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Volokh Conspiracy

2015 Supplement to Computer Crime Law

|The Volokh Conspiracy |


Pardon the parochial post, but I wanted to let professors and students who are using my Computer Crime Law casebook next semester to know that a 2015 Supplement will be available for use starting in the Spring 2015 semester. I've been doing annual updates for each calendar year, and this year is no exception: I added another 65 pages or so of new cases and notes for 2015. The 2015 Supplement will be available for purchase from the usual places. I'm planning a 4th edition of the casebook for the Fall of 2016, so my guess is that this will be the last annual supplement before the 4th edition comes out. (I also have a Teacher's Manual available for the book, although it's from the 2nd edition; I plan to update that for the 4th, too.)

New cases discussed in the 2015 Supplement include the following, some of which I have blogged about here at the VC:

  • United States v. Husmann, 765 F.3d 169 (3d Cir. 2014) (on when placing a file in a shared folder of a p2p network "distributes" the file under the child porn laws).
  • United States v. Ganias, 755 F.3d 125 (2d Cir. 2014) (on the Fourth Amendment implications of retaining stored electronic files, the "right to delete" case).
  • Riley v. California, 134 S.Ct. 2473 (2014) (searching cell phones incident to arrest).
  • United States v. Keith, 980 F.Supp.2d 33 (D.Mass. 2013) (how the state action doctrine applies to the NCMEC in its role in finding child pornography).
  • United States v. Stanley, 753 F.3d 114, 119-22 (3d Cir. 2014) (on whether/when the Fourth Amendment allows physically locating a wireless user).
  • United States v. Stratman, 2014 WL 3109805 (D.Neb. 2014) (sentencing in CFAA cases).
  • United States v. Auernheimer, 748 F.3d 525 (3d Cir. 2014) (venue in computer crime cases)
  • Negro v. Superior Court, __ Cal.Rptr.3d __, 2014 WL 5341926 (Cal. App. 2014) (on judicially-compelled consent to obtain e-mails under the Stored Communications Act).
  • Joffe v. Google, 746 F.3d 920 (9th Cir. 2013) (on whether the Wiretap Act prohibits the interception of unencrypted wireless signals).

I also added notes and/or added discussion of varying lengths on the following issues:

  • Revenge porn legislation
  • Fourth Amendment protection for cell-site data
  • Venue in cybercrime cases
  • Foreign government access to U.S.-stored e-mails and records
  • U.S. government access to foreign-stored e-mails
  • The Supreme Court's cert grant in Elonis v. United States, the Internet threat case.

Orin S. Kerr is a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.