A Twenty-First Century Framework for Digital Privacy
"Editor's note: This is a crosspost from the National Constitution Center's website. Video of the Center's event on digital privacy is available below...Advances in technology raise numerous important (and difficult) legal questions:
- How can we strike the right balance between security and privacy in the digital age?
- How might we translate Fourth Amendment doctrine in light of technological advances and changing consumer expectations of privacy?
- What constitutional and statutory protections should there be for data stored in the Cloud, and under what circumstances and with what constraints should the government get access to it?
- Does the government have to tell consumers when it searches their email accounts or accesses their data?
- And whose law should govern access to data in our borderless world—a world where data is often stored on servers in other countries and can be transferred across borders at the snap of a finger?
The National Constitution Center, with the support of Microsoft, has assembled leading scholars and thought leaders to publish a series of five white papers, entitled A Twenty-First Century Framework for Digital Privacy. We’ve asked these contributors to reflect on the challenges that new technologies pose to existing constitutional doctrine and statutory law and to propose solutions—doctrinal, legislative, and constitutional—that translate the Constitution and federal law in light of new technologies. The overarching question we asked contributors to address is how best to balance privacy concerns against the need for security in the digital age. These contributors represent diverse points of view and experiences and their papers reflect the Constitution Center’s commitment to presenting the best arguments on all sides of the constitutional issues at the center of American life."
