LATEST UPDATES
- 11/28/11: I am posting selected answers to student questions leading up to the exam.
- 11/27/11: We have scheduled two review sessions during final exams:
- Saturday, December 10th, 1pm: Traditional Q&A session. Please send questions in advance.
- Sunday, December 11th, 1pm: Review of 2009 Exam (with limited time for Q&A).
- 11/13/11: For Class 24 on Wednesday, November 16, the assignment has been shortened slightly. Do NOT read the pages having to do with "1. Constitutional Limits" listed on the syllabus. The new assignment is: 545-46; 552-62; 566-77.
- 11/9/11: Posted final exam from last time and other sample questions and answers.
- 11/7/11: For Class 23 on Monday, November 14, in addition to the reading assigned on the syllabus, spend some time on the website of "Digital Due Process" and read at least "About the Issue" and "Our Principles:Background". In addition, skim the ECPA Amendments Act of 2011, a bill introduced earlier this year by Senator Leahy.
- 11/7/11: For Class 22 on Wednesday, November 9, in addition to the reading assigned on the syllabus, read the 3d Circuit opinion on Cell Site tracking from 2010. (DOCX) (PDF)
- 10/24/11: For Class 18 on Wednesday, October 26, read the following:
- Supplement 40-54 (Note: Professor Kerr's article refers to an older version of the Comprehensive Drug Testing opinion, one which differed in some material ways.)
- Skim excerpt from Orin Kerr, Ex Ante Regulation of Computer Search and Seizure, 96 Virginia Law Review 1241 (2010) (PDF) (DOC)
- Skim Paul Ohm, Massive Hard Drives, General Warrants, and the Power of Magistrate Judges, 97 Virginia Law Review In Brief 1 (2011)
- 10/2/11: For Class 13 on Wednesday, October 5th, in addition to the materials listed in the syllabus read the opinion in U.S. v. Warshak: (word) and (pdf).
- 10/1/11: I have posted on a separate webpage the final assignment for the class on United States v. Jones, October 10, 2011. If you have already downloaded the files for this class, please redownload them, because I have edited down some of the files.
- 9/19/11: I have posted materials relating to United States v. Jones, this term's Supreme Court case which is the topic of (1) our October 10th class; (2) the in-class oral argument to be held that day; and (3) your graded amicus brief due Wednesday, November 2nd. Although the assignment for class for October 10th will be drawn exclusively from the materials I have posted, I have posted more pages than I will assign, to help those who want to be thoroughly prepared. I will narrow these pages down to the assigned pages in a week or two.
- Posted website and syllabus.
Course Syllabus
The syllabus is available here in Word and PDF file formats.
Supplemental Reading
None.
Class Mind Maps
Class Twenty-Six: November 30 (MM) (PDF)
Class Twenty-Five: November 28 (MM) (PDF)
Class Twenty-Four: November 16 (MM) (PDF)
Class Twenty-Three: November 14 (MM) (PDF)
Class Twenty-Two: November 9 (MM) (PDF)
Class Twenty-One: November 7 (MM) (PDF)
Class Twenty: November 2 (MM) (PDF)
Class Nineteen: October 31 (MM) (PDF)
Class Eighteen: October 26 (MM) (PDF)
Class Seventeen: October 24 (MM) (PDF)
Class Sixteen: October 19 (MM) (PDF)
Class Fifteen: October 12 (MM) (PDF)
Class Fourteen: October 10: Oral Argument for U.S. v. Jones, no Mind Map
Class Thirteen: October 5 (MM) (PDF)
Class Twelve: October 3 (MM) (PDF)
Class Eleven: September 28 (MM) (PDF)
Class Ten: September 26 (MM) (PDF)
Class Nine: September 21 (MM) (PDF)
Class Eight: September 19 (MM) (PDF)
Class Seven: September 14 (MM) (PDF)
Class Six: September 12 (MM) (PDF)
Class Five: September 7 (MM) (PDF)
Class Four: August 31 (MM) (PDF)
Class Three: August 29 (MM) (PDF)
Class Two: August 24 (MM) (PDF)
Class One: August 22 (MM) (PDF)
Other Class Materials
Sample/Practice Final Exams
Past Final Exams
- Computer Crime - Fall 2009
- Note: We will be discussing this exam at the second review session, date TBA. To help you get the most of this session, you may want to save this exam for last by not looking at it until you have finished your outline.
- This was a very difficult exam, so don't lose heart by the amount of material presented.
- Final Exam from Fall 2009.
- Grading Rubric from Fall 2009.
Because this is only the second time I have offered computer crime as
a final exam course, I do not have any other past exams to offer. To
give you a bit more for your exam review, I have cobbled together a
few other sample exams written by me and other people.
The sample questions that follow are divided into substantive
and procedural types, but the questions on the actual exam
might blend the two subjects.
- Here are two sample issue spotters I wrote in 2009
which cover substantive computer crime law: Substantive Computer
Crime questions. To help you further, I have prepared my own answer to Problem One, which I am including in two parts:
I do NOT plan to provide a similar outline for Problem Two of this sample exam.
- Pages 542-44 of your casebook include three sample problems
having to do with procedural computer crime law. These seem
similar (albeit a little more limited in number of issues) to the
procedural issue spotters I plan to write. Here is
a detailed
outline of an answer I prepared for Problem 3 on pages
543-44.
- About the policy question: In addition to the policy question
I include in the 2009 exam, here is a little more about the way I
write policy questions. My policy questions tend to be very
short, asking a fairly open-ended question about some ongoing
policy debate we have discussed in class. They are quite similar
to the open-ended, who-is-right? questions I ask in class. For
example, I might ask, "How do mandatory minimum sentences for
child pornography offenses affect substantive and procedural
computer crime law, and what should Congress do about it, if
anything?"
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