Cloud forecasting: Legal visibility issues in saturated environments

The advent of cloud computing has brought the computing power of corporate data processing and storage centers to lightweight devices. Software-as-a-service cloud subscribers enjoy the convenience of personal devices along with the power and capability of a service. Using logical as opposed to physical partitions across cloud servers, providers supply flexible and scalable resources. Furthermore, the possibility for multitenant accounts promises considerable freedom when establishing access controls for cloud content. For forensic analysts conducting data acquisition, cloud resources present unique challenges. Inherent properties such as dynamic content, multiple sources, and nonlocal content make it difficult for a standard to be developed for evidence gathering in satisfaction of United States federal evidentiary standards in criminal litigation. Development of such standards, while essential for reliable production of evidence at trial, may not be entirely possible given the guarantees to privacy granted by the Fourth Amendment and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Privacy of information on a cloud is complicated because the data is stored on resources owned by a third-party provider, accessible by users of an account group, and monitored according to a service level agreement. This research constructs a balancing test for competing considerations of a forensic investigator acquiring information from a cloud.     

Policing labor: the power of private security guards to search workers in Brazil

The losses caused by worker theft is one of the most concerning security problems for corporations. Private policing of the workplace is central to cutting down on such losses and keeping up profits. One of the most frequently used methods in such policing is searching workers. Despite the importance of searches and their potential for intrusion into individuals’ right to privacy, the normative bases for and limits to the use of this power have so far been little studied. The aim of this paper is to analyze the legal foundations and limits imposed by the Brazilian State so that private security guards can conduct searches in the workplace. The analysis is based on a qualitative study of Brazilian labor law and a qualitative/quantitative study of 376 judicial decisions on searches collected randomly in two Brazilian states between 2010 and 2013. The data shows that searches can be conducted in the workplace based on the employer’s right to manage production and protect their property. It also indicates the existence of relatively flexible limits to searches. Only a minority of the courts impose restrictions on searches similar to those set for police officers. Most judges allow more extensive searches than those permitted within the scope of public justice systems. The consequences of these findings are discussed.     

Perceptually contemporaneous offenses: Gender and fear of crime among African-American university students

There is consensus in the fear of crime literature that women are more afraid of crime than men. Research has explored perceptually contemporaneous offenses to explain the differences in male and female fear, and to explore the possibility that different crimes shape their respective fears. Victimization studies consistently find that African-American citizens are at a higher risk of crime and fear of crime. Using a 2013 sample of a Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the south, the present study will 1) report gender differences in fear of crime, 2) test whether gender differences in fear of crime are explained by perceptually contemporaneous offenses, and 3) assess whether or not men and women share the same master offenses.     

Recreational Sporting Activity Vehicle‐Related Deaths

Deaths occurring in the setting of nonprofessional, vehicle‐related, recreational sporting activities occurring on land or in water during warm or winter months represent a diverse group of cases. These deaths tend to involve scenarios where the participants are purposefully attempting to enjoy themselves prior to experiencing sudden, catastrophic accidents resulting in lethal outcomes. Ultimately, many of the deaths are related to the high speed at which these vehicle‐related activities normally occur. Three broad categories of factors may play contributory roles in death: human factors, vehicle factors, and environmental factors. A series of selected cases are presented, representing examples of varying activity types, involving motorized and nonmotorized vehicles, land and water activities, and warm weather and cold weather environments. For each case, the various human, vehicle and environmental factors believed to be contributory to the accident are considered, and strategies for prevention of these and similar deaths involving recreational sporting vehicles are presented.     

National-State Relations: Cooperative Federalism in the Twentieth Century

Daniel J. Elazar's 1959 Ph.D. dissertation demonstrated conclusivelythe inadequate explanatory value of the theory of dual federalismand the prevalence of cooperative national-state relations inthe period ending in 1913. Congressional employment of totaland partial preemption and coercive regulatory powers since1965 raises the question whether the theory of cooperative federalismexplains fully the functioning of the federal system at thebeginning of the twenty-first century. An examination of national-staterelations reveals that each of the two theories retains a degreeof explanatory value. There is, however, a need for a more generaltheory incorporating elements of these theories and coerciveuse of congressional powers, highlighting the generally cooperativenature of national-state relations, and explaining the continuousreadjustment of the respective powers of Congress and states.