Modern Surveillance Law

This seminar provides an in depth look at modern government surveillance law, policies and practices. It is taught by Richard Salgado, formerly director of law enforcement and information security at Google and a prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. The course will cover the technology, law and policy of government surveillance of the Internet and other communications technologies. We will focus on U.S. government surveillance for national security, criminal law enforcement and public safety purposes, and its relationship with other jurisdictions. Technologies and practices covered will include wiretapping, stored data collection and mining, location tracking and developing eavesdropping techniques. Legal regimes will include the Fourth Amendment, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the USA Freedom Act, USA Patriot Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the CLOUD Act and CALEA among others. Elements used in grading: Two papers, timely submission of topics and outlines, and class participation.