A legislature is a small group with a big impact. Even for people who will never be part of one, the mechanics of a legislature matter — when they work well, we all benefit, and when they work poorly, we all lose out. At the same time, with several hundred participants, legislatures are large enough […]
Supreme Court to Hear State Freedom of Information Act Case "McBurney v. Young"
October 9, 2012 by
On Friday, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to McBurney v. Young. This case formally concerns the “Privileges and Immunities Clause” of the Constitution. It raises questions about what access rights citizens have to government records and about who counts as a journalist. Oral argument will likely be scheduled for 2013. Mark McBurney is a citizen […]
Introducing Myself: Technology, Society, and Public Policy
October 5, 2012 by
I’m a fellow at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton this year. My first months here have already been amazing. I’m pleased to be joining this blog as well! My conceptual toolkit and my method comes mostly from sociology, but I’m also a former computer programmer. That means that I feel welcome in […]
Which States have the Highest Risk of an E-Voting Meltdown?
September 27, 2012 by
This post is joint work by Joshua Kroll, Ian Davey, Alex Halderman, and Ed Felten. Computer scientists, including us, have long been skeptical of electronic voting systems. E-voting systems are computers, with all of the attendant problems. If something goes wrong, can the problem be detected? Can it be fixed? Some e-voting systems are much […]
Is Spotify the Celestial Jukebox for Music?
September 18, 2012 by
In 1994, law professor Paul Goldstein popularized the term “celestial jukebox” to refer to his vision of a networked database of consumable on-demand media. In the face of copyright law that was ill-suited to the rapid rate of technological change, he described a system in which consumers would pay-per-play rather than purchasing and owning individual […]
