The Privacy Foundation at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law presents:

Children’s Data Privacy Law

Friday, April 18, 2025 12:00 Noon – 2:30 p.m. Please register – lunch will be served

To register, email Kristen.Dermyer@du.edu or link here: https://udenver.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e3V74CHX8RM1y8C

and it’s about time.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/privacy-map-how-states-are-fighting-location-surveillance

Privacy on the Map: How States Are Fighting Location Surveillance

Your location data isn't just a pin on a map—it's a powerful tool that reveals far more than most people realize. I t can expose where you work, where you pray, who you spend time with, and, sometimes dangerously, where you seek healthcare. In today’s world, your most private movements are harvested, aggregated, and sold to anyone with a credit card. For those seeking reproductive or gender-affirming care, or visiting a protest or a immigration law clinic, this data is a ticking time bomb.

… The good news? Lawmakers in California, Massachusetts, Illinois and elsewhere are stepping up, leading the way to protect privacy and ensure that healthcare access and other exercise of our rights remain safe from invasive surveillance.

Those who do not study history are domed to repeat it.

https://www.bespacific.com/an-ars-technica-history-of-the-internet-part-1/

An Ars Technica history of the Internet, part 1

Ars Technica is doing a three-part series on the history of the internet; here’s part one, which covers ARPANET, IMPs, TCP/IP, RFCs, DNS, CompuServe, etc. “It was the first time that autocomplete had ruined someone’s day.” In a very real sense, the Internet, this marvelous worldwide digital communications network that you’re using right now, was created because one man was annoyed at having too many computer terminals in his office. The year was 1966. Robert Taylor was the director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Information Processing Techniques Office. The agency was created in 1958 by President Eisenhower in response to the launch of Sputnik. So Taylor was in the Pentagon, a great place for acronyms like ARPA and IPTO. He had three massive terminals crammed into a room next to his office. Each one was connected to a different mainframe computer. They all worked slightly differently, and it was frustrating to remember multiple procedures to log in and retrieve information.”

Everything has a limit…

https://www.bespacific.com/large-language-models-for-legal-interpretation-dont-take-their-word-for-it/

Large Language Models for Legal Interpretation? Don’t Take Their Word for It

Waldon, Brandon and Schneider, Nathan and Wilcox, Ethan and Zeldes, Amir and Tobia, Kevin, Large Language Models for Legal Interpretation? Don’t Take Their Word for It (February 03, 2025). Georgetown Law Journal, Vol. 114 (forthcoming), Available at SSRN:  https://ssrn.com/abstract=5123124  or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5123124

“Recent breakthroughs in statistical language modeling have impacted countless domains, including the law. Chatbot applications such as ChatGPT, Claude, and DeepSeek – which incorporate ‘large’ neural network–based language models (LLMs) trained on vast swathes of internet text – process and generate natural language with remarkable fluency. Recently, scholars have proposed adding AI chatbot applications to the legal interpretive toolkit. These suggestions are no longer theoretical: in 2024, a U.S. judge queried LLM chatbots to interpret a disputed insurance contract and the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. We assess this emerging practice from a technical, linguistic, and legal perspective. This Article explains the design features and product development cycles of LLM-based chatbot applications, with a focus on properties that may promote their unintended misuse – or intentional abuse – by legal interpreters. Next, we argue that legal practitioners run the risk of inappropriately relying on LLMs to resolve legal interpretative questions. We conclude with guidance on how such systems – and the language models which underpin them – can be responsibly employed alongside other tools to investigate legal meaning.”

Do we have any friends left?

https://www.bespacific.com/eu-issues-us-bound-staff-with-burner-phones-over-spying-fears/

EU issues US-bound staff with burner phones over spying fears

“The European Commission is giving some of its US-bound staff burner phones and basic laptops to avoid cybersecurity risks, the Financial Times reported. Brussels typically reserves such measures for trips to Ukraine and China over fears of Russian or Chinese government espionage. Worries about American spying are the latest sign of worsening transatlantic ties in President Donald Trump’s second term: The White House’s dismissal of traditional alliances has prompted some commentators to argue Washington has effectively become Europe’s adversary. The continent must “rediscover its economic and military strength in order to survive in this new world – one defined by the naked pursuit of power,” a Der Spiegel editorial argued last month.”

FT.com – European Commission officials heading to IMF and World Bank spring meetings advised to travel with basic devices [no paywall] – “The European Commission is issuing burner phones and basic laptops to some US-bound staff to avoid the risk of espionage, a measure traditionally reserved for trips to China. Commissioners and senior officials travelling to the IMF and World Bank spring meetings next week have been given the new guidance, according to four people familiar with the situation. They said the measures replicate those used on trips to Ukraine and China, where standard IT kit cannot be brought into the countries for fear of Russian or Chinese surveillance. “They are worried about the US getting into the commission systems,” said one official. The treatment of the US as a potential security risk highlights how relations have deteriorated since the return of Donald Trump as US president in January. Trump has accused the EU of having been set up to “screw the US” and announced 20 per cent so-called reciprocal tariffs on the bloc’s exports, which he later halved for a 90-day period. At the same time, he has made overtures to Russia, pressured Ukraine to hand over control over its assets by temporarily suspending military aid and has threatened to withdraw security guarantees from Europe, spurring a continent-wide rearmament effort. “The transatlantic alliance is over,” said a fifth EU official. The White House and the US National Security Council did not immediately reply to requests for comment. Brussels and Washington are locked in sensitive talks in a number of areas where it would suit either side to gather information about the other. Maroš Šefčovič, EU trade commissioner, is holding talks with commerce secretary Howard Lutnick in Washington on Monday in an effort to resolve an escalating trade war. The EU has delayed its retaliatory measures against €21bn of US exports that it approved because of US tariffs on steel and aluminium. The US has also attacked the EU’s regulation of its technology companies and claimed that Brussels is gagging free speech and rigging elections, such as the controversial exclusion of a presidential candidate in Romania for benefiting from a surge in support from TikTok accounts. Three commissioners are travelling to Washington for the IMF and World Bank meetings from April 21-26: Valdis Dombrovskis, economy commissioner; Maria Luís Albuquerque, the financial services chief; and Jozef Síkela, who handles development assistance. The Commission confirmed that it had recently updated its security advice for the US, but said that no specific instructions about the use of burner phones were given in writing. It said the bloc’s diplomatic service had been involved, as it routinely is in such updates. Officials said the guidance for all staff travelling to the US included a recommendation that they should turn off phones at the border and place them in special sleeves to protect them from spying if left unattended. The advice was unsurprising, according to Luuk van Middelaar, director of the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics, a think-tank. “Washington is not Beijing or Moscow, but it is an adversary that is prone to use extra-legal methods to further its interests and power.” Van Middelaar recalled that the administration of President Barack Obama faced allegations of spying on the phone of then German chancellor Angela Merkel in 2013. “Democrat administrations use the same tactics”, he said. “It is an acceptance of reality by the Commission.” There is an additional risk when travelling to the US, where border staff have the right to seize visitors’ phones and computers and check their content. Tourists and visiting academics from Europe have been refused entry to the country after having social media comments or documents critical of the Trump administration’s policies on their phones or laptops. In March, the French government said a French researcher had been denied entry and sent back to France because he had expressed a “personal opinion” on US research policy. Commission officials have been told to ensure their visas are in their diplomatic “laissez-passer” documents rather than their national passports…”

Another source of AI data?

https://www.morningstar.com/news/business-wire/20250415432215/artificial-intelligence-fuels-rise-of-hard-to-detect-bots-that-now-make-up-more-than-half-of-global-internet-traffic-according-to-the-2025-imperva-bad-bot-report

Artificial Intelligence Fuels Rise of Hard-to-Detect Bots That Now Make up More Than Half of Global Internet Traffic, According to the 2025 Imperva Bad Bot Report

Thales, the leading global technology and security provider, today announced the release of the 2025 Imperva Bad Bot Report, a global analysis of automated bot traffic across the internet. This year’s report, the 12th annual research study, reveals that generative artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the development of bots, allowing less sophisticated actors to launch a higher volume of bot attacks with increased frequency. Today’s attackers are also leveraging AI to scrutinize their unsuccessful attempts and refine techniques to evade security measures with heightened efficiency, amidst a growing Bots-As-A-Service (BaaS) ecosystem of commercialized bot services.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here:  https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250415432215/en/

Tools & Techniques.

https://www.bespacific.com/google-files-new-patent-on-personal-history-based-search/

Google Files New Patent On Personal History-Based Search

Search Engine Journal: “Google recently filed a new patent for a way to provide search results based on a user’s browsing and email history. The patent outlines a new way to search within the context of a search engine, within an email interface, and through a voice-based assistant (referred to in the patent as a voice-based dialog system). A problem that many people have is that they can remember what they saw but they can’t remember where they saw it or how they found it. The new patent, titled Generating Query Answers From A User’s History, solves that problem by helping people find information they’ve previously seen within a webpage or an email by enabling them to ask for what they’re looking for using everyday language such as “What was that article I read last week about chess?” The problem the invention solves is that traditional search engines don’t enable users to easily search their own browsing or email history using natural language. The invention works by taking a user’s spoken or typed question, recognizing that the question is asking for previously viewed content, and then retrieving search results from the user’s personal history (such as their browser history or emails). In order to accomplish this it uses filters like date, topic, or device used. What’s novel about the invention is the system’s ability to understand vague or fuzzy natural language queries and match them to a user’s specific past interactions, including showing the version of a page as it looked when the user originally saw it (a cached version of the web page)… [What about privacy issues?]

Politics is expensive.

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-to-make-friends-and-influence-potus/

How to Make Friends and Influence POTUS

Lobbying in U.S. politics has always had a transactional side. But executives must understand the new realities of the current environment — and AI-powered influence peddling.

Something else to fear.

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5244901-ai-systems-legal-bounds/

It’s game over for people if AI gains legal personhood

The modern conversation about artificial intelligence often gets stuck on the wrong questions. We fret about how to contain artificial intelligence, to control it, to ensure it doesn’t break free from human oversight and endanger us. Yet, as the technology accelerates, we risk missing the deeper, more urgent issue: the legal environment in which AI systems will operate.

The real threat isn’t that AI will escape our control, but that AI systems will quietly accumulate legal rights — like owning property, entering contracts, or holding financial assets — until they become an economic force that humans cannot easily challenge. If we fail to set proper boundaries now, we risk creating systems that distort fundamental human institutions, including ownership and accountability, in ways that could ultimately undermine human prosperity and freedom.

Interesting.

https://pogowasright.org/our-privacy-act-lawsuit-against-doge-and-opm-why-a-judge-let-it-move-forward/

Our Privacy Act Lawsuit Against DOGE and OPM: Why a Judge Let It Move Forward

On April 9, Adam Schwartz of EFF wrote:

Last week, a federal judge rejected the government’s motion to dismiss our Privacy Act lawsuit against the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). OPM is disclosing to DOGE agents the highly sensitive personal information of tens of millions of federal employees, retirees, and job applicants. This disclosure violates the federal Privacy Act, a watershed law that tightly limits how the federal government can use our personal information.

We represent two unions of federal employees: the AFGE and the AALJ. Our co-counsel are Lex Lumina LLP, State Democracy Defenders Fund, and The Chandra Law Firm LLC.

We’ve already explained why the new ruling is a big deal, but let’s take a deeper dive into the Court’s reasoning.

Perspective.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/11/1114914/generative-ai-is-learning-to-spy-for-the-us-military/

Generative AI is learning to spy for the US military

For much of last year, about 2,500 US service members from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit sailed aboard three ships throughout the Pacific, conducting training exercises in the waters off South Korea, the Philippines, India, and Indonesia. At the same time, onboard the ships, an experiment was unfolding: The Marines in the unit responsible for sorting through foreign intelligence and making their superiors aware of possible local threats were for the first time using generative AI to do it, testing a leading AI tool the Pentagon has been funding.

Two officers tell us that they used the new system to help scour thousands of pieces of open-source intelligence—nonclassified articles, reports, images, videos—collected in the various countries where they operated, and that it did so far faster than was possible with the old method of analyzing them manually. Captain Kristin Enzenauer, for instance, says she used large language models to translate and summarize foreign news sources, while Captain Will Lowdon used AI to help write the daily and weekly intelligence reports he provided to his commanders.

Should ethics change because of new technology?

https://journals.ezenwaohaetorc.org/index.php/TIJAH/article/view/3128

ETHICS IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: RECONCEPTUALISING THE TRADITIONAL ETHICAL THEORIES

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) has fundamentally disrupted traditional ethical theories, necessitating a re-conceptualization of moral frameworks in the age of AI. As AI systems grow increasingly sophisticated, they challenge long-standing notions of moral agency, responsibility, and ethical decision-making. This research examines how the three waves of AI—Predictive AI, Generative AI, and Agentic AI—reshape ethical paradigms. Predictive AI, with its data-driven algorithms, exposes inherent biases and raises critical questions about justice, fairness, and accountability in automated decision-making. Generative AI, capable of creating synthetic content, disrupts traditional concepts of authorship, authenticity, and intellectual property, forcing a re-evaluation of ethical norms in creativity and ownership. Agentic AI, with its capacity for autonomous action, pushes the boundaries of moral responsibility, challenging humans to reconsider the ethical implications of delegating decision-making to machines. These developments demand a rethinking of traditional ethical theories such as utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics, which were designed for human moral agents but fall short in addressing the unique moral dilemmas posed by AI. The research highlights the limitations of these classical theories in dealing with AI's opacity, autonomy, and responsibility. The study examines key ethical challenges, including the issue of moral agency and algorithmic bias, and proposes the need for a new ethical framework that accounts for the collaborative nature of human-AI interactions, emphasizing distributed moral responsibility and the importance of human oversight in ensuring ethical outcomes.

Perfecting AI?

https://cris.unibo.it/handle/11585/1013658

Argumentation in AI and law

This chapter introduces AI & Law approaches to legal argumentation, showing how such approaches provide formal models that succeed in capturing key aspects of legal reasoning. The chapter is organised as follows. Sections 2, 3, and 4 introduce the motivations and developments of research on argumentation within AI & Law. Section 2 looks into the notion of formal inference, and shows how deduction-based approaches fail to account for important aspects of legal reasoning. Section 3 introduces the idea of defeasibility, and argues that an adequate model of legal reasoning should take it into account. Section 4 presents some AI & Law models of argumentation. The remaining sections are dedicated to introducing a formal account of argumentation based on AI & Law research. Section 5 defines and exemplifies the notion of an argument. Section 6 discusses conflicts between arguments and their representation in argument graphs. Section 7 defines methods for assessing the status of arguments and evaluating their conclusions, and Section 8 summarises the steps from premises to dialectically supported conclusions

You can’t go home again?

https://www.zdnet.com/article/worried-about-warrantless-phone-searches-heres-what-lawyers-says-about-biometrics-vs-passcodes/

Biometrics vs. passcodes: What lawyers recommend if you're worried about warrantless phone searches

… Last week, a graphic that discouraged smartphone users from relying on biometrics to unlock their phones made the social network rounds. The graphic states, "Reminder: If you're using thumbprint or facial recognition, you can be forced to hand over or open your phone. You can't be forced to open your phone if you're using a passcode. A passcode requires a search warrant. The more you know."

Given the growing importance of a robust credential management strategy, I decided to double-check the legal veracity of that "reminder." Spoiler alert: As opposed to passcodes (passwords, finger-drawn patterns, etc.), biometrics currently live in a grey area of the law. Depending on the jurisdiction (state vs. federal) and context (i.e., customs office at a point of entry), you might be compelled to unlock your devices or your apps without a court-issued warrant.

Background. (I need it because I don’t understand what the strategy is.)

https://www.bespacific.com/trump-has-long-misled-with-claims-about-global-trade-and-tariffs/

Trump Has Long Misled With Claims About Global Trade and Tariffs

The New York Times no paywall: “President Trump has taken a whipsaw approach to tariffs, widening and shifting course in determining which countries and goods will be subject to them. But across Mr. Trump’s political career, his case for tariffs has remained consistent, relying on a number of false and misleading claims to describe a global trade system that is “unfair” to the United States. Although Mr. Trump abruptly announced on Wednesday that he would pause steep reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, a 10 percent “base line” tariff remains in place for most imports. Here’s a guide to some of his most cited claims…”

(Related)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/retaliatory-tariffs-again/

Retaliatory Tariffs? Again?

President Trump’s recent tariffs show no familiarity with history, and little reassurance for those who hoped he understood capitalism and freedom.

(Related)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjew7y4j724o

Why Beijing is not backing down on tariffs

In response to why Beijing is not backing down to Donald Trump on tariffs, the answer is that it doesn't have to.

China's leaders would say that they are not inclined to cave in to a bully – something its government has repeatedly labelled the Trump administration as – but it also has a capacity to do this way beyond any other country on Earth.

Before the tariff war kicked in, China did have a massive volume of sales to the US but, to put it into context, this only amounted to 2% of its GDP.

Does that make it simple?

https://pogowasright.org/what-is-sufficient-consent/

What is Sufficient Consent?

Odia Kagan of FoxRothschild writes:

The following is sufficient consent for the Video Privacy Protection Act and the California Invasion of Privacy Act, according to a recent decision in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Cookie banner + checkbox with hyperlink to privacy notice at account creation + checkbox with hyperlink to privacy notice at each purchase + privacy notice that details data sharing with third parties via trackers.

The privacy notice in this case included the ability to:

• refuse cookies or request their deletion.

• obtain the list of partners who are permitted to store and/or access these cookies.

• adjust your browser settings to understand when cookies are stored on your device or to disable the cookies.

• object and withdraw consent to the sharing of data.

Tools & Techniques.

https://www.bespacific.com/openalex/

OpenAlex

OpenAlex is a free and open catalog of the world’s scholarly research system. It is a nonprofit project that indexes and links over 250 million scholarly works from 250 thousand sources. You can search, analyze, and export the data for free, or upgrade to access more features and support the project.  OpenAlex offers an open replacement for industry-standard scientific knowledge bases like Elsevier’s Scopus and Clarivate’s Web of Science. Compared to these paywalled services, OpenAlex offers significant advantages in terms of inclusivity, affordability, and availability. OpenAlex is: OpenAlex is a map of the world’s research ecosystem, linking components (like papers, institutions, journals, topics, SDGs, authors, etc.) to one another. Research outputs are the main artery of the system.