Camera/video phones in schools: law and practice

The emergence of mobile phones with built-in digital cameras is creating legal and ethical concerns for school systems throughout the world. Users of such phones can instantly email, print or post pictures to other MMS1 1. MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Services. MMS is frequently used to send photos from camera phones to other MMS phones or email addresses. View all notes phones or websites. Local authorities and schools in Britain, Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and elsewhere have introduced outright bans on their use because of the problems or risks they pose if misused. Risks concerned with pupils surreptitiously photographing other pupils in changing rooms or photographing examination papers are obvious examples. The article examines some worldwide examples of the misuse of camera phones in schools and the issues and problems that emerged. A landmark decision concerning the European Data Privacy Directive (Directive 95/46/EC) in the case of Bodil Lindqvist by the European Court of Justice is explored and the implications for camera phones considered. The article concludes by stating that because of their ubiquity and social potency, it is probably a mistake and an overreaction for education authorities or schools to introduce blanket bans on the possession of camera phones. Rather they need to devise sensible agreements and policies on camera phone usage.     

Democracy and Legitimacy in the Shadow of Purposive Competence

This article argues that the way EU competences are defined plays an important role in the social legitimacy problems of the EU. The fact that its powers are purposive compels the EU to privilege narrow functional goals and act in a highly focused way. This has the consequence that politics cannot be meaningful within the EU, since essential choices of direction are pre‐empted. It also has the consequence that EU law is over‐instrumental and lacks expressive qualities, alienating the public. Now that EU law is so broad, the same defects are being imposed increasingly on Member States. Without another form of conferred power, the legitimacy of the EU, and of law and government in Europe, will be increasingly undermined. The constitutional DNA, which has been a functional success for Europe, may also be its political nemesis.     

‘Any Place I Hang My Hat?’ or: Residence is the New Nationality

Abstract:  Removing all nationality discrimination means treating the emigré national like a foreigner, not just treating the foreign resident like a national. This challenges directly the idea that the national enjoys a permanent bond with his home country, wherever he may go. It also ushers in residence as an alternative to nationality as the criterion for membership of society and rights to benefits. This makes national solidarity a less discriminatory affair, and so easier to defend legally. One result may be tighter, in some ways less open societies. Yet membership of these societies will be voluntary and temporary and open to all. This argument is developed through a critical examination of recent judgments from the Court of Justice on residence conditions in national law.     

Analysis of condom lubricants for forensic casework

The detection of DNA is inhibited in cases of sexual assault involving condom use. Trace evidence, including condom lubricant residues, provides crucial associative evidence in such cases. The existing Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) methods for lubricant analysis and detection are limited with regard to sensitivity and discrimination. The aim of this research was to establish a new method as an alternative to FTIR for the analysis of condom lubricant residues. Pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (PyGC-MS) and GC-MS are highly sensitive methods of analysis for a wide range of chemical substances. PyGC-MS and GC-MS were used to analyze condom lubricants in standard solution, from clean swabs and from postcoital swabs. Pyrolysis of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) lubricant forms cyclic products known as cyclic dimethyl siloxanes (DMS), which are separated and detected by the GC-MS. The polyethylene glycol (PEG) lubricant can be analyzed by GC-MS directly from solution. The methods of extraction and analysis presented in this paper were shown to be significantly more sensitive than FTIR for the analysis of PDMS and PEG condom lubricants. PDMS was detected as low as 1 mug in standard solution and from clean swabs using the PyGC-MS method. PEG was detected as low as 0.5 microg from standard solution and 50 mug from clean swabs using the GC-MS method. Unfortunately, we were unable to provide further discrimination between condom brands and subbrands. The methods established throughout the research were used successfully to detect condom lubricants from donated postcoital swabs. Lubricants were detected in abundance on swabs 12 h postcoitus. Recommendations are made regarding implementation of new methods for routine analysis of casework samples along with strict pyrolysis interpretation criteria to minimize the possibility of misinterpretation of false positives.     

On the Membership of Decision-Making Committees

The decision of a committee is determined jointly by the votingprocess it adopts and the composition of its membership. The paper analyses the process through which committee members emerge from the eligiblepopulation and traces the consequences of this for the decisions ofthe committee. It is shown that the equilibrium committee will becomposed of representatives from the extremes of the tastedistribution. These extremes balance each other and the committeereaches a moderate decision. However, this mutual negation by theextremes is a socially wasteful use of time. Data from the UK Houseof Lords is used to illustrate these results.