Just about twenty years ago, in the wake of the passage of the Communications Decency Act, I began researching what would become my first mainstream book: Obscene Profits: The Entrepreneurs of Pornography in the Cyber Age. It was published by Routledge (now part of Taylor & Francis) in 2000 and remains one of the only…
2017-01-20 Digital Technology and Child Pornography from Frederick Lane A CLE presentation delivered to the office of the Federal Public Defenders in Knoxville, TN on January 20, 2017. If you are interested in discussing a presentation or professional development program for your organization on this topic, please contact me for information regarding my rates and…
[This article was originally posted to the Beacon Broadside blog and is reposted with permission.] On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like “1984.” Those were the closing lines of Apple Computer’s groundbreaking (and screen-shattering) advertisement during the 1984 Super Bowl for its new computer, the Macintosh.…
Senior picture days are a well-established right of passage in American high schools. They are a great opportunity for students to demonstrate school spirit, to capture memories to be laughed over at reunions decades hence, and generally to celebrate the impending transition from childhood to quasi-independent adulthood. The photo at the top of this post,…
In May 2014, a substitute teacher at Highland Park High School in Highland Park, IL (a suburb just north of Chicago) raised concerns that two of his students had been cheating. Following an internal investigation, the high school not only sided with the students but told Steven Habay, then 40, that he was being released…
From 1873 to his death in 1915, Anthony Comstock was one of the most powerful cultural arbiters in the United States. As Special Agent for the United States Postal Services and Secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Comstock was charged with enforcing anti-obscenity and anti-indency laws for which he lobbied…
This message needs to be spread far and wide: People in the United States have the right to videotape the actions of government employees in public spaces. As I noted in an earlier post, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania has published a useful summary of the rights of citizens to record interactions with…
2014-08-28 American Privacy: The 400-Year History Of Our Most Contested Right from Frederick Lane A keynote presentation delivered to the 2014 International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators in Phoenix, Arizona on August 28, 2014. If you are interested in discussing a presentation or professional development program for your organization on this topic, please contact me…
2014-04-10 American Privacy: The 400-Year History of Our Most Contested Right from Frederick Lane A presentation based on my book American Privacy that I delivered to the Genesis Client Forum in Chicago, IL on April 10, 2014. If you are interested in discussing a presentation or professional development program for your organization on this topic,…
2010-09-10 The Serpentine Wall from Frederick Lane A lecture on religious freedom, separation of church and state, and public schools presented at the Arizona School Boards Association Law Conference on September 10, 2010. This lecture is appropriate for school boards, district staff and teachers, and parents. It also can be adapted for students at various…
