Course Grade Received: B+
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course tackles two major cyberlaw subjects. The first part of the course examines various U.S. laws and legal considerations that impact the digital and cyberspace worlds from a traditional civilian perspective – from freedom of expression to internet regulations to information-gathering and access to intellectual property to privacy. The second part will familiarize students interested in becoming civilian or military investigative or cyber operations professionals about the extent of and limitations on their authorities to ensure that their work complies with U.S. law, regulations, directives, and policies. The course will also introduce students to the wide variety of issues that fall within the broad umbrella of cyber law.
COURSE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
Students will gain exposure to, and a basic understanding of, the following topics:
1) Overview of the U.S. legal system, including Article I, Article II, and Article III of the U.S. Constitution, and the court system, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA)
2) Freedom of expression fundamentals in the digital world
3) Overview of internet regulations
4) The role of government in accessing and protecting information in the digital world
5) Overview of intellectual property in the digital world: copyright, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets
6) Privacy, invasion of privacy, banners, and the role of consent
7) Key laws, terms, and processes governing governmental searches and seizures in the cyber world. These include the Fourth (Search and Seizure) and Fourteenth (Due Process) Amendments of the U.S. Constitution; Electronic Communications Privacy Act (18 USC 2510-2522); Stored Communications Act (18 USC 2701-2712); Pen Register/Trap and Trace (18 USC 3123-3127); Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (50 USC 1801 et seq); key differences between intercepting/obtaining content versus transactional records and data (including metadata); court orders; subpoenas; writs; national security letters, and other terms.
8) Overview of various substantive crimes that arise in the cyber/computer world, such as those found in Title 18 United States Code (USC), especially the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 USC 1030); Economic Espionage Acts (18 USC 1831-32); national security crimes (18 USC 791-797); and other federal laws
9) The investigative and operational roles that federal and military agencies play in cyber security (consider various orders (e.g., EO 12333) and directives), with special emphasis on the Domestic Incident Response National Response Framework.
10) Overview of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA)
11) Perspectives on investigating and prosecuting cybercrime
12) Basics of International Law and Law of War, including Jus ad Bellum, Jus in Bello, United Nations Charter/Article S1, and the Hague and Geneva Conventions
13) Overview of the Tallinn Manual, Cyber Attacks, Cyber Vandalism, and Cyber Operations
14) National cybersecurity efforts, particularly Einstein 2.0 and later versions that are used to protect civilian unclassified networks in the Executive Branch of the U.S. government
15) Emerging Topics in Cyber Law — Artificial Intelligence (AI) and use of algorithms; Big Data/Data Mining