MIT 6.805/STS085: Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier

Preparation for week of class on October 11
Data Mining and the PATRIOT Act

We examine two key 4th Amendment questions:

• the reasonableness requirements for search and seizures conducted for national security purpose
• whether data mining is a search (or a general search) and how it is analyzed when conducted with a national security purpose

These are questions that the courts have not settled yet, so we will examine the operation details of some data mining and counterterrorism surveillance programs, as well as early judicial evaluation of some of these programs.

Readings

• A pre-9/11 perspective on the 4th Amendment, general searches and terrorism: The case of City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32 (2000).
• Patriot Act background
  • This analysis of the key provisions of the Patriot Act.
• Current 4th Amendment challenges to the Patriot Act:
  • Mayfield v. United States, Civil No. 04-1427-AA . (D. Ore, 26 Sept. 2007)
  • Doe v. Gonzales, 04 Civ. 2614 [skim]
• These documents on government data mining:
  • GAO Report 04-548, "DATA MINING Federal Efforts Cover a Wide Range of Uses" (May 2004) [skim]

Writings

With next week's assignment begins the preparation for your term paper, which has a couple of milestones leading up the final paper deadline at the end of the semester: information about papers and milestones.

For this first assignment, we're asking you to turn in on the rotisserie a 1-page proposal for an area or a topic. This should let us know the area you plan to work in, a planned topic, and what you hope to do. If are planning to work with a partner, you should let us know that and the two of you should each turn in a proposal -- it will be interesting to see how the two writeups compare.

After your proposal is turned in, we'll ask you to schedule an individual meeting with Shekhar to review your topic and get advice on how to proceed.

This rotisserie assignment will be due on Tuesday night. We'll also ask you to comment on each others' topics (due Wednesday night).

You have broad scope in choosing topics. You can look back through the class archives of exemplary papers for ideas. And here are some additional suggestions for papers.