MIT 6.805/STS085: Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier (3-0-9)
Privacy and Transparency

General information

Class meetings: Thursdays 2:00-5:00 in room 4-231

Important: There is a writing assignment due the evening before the first class. This must be completed turned in by email before 5PM on Wednesday, September 5. No one will be admitted to the first class without having completed this assignment. See the description of the pre-semester assignment.

Instructors

Welcome

In this class, we will consider the interaction between law, policy, and technology as they relate to the the evolving controversies over control of the Internet. This fall, we be doing an in-depth segment on a new approach to privacy on the Web, which replaces the traditional emphasis on secrecy and access control, by policies and technologies to make data use more accountable and transparent.

Topics we will explore include:

• Legal background for regulation of the Internet.
• Fundamentals of copyright law, seminal court cases relating to copyright on the Web, and technologies for copyright control.
• Fourth Amendment Law and electronic surveillance
• Fundamentals of privacy law.
• Technology and regulatory regimes for transparency and accountability.

See the course calendar for the complete list of topics.

All information for this course is maintained on the Web via the class web site:

http://mit.edu/6.805

The site contains course information, including pointers to assigned readings and source material, as well as archives of exemplary papers by students in the class.

Prerequisites and enrolling

MIT course 6 students may count this subject as one of the general engineering concentration subjects required for the S.B. or M.Eng. programs, or use this subject for HASS elective credit (but not both). Students wishing engineering concentration credit should enroll under the subject number 6.805, and students wishing HASS credit should enroll under the number STS085. Graduate credit can be granted through STS (not Course 6), although this will require making special arrangements with Mike Fischer for extra work.

There is also a special 6-unit graduate supplement for student wishing to do research in policy architectures for the World Wide Web, and there will be several RA opportnities for students wishing to continue in this work in the spring.

There are no formal prerequisites for this subject, but students should be prepared to do extensive independent research, involving both technology and policy analysis. In selecting participants for the class, we will be looking for people with appropriate backgrounds, such as knowledge of 6.033. Also, due to the importance of class participation, class attendance is mandatory.

Important: There are class readings, and also a writing assignment due before the first class. These must be completed and the writing assignment turned in by email before 5PM on Wednesday, September 7. No one will be admitted to the first class without having completed this assignment. See the description of the pre-semester assignment in the material for the first class.

Syllabus

The course syllabus and weekly assignment can be found on the course calendar web page.

Readings

We'll also be looking at several judicial opinions during the semester, and you'll likely be reading judicial opinions for your projects. Here are some helpful hints on locating judicial opinions.

Grading and required work

• Class participation: We expect you to participate actively in class discussions, contributing your own ideas and commenting on the ideas of others. The readings assigned each week should be done before class. In class, we will call on you and ask you to answer questions about the readings and to contribute to the discussion. The quality of class participation will be a factor in grades. If you are the type who "does not like to talk in class" you should consider whether you really want to take this class. Class attendance is mandatory.

• Short writing assignments: There will be weekly short writing assignments, that use a system developed at Harvard Law School called the writing rotisserie. Most weeks' assignments will have two parts: (1) writing your own paper (due Sunday evening); and (2) commenting on other students' paper (due Wednesday). All assignments will be posted on the class web site for everyone in the class to read. See the description of the writing rotisserie for details.

• Term project: You will be required to do final paper. You can make this an individual project, or work with a partner. (At more two people to a paper.) This will be a major project, and you should expect to devote a lot of time to it throughout the semester. The project can be purely a research paper, or it can involve design and implementation (but this still requires a paper). Papers may be selected for inclusion in the class archive of student papers on the Web. You should browse through the paper selections to get an idea of the scale of work expected.

• Oral presentation: At least once during the semester, you will be required to make an oral progress report on on your project,

• Midterm Exam: ??? (we're still deciding)

• Final Exam (not): There is no final exam.