Law, Technology and Democracy, Fall 2003

New York Law School

Course Description

Governments worldwide are investing billions in new information and communications technology (ICT) for use in the public sector.  Increasingly, ICT is being used, not simply to automate the business of government institutions and run them more efficiently. These tools uniquely enable new forms of interaction between government and citizens and among citizens. They facilitate the communication upon which democratic life depends. Citizens and civic groups, too, are using technologies for political activism, organizing and protest on-line and are enlisting the aid of technology to manage political activity off-line. At the same time, these tools also facilitate new forms of surveillance, manipulation and control.

As society prepares to integrate e-government and e-democracy tools into the fabric of public life, we are faced with the question of how to design these tools to realize their democratic potential and avoid unintended consequences. It is not a simple matter of safeguarding computer systems from hacking and criminal activity or being wary of systems that could be used for unlawful surveillance in blatant disregard of civil liberties. Rather the design of ICTs requires conscious choices about how we want our political and legal institutions of the future to work. In the same way that the design of a ballot can effect the outcome of an election, the way a government entity organizes its website will have a fundamental impact on who has access to which information, who has the opportunity to participate and who gets left out.

This course starts from the premise that e-government and e-democracy is not the domain of technologists alone. Rather, because these technologies imply profound choices of law and policy, lawyers must be involved in their design.  The new generation of lawyers must be able to talk to the engineers if we are to solve today`s complex problems:

• What are the implications of paperless e-voting?
• Should all litigation dockets be available on-line and to whom?
• Should citizens be allowed to post anonymous comments via the Interet in response to a federal agency rulemaking or must comments be signed? How should such a digital signature system be designed?
• How will ICT impact the availability of information under the Freedom of Information Act?
• What are the risks to privacy of personal information under the Privacy Act when government records go on-line?
• How are political campaigns and the related law impacted by on-line campaigns?
• How does the law impact the design of computer systems that enable information exchange between citizen and government? Between government agencies? From agencies to courts?  
• The list goes on....

This course examines the theory, law and policy of electronic government and electronic democracy. We will study the new federal laws on electronic government and access to public sector information. This course also examines the social and political effects of the use of technology in the legal and political process. Working independently and in small teams the class will apply its understanding of the theoretical issues studied in the first half of the class to the design of blueprints fro web-based tools for citizen participation in the second half. The aim of these hands-on projects is to use both law and technology to develop new solutions to the complex problems of governance in the digital age.

Recommended but not required prerequisites: Intellectual Property, Telecommunications and Internet Law.

Go to Course Requirements and Syllabus