This presentation discusses the impact of the mass communication technologies including the Internet and Cloud Computing on the practice of law and legal research. This presentation was given the Advanced Legal Research class at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota of August 23, 2013 by Neal R. Axton, JD, MLIS.

1. Advanced Legal Research
Week One:
Law in the Internet Age
Neal R. Axton & Simon Canick,
Information Resources

2. Introductions & Expectations
• Instructors
• Students
• Auditors
• Technology
– Gmail
– Blackboard
• Quizzes
• Research Assignments

3. • http://www.pewinternet.org/

4. Pew Internet & American Life Project (2010)

5. Tablet Ownership Exploding

6. Are you smarter than your phone?

8. Internet Citation
• Typewriters – 1714 & 1867
• Bluebook
• Practitioner Style
– Typewriters = Underlining
• Law Review Style
– Type Setting
• Small Caps
• Italics
• Font?
• Size?

9. Online Resources

10. More formats
• 18.2.2 Direct Citations to Internet Sources
• 18.2.3 Parallel Cites – available at
• 18.3 Commercial Databases
• 18.3.1 Cases
– Unreported
• 18.3.2 Constitutions and Statutes
• 18.3.3 Legislative, Administrative & Executive Materials
• 18.3.4 Books, Periodicals, Other Secondary Sources
• 18.4 CD-Rom
• 18.5 Microform
• 18.6 Film
• 18.7 Audio
– Podcasts

11. Websites

12. Other Sources

13. Direct Citations
• Hard copy “practically unavailable”
– e.g. Rule 18.1’s Conference Report
• Cite directly
– Due Diligence Required?
• Worldcat.org
– Hard Copy Not Cataloged and/or not Published
(e.g. Press Release)
• Citing to Westlaw for current statues
• Minn. Stat. Ann. 169

14. Some Legal Innovations
• WestlawNext
– Federated Search
• Fdsys
– Federated Search
• Electronic Court Filing System
– PACER/ECF
– Bloomberg’s Docket Search
– Minnesota moving online too…
• Save Money, Reduce Staff

16. Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?
We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.

17. The Online Menagerie
• Hacktivists
• Hackerspaces
• Black Hats
• White Hats
• Cypherpunks
• Cyberpunks
• Wikileaks
– Bradley Manning & Julian Assange
• 4chan, anonymous, lulzboat & lulzsec
• Edward Snowden & Glenn Greenwald
• Pirate Bay & Pirate Party

18. Attorney Job Security
What’s new [to the music
industry] is this amazingly
efficient distribution system for
stolen property called the
Internet — and no one’s gonna
shut down the Internet.
— Steve Jobs, Rolling Stone, Dec. 3, 2003

19. http://wikileaks.org/

20. Julian Assange on Fear
“Fear exists largely in the imagination. That’s
what powerful people prey on. It simply isn’t
possible to police the world’s citizens, so what
they rely on is fear.
Once you realise that fear exists largely in your
own mind, then you are on the way to
liberation. Also I have this righteous indignation.
It spurs me on. Makes me feel invincible.”
Daily Mail: http://bit.ly/qCpYSx

21. Jurisdiction
The geometrically-enhanced
capabilities of the emerging web
technology spotlights the long-ignored
issues of who owns the worldwide
web, who manages the worldwide
web, and who has jurisdiction over the
worldwide web? The answer now is:
nobody!
- Gene Stephens, Future Challenges of Cybercrime 13 (2010) (FBI and Police
Futurists Int’l Working Group) http://bit.ly/pA51OV.

22. •http://bit.ly/12vQ4k1

23. Those leftists at the Economist…

24. A Higher Moral Order?

25. Ruminations
1. States passive and reactive
2. NGO's running the show
3. Media autonomous of nation-state
4. States no longer in control of "normative frameworks"
5. Concept of Spying obsolete
6. Polycentric Governance

26. Implications
• Global Citizens
cf. United Nations
• Information Wants to be Free!
– What do We Want for Information?
• Technology Changes Us
– Information Technology
– Mass Communication
– Internet & Cell Phones
– Firearms?

27. Ethical Compliance
http://lprb.mncourts.gov/Pages/Default.aspx

29. MN LPRB Opinion 22

30. Tracked Changes Metadata

31. More on Metadata
• Metadata
– Data about Data
– Industrial Strength Organizational Data
– Telephony Metadata
• Originating Phone Number
• Dialed Phone Number
• Duration of Call
• Call Waiting
• Call Forwarding
• Cell Phone Tower used during Call
• Cell Phone Transfers During Call
• Signal Strength During Call

32. Scintilla of Knowledge
• Black Boxes
–Irreducible Complexity
–Invisible Data
• Metadata
• Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic.
- Arthur C. Clarke

34. Location Data

35. Distinctions with a difference
• Applying GPS device = 4th
Amendment Violation
– aka Bird-dogging
• Using Cell Phone Tower Metadata = Okey-Dokey
• Reasonable Expectation of Privacy
– Katz v. U.S., 389 U.S. 347 (1967)
– Fiat Declaration
– One Size Fits All

36. Social Network Analysis
• Pivot People & Opinion Leaders

37. Complex Social Networks

38. Cloud Computing

39. Search for Cloud Computing on LPRB site

40. Cloud Computing and Legal Ethics

41. Ethical Pitfalls
• [T]he use of technologies such as cloud
storage will never lessen—and may, in fact,
increase and make more complicated—an
attorney’s obligations under the Rules of
Professional Conduct.
• As an initial matter, an attorney must have at
least a base-level comprehension of the
technology and the implications of [cloud
computing’s] use.

42. Head in the Clouds
• Cloud computing
– Software as a service
– Infrastructure & Bandwidth
• Client-Server Architecture
Computing Platforms
• Thick Clients
– PC with local Central Processing Unit (CPU)
• Thin Clients
– e.g. Smart Phones
– Push Everything Possible to the Cloud

43. Root
DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS
ISP
Servers Users/Clients
IXP
Root Root
ISP ISPISP

44. FBI Intercepts
• Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, Pub.L.
103–414, 108 Stat. 4279 (1994) codified at
• 47 USC §§ 1001-10.
• FBI’s older Carnivore system
• DCSNet and DCS-3000
– Captures VOIP
– Mobile Cell Tower Vans

52. Combining Topics
• Search Incident to Arrest
• Seize iPhone
• Access iCloud
• Can law enforcement access contacts on a phone?
• Can law enforcement access everything on the defendant’s
iCloud?

53. Lawyering in the 21st
Century
• E-Discovery
– Costs impact litigation
– Smoking Gun
• Legal Blogging
– Lawyer Advertising?
– Blog Consultant
• Social Networking
– Due Diligence
– Discrimination?
• Social Networking Independent Reviewer
• False and Misleading Statements
• Unauthorized Practice
• Privacy implications of email

54. Geek Speak and Lawyering
“One of the primary reasons that electronic data is lost is
ineffective communication with information technology
personnel.
By taking possession of, or otherwise safeguarding, all
potentially relevant backup tapes, counsel eliminates the
possibility that such tapes will be inadvertently recycled…
Counsel failed to communicate the litigation hold order to all key
players. They also failed to ascertain each of the key players'
document management habits…
This case represents a failure of communication, and that failure
falls on counsel and client alike.”
Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC, 229 F.R.D. 422 (S.D.N.Y.2004) (aka Zubulake V)

55. History of Mass Media
• Typewriters
• Telegraph
• Teletype Machines
• Advertising
• Female Typists
– Context of AMC’s Mad Men Show
• Newspapers
• Postal Service
– Bribing Postmasters
– Transit Fees
– International Relations and Subservience

56. Theoretical Frameworks
• Social Contract Theory
• Rights Theory
– Rights Enforced by a Sovereign
• Ethics
– Intentionalism vs Consequentialism
• Privacy
– Secrecy
• Trade Secrets
– Transparency
• Data Practices Act
– Security
• Privacy
• Network Theory