观往知来：美国第四修正案非法证据排除规则的新发展对中国的启示

美国联邦宪法第四修正案的证据排除规则是一项饱受争议的排除规则,曾经历过从严格适用到不断受限的发展过程,赫灵案的判决进一步削弱了该规则的基础。在未来,对该规则进行限制在相当长的时期内仍是一种主流趋势,其例外规则的适用范围将进一步得到扩张,而该规则本身的适用范围也将被进一步缩小。中国目前初步建立起了非法证据排除规则．在具体...     

The introduction of data breach notification legislation in Australia: A comparative view

This article argues that Australia's recently-passed data breach notification legislation, the Privacy Amendment (Notifiable Data Breaches) Act 2017 (Cth), and its coming into force in 2018, makes an internationally important, yet imperfect, contribution to data breach notification law. Against the backdrop of data breach legislation in the United States and European Union, a comparative analysis is undertaken between these jurisdictions and the Australian scheme to elucidate this argument. Firstly, some context to data breach notification provisions is offered, which are designed to address some of the problems data breaches cause for data privacy and information security. There have been various prominent data breaches affecting Australians over the last few years, which have led to discussion of what can be done to deal with their negative effects. The international context of data breach notification legislation will be discussed, with a focus on the United States and European Union jurisdictions, which have already adopted similar laws. The background to the adoption of the Australia legislation will be examined, including the general context of data privacy and security protection in Australia. The reform itself will be then be considered, along with the extent to which this law is fit for purpose and some outstanding concerns about its application. While data breach notification requirements are likely to be a positive step for data security, further reform is probably necessary to ensure strong cybersecurity. However, such reform should be cognisant of the international trends towards the adoption of data security measures including data breach notification, but lack of alignment in standards, which may be burdensome for entities operating in the transnational data economy.     

US foreign policy,intersectional totality and the structure of empire

Debates about US empire have subsided somewhat in the aftermath of the George W Bush presidency but the issues underlying such debates have not gone away. In arguing that the history of the United States is an imperial one, this article proposes that US empire is the expression of an intersectional totality, one shaped by various vectors of power but reducible to none. To make this case, the article presents a sketch of US imperial history in order to show how this intersectional totality has evolved over time. Such an exercise can give useful context to the foreign policy initiatives of the Barack Obama administration, one that differs from that of its immediate predecessor but is not outside the structure of imperial history’s longer duration.     

Dance of Orientalisms and waves of catastrophes: culturalism and pragmatism in imperial approaches to Islam and the Middle East

This article focuses on a seeming contradiction between ‘Islamophobic’ and ‘Islamophilic’ approaches in contemporary Western policies and discourses on the Middle East. While Islamophobia continues to shape some domestic policies of Western states and provide ideological justification for the wars they wage abroad, ‘Islamophilic’ tendencies in foreign policy have also emerged, especially in responses to the ‘Arab Spring’. Not clearly noted in Western public discourse, this represents a historical continuation of Western support for Islamism common during the Cold War, but is also a shift from the Islamophobic discourse of the post-cold war period, especially since 9/11. While Islamophobic and Islamophilic discourses may appear to be opposites, the paper argues that they represent two sides of the Orientalist logic, continuing to reduce understanding of Middle Eastern societies and politics to a culturalist dimension. Unlike traditional Orientalism, they treat Middle Eastern people as political subjects, but approach them as defined by their culture and religion. They define ‘moderate’ Islamism as the typical (and preferred) politics of the people of the region. Focusing on specific recent developments, the paper suggests that, rather than paving the way to more peaceful relations with the region or to internal peace and stability there, the Islamophilic shift in Western policy may rather lead to new waves of catastrophes by further destabilising and fragmenting the region, threatening to evoke new waves of Islamophobia in the West.     

The criminalization of immigration and the privatization of the immigration detention: implications for justice

In recent decades, the criminalization of immigration and the use of private prisons have increased in popularity. The criminalization of immigration and the privatization of prisons work hand in hand in shaping the American criminal justice response to immigration. Privatization creates a powerful opportunity for the social construction of the undocumented immigrant into a powerful potential source of revenue for for-profit corporations. Private prison corporations, such as Corrections Corporation of American and The GEO Group, stand to profit significantly from the private immigration detention center. Several investigative reports have focused on how these companies stand to profit, but little attention has been given to the psychosocial consequences that impact immigrant detainees and their families.     

The Internet and Parliamentary Democracy in Europe

The overall aim of this volume is to investigate the impact of new information and communications technologies (ICTs), in particular the Internet, upon parliamentary democracy in Europe. Through a comparative study of four parliaments (the British, European, Portuguese and Swedish), our research addresses three important dimensions of the impact of the Internet on parliamentary democracy, namely, the practices, principles and rules related to the use of the Internet in a parliamentary context. It is hoped that, by comparing the experiences of the four parliaments and their Members, a European perspective on the development of and issues about ‘parliamentary e-Democracy’ can be established. The main sources of data and methodologies employed in this volume include a questionnaire survey, content analysis of parliamentary websites, interviews with parliamentarians and parliamentary staff and research workshops. Here we highlight the main features of the individual contributions included in this volume.     

Environmental protection and US–Asia relations: a policy of disconnect

Despite the post-September 11 focus on regional security and the continued emphasis on regional economic cooperation, environmental degradation should not be overlooked as an important issue for US policy in and relationship with the Asia-Pacific. It is an important issue in its own right, presenting the countries of the region with ecological, economic and social (human security) challenges. There are both ethical and instrumental impulses for the United States, as a rich indus­trialised country and as a disproportionate consumer of resources and polluter of global waste, to provide environmental assistance to the Asia-Pacific. Despite global demands that the ‘new’ new world (environmental) order should be based on solidarity and collective responsibility, neither US environmental policy towards the region nor the regional consequences of its international environmental policy more generally meet this test. The US is fundamentally self-regarding rather than other-regarding in the various dimensions of its environmental relationship with the region. The consequences for both the region and for the US may be substantial. Continued environmental degradation in the region has the potential to undermine other US policy goals, in terms of its reputation, it economic objectives and even its more orthodox geopolitical security objectives.     

Assessing the reset: successes and failures in the Obama administration's Russia policy, 2009–2012

Critics of the Obama administration's ‘reset’ with Russia claim that it has failed to improve bilateral relations and has conceded too much to Russia at the expense of American interests. In fact, the reset has delivered significant improvements in key areas and established the institutional basis for continued cooperation in the future, benefiting both states. Although disagreements remain on several important issues including missile defence, humanitarian intervention, and democracy, the reset has been broadly successful on its own terms, which were always limited in scope and based on a pragmatic recognition of the limits of possible cooperation. Future progress is uncertain, however – obstacles include differences of national interest; the complicating effects of relations with third party states and the impact of domestic politics. A continuation of the pragmatic approach underpinning the reset represents the best chance for stability in the US–Russia relationship.     

Framing hostage negotiations: analysing the discourse of the US government and the Islamic State

Since August 2014, there has been a marked increase in the violence perpetrated by the Islamic State against Western hostages. Videos released by the Islamic State depicting the brutal executions of hostages have been circulated widely on social media. This has prompted a dialogue about governments’ policies regarding negotiation with terrorist organisations to secure the release of their citizens held overseas. The United States and Britain, two non-negotiating countries, have faced significant criticism for this policy, which has led to the beheadings of several American and British citizens. This article analyses the discourse of two spokesmen – White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, and British hostage John Cantlie – in framing the issue of hostage negotiations on behalf of their organisations. A grounded theory approach informed by framing analysis is utilised in order to identify dominant discourses employed in White House press briefings and John Cantlie’s videos and articles. This article concludes that, through the deliberate use of discourse, the US government and the Islamic State shape public perception of hostage negotiations in pursuit of distinct policy goals.     

The terror/counterterror edge: when non-terror becomes a terrorism problem and real terror cannot be detected by counterterrorism

On the basis of cases such as the recent ban on the building of minarets in Switzerland or the prohibition on wearing a burka in France and the Netherlands, and the passage of terrorism legislation in various European countries in which there has never been a terrorism problem, as well as the recent history of counterterrorism in the United States, this paper examines how non-terror can become a terrorism problem and non-risk ideologically risky, while at the same time the real threats go undetected. The international prominence gained by Spanish Prime Minister Jose María Aznar when the George W. Bush administration declared a worldwide ‘War on Terror’ shows the political capital attached to terrorist risk. Countries may act as if afflicted by a case of ‘terrorism envy’ when non-risk may be perceived as political irrelevance. This paper argues that the dynamics of terrorism/counterterrorism should be seen in the cultural context of taboo while displaying the qualities of the Lacanian edge: a self-generating process that simultaneously links and separates them in a ‘non-relationship’ that is constitutive of the entire phenomenon.