“It’s hard to imagine what could be unethical or even questionable about having students do what is essentially a Google search. Any person with an internet connection anywhere in the world could do the same thing. The problem isn’t that they did it, it’s that they could do it so easily.
There’s a case in the Torts casebook I used with a successful cause of action against a detective agency for finding a woman’s address and giving it to an old boy friend (the result as I recall was tragic). To show how times had changed regarding expectations of privacy I asked everyone to take a minute (they were all on-line)and find my last two addresses. They could all do it in less than a minute. And they found my brother too.
It made my point that there is very little, if any, personal privacy left just as I think Prof. Reidenberg’s exercise made his.
Oh–and the James Spader character did exactly the same thing as the Justice Scalia exercise about two weeks ago on Boston Legal but in open court to a similarly skeptical judge and jury.
That was poor judgment–although of course he won.”
Posted by: Jennifer Bard | April 30, 2009 at 01:45 AM
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