6.805 | Fall 2005 | Undergraduate

Ethics and the Law on the Electronic Frontier

Calendar

LEC # TOPICS KEY DATES
1 Course Overview and Introduction

Policy Making and the Structure of Law

Pre-writing assignment due 1 day before Lec #1
Unit A: Regulating the Decentralized Internet
2 The Internet meets the U.S. Constitution

3 The Legacy of Reno: The Strengths and Limits of Filtering and User Control

Unit B: Regulating Government Use of Surveillance Technology
4 Fourth Amendment Foundations and the First Century of Electronic Surveillance

5 International Issues

6 Technology-driven Public-private Boundary Shifts

The Crypto Wars

7 Profiling and Datamining Post-9/11

Midterm Exam Project proposal due
Unit C: The Transparency Challenge
8 Anonymity vs. Transparency 1-page topic description and procedure due
9 Personal Information on the Web

10 Transparency in Consumer Protection and Commercial Regulation Thesis and arguments for papers due
11 Origins of Broadcast Regulation Complete paper drafts due 4 days later
12 Semantic Web Public Policy Challenges Final paper due 6 days later