UNDERSTANDING AND PARTICIPATING IN
CY
CS 203 and S
T/TH 2:15-3:30
Gates
3 Credits
Letter or
Credit/No Credit
Visiting
Lecturer,
and Associate
Director, Center for Internet and Society
Contact:
(650)
724-3358
Room
12A in
Office
Hours: Tuesdays
This
course will teach students how the policymaking process
works, and how they can participate in cyberlaw-making.
The class will consist of six modules that
cover each of the main avenues for participation in the policymaking
process--
legislative, judiciary, executive agency, organization advocacy,
in-house, and
media-- teaching how those systems work, and using appropriate
substantive
cyber law topics as case studies for how technologists and scientists
have used
their particular skills to effect change.
This
class is designed for both techies and fuzzies :-). I anticipate there
will
be computer science and engineering students,
pre-law,
and science and society students in the class.
Grading:
For
students taking this class for a grade, a 48-hour
take-home open book exam will be distributed during the exam period. It will consist of a number of issue
spotting-type hypotheticals and questions that will require you to
demonstrate
in your answers an understanding of the substantive issues covered, as
well as
skills learned during the course. This DOES NOT mean you are to spend
48 hours
on the exam. It is just meant to give
you a chance to read it, think about it, and then write your answers. You should only spend 3-4 hours writing your
answers. The last day of class we will
walk through a mock exam so you will understand exactly what is
expected.
The
exam will be 60% of the grade. 20% of the
grade will be based on a brief
writing assignment at the end of each module (students can choose to
respond to
three of six assignments), and 20% will be class participation. If you attend and participate in class and
complete the required assignments and exam in a timely manner, I
anticipate you
will get a good grade in this class.
For
students taking the class for credit/no credit, you are
expected to attend and participate in class.
To make up for missed classes, you must do one of the five
writing
assignments per two missed classes (allowing leeway to miss one class)
to
receive ‘credit.’
Most
readings will be available on the web. I
will occasionally hand out additional
readings. The syllabus is not complete,
as it is my intention to keep the course and readingsup to date, and
modify
the amount of readings to work best with your schedules.
You will be told all the required reading at
least one week prior to each class.
Writing Assigments:
After each module, I will hand-out a writing assignment.
They will consist of a hypothetical followed
by some questions, giving you an opportunity to test out the skills
learned. For example, after the
Legislative
branch module, the assignment might be to write a letter to Congress on
a
current issue. Each writing assignment
should be two pages double space and students will receive 1 point for
handing
it in late, 2 points for handing it in on time, and 3 points for a
thoughtful
response.
|
|
Topic |
|
Introduction |
|
|
|
9/28 |
Topic: WelcomeAbout the Instructor About the Class Overview of interaction
of Law and Technology |
http://www1.acm.org/usacm/weblog/ http://www1.acm.org/usacm/update/ |
|
I. Legislative |
|
|
|
9/30 |
Topic: How the Legislative
|
Handout- Introduction to
Legislation http://www.vote-smart.org/resource_govt101_02.php http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bil2lawx.html |
|
10/5 |
Topic: Induce ActSkills: How to read legislation How to understand the
differences in different versions of legislation How to read and write
testimony For class from reading: Think about
how the three proposals you read are different |
*Find and Read Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004 *Find and
Read the Copyright office’s proposed revision * Find and
Read the proposed revision promoted by Public Knowledge and other
organizations. *Read this
article: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,64315,00.html *Find the
website for the Judiciary Committee hearing discussed in the article
(“Protecting Innovation and Art while Preventing Piracy”) and read two
of the testimony transcripts available there. |
|
10/7 |
Topic: Spam Skills: Understanding the
relationship between the technology and the law. For class from reading: Think about the
difference between the legal and technical solutions and which you
think is best. |
The Law: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:s.00877: FTC announcement: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/01/opsecure.htm USACM letter: http://www.acm.org/usacm/Letters/spam_letter.htm MSFT letter: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/misc/billgspam05-21-03.asp Skim: Lessig and Jacob
Proposals: |
|
II. Judicial |
|
|
|
10/12 |
How the Court system works |
|
|
10/14 |
DMCA/ Code as Speech: |
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|
10/19 |
DirecTV |
|
|
III. Executive |
|
|
|
10/21 |
How the Executive |
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|
10/26 |
|
|
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10/28 |
Broadcast Flag |
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IV. Advocacy |
|
|
|
11/2 |
How |
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11/4 |
E-Voting Guest Speaker David Dill, Stanford CS
Professor and Founder verifiedvoting.com |
|
|
11/9 |
The Association for
Computing |
|
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V. General Counsel’s
office |
|
|
| 11/11 |
Compliance |
|
| 11/16 |
Hypotheticals on
interacting with in-house counsel |
|
| VI. Media training |
||
| 11/18 |
Preparing for the Media |
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| 11/23 |
Mock Interviews |
|
| VII. Putting it all
together |
||
| 11/30 |
Review Mock Exam handout Guest Speaker Lawrence Lessig |
|
| 12/2 |
Mock Exam |
Assignments
CS 203
Assignment 1
Due 10/19
You recently heard that Congress was considering legislation to
regulate so-called spyware-- computer software that secretly collects
and uses personal information. Rumor has it that there are
multiple bills, each in various stages of the legislative process, each
regulating spyware in a different manner.
Write a letter to your congressperson expressing your views on
the bills. Include who you are and any particular expertise you
might
have to offer. Demonstrate that you understand what the bills do
and how they are different. Explain whether you support or oppose
each
and why. The letter should be addressed formally to your
covering this issue for your
Assignment 2
Due 10/28You have been approached by a lawyer from the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC"). She is investigating possible claims if HR 2929 ("The Spy Act"), passed by the House of Representatives, becomes law. One option the Agency is considering is pursuing a cause of action against Google's new desktop search tool "Google Desktop." She read this article: http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/9952488.htm and wants to determine if the claim that the new Google tool is spyware is valid.
She would like you to draft a 2-3 page declaration explaining, as a technical expert, what the tool does. Of course, you will need to understandwhat the Bill prohibits in order to know what technical matters are relevant.
She suggests that you take a look at the declarations from the Bernstein 'code is speech' case, particularly the declarations of: Hal Abelson, Andrew Appel, Matt Bishop, Matt Blaze, Carl Ellison, Paul Ginsparg, Bruce Scheier, or Richard Stallman., which are online at: http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Crypto_export/Bernstein_case/Legal/960726_filing/index.html
You should first describe who you are and your qualifications to provide this information to the Court. Then discuss the technology. Use the numbered line format you see in the examples.
If you do not feel qualified to participate in the case as a technical expert (you are a fuzzie, not a techie), instead draft a legal memo to the lawyer, explaining what the law does, and, in layman's terms, how the Google technology would have to work in order for Google to be successfully sued under this statute. An example of such a memo is the legal analysis here: http://DirecTVDefense.org/law/ (though yours should be about 2-3 pages).
________________________Assignment 3
Due 11/9You are the newest public policy analyst for the Association for Computing Machinery's US public policy committee (USACM). Write a memo for the members of the committee (mostly computer scientists) (1) explaining an issue the FCC is currently accepting comment on that you believe USACM should get involved in; (2) include a detailed outline for comments you believe the Committee should submit on the issue; and (3) draft a one-page comment that USACM can post for its members to send to the FCC if they choose.
*** do not choose an issue we discussed in class!
Assignment 4
Draft a 5 page memo to Professor David Dill and to the Executive
Director of VerifiedVoting.org proposing a post-election strategy for
the organization. Describe briefly what you believe their core
competence is and how they can maximize that. Then include specific
suggestionscon areas such as messaging (how to frame the debate),
projects (think of all the types of advocacycbut DO NOT LIST IDEAS, BE
SPECIFIC) , issues (How broadly should they define their mission?),
etc. Point them to other organization's efforts where appropriate. Be
creative, but realistic in your suggestions. Remember who the audience
is (not me), so do not try to demonstrate how much you learned in class.
Due 11/23
You are an engineer at a start-up-TIVO-TO-GO- that is building a
digital radio for the car with built in DVR capability.
Your business development team sees two additional uses for your
device. (1) It could be used to broadcast 'Amber Alerts' and any other
information the cops deem 'important' to law enforcement needs.
(2) It could be used to surreptitiously record conversations in
the car to be stored on the DVR hard-drive and retrieved by the cops at
a later date. This way, they can record the conversations when
they need them, and later ask the court for a warrant if they really
want to listen to them.
Your General Counsel is uncertain about whether you should build this
capability in. Write a 3-5- page memo giving your best legal,
technical, and business reasons why you should or should not build it
in, and then describe SPECIFICALLY how you propose to design the device
to best comport with the level of compliance you propose to
achieve. Think about all the reasons we discussed in class
for why businesses make different decisions on when to press the law
and when not to.