oct. 4 Moot court on transactional records Readings for Oct. 11 on the PATRIOT Act; term paper proposal due
See assignment here
Oct. 11 Data mining, PATRIOT Act For Oct. 18: continue paper preparation; TRAC readings
See assignment here
Oct. 18 Guest: David Burnham For Oct. 25: Prepare for mock Congressional hearing
See assignment here
Oct. 25 Congressional hearing on datamining For Nov. 1: Student paper review, readings on copyright, ligthning talks for half the class.
See assignment here
Start of crunch time for term papers. See schedule of milestones here
Unit C: Copyright
Nov. 1 Basics of copyright law
Lightning talks, group 1
For Nov. 8: Term paper thesis and summary
See assignment here
Nov. 8 Copyright: DMCA, Sony, Napster, Grokster
Lightning talks, group 2
For Nov. 15: Work on paper (deadline, Nov. 18).
See assignment here
Unit D: Regulatory frameworks
Nov. 15 Foundations of broadcast regulation No assignment
Nov. 22 Thanksgiving vacation For Nov. 29: Readings in medical record privacy
See assignment here
Medical record privacy For Dec. 5: Wrapping up
See assignment here
Wrapping up  
Final papers are due before December 12.