On The Wire

Compelled Thumbprints

On February 16, 2017, Magistrate Judge M. David Weisman of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, in Chicago, rejected an application by the government for a provision in a search warrant compelling people present at the scene of a search to unlock cellphones using ...
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Beyond Garofoli

On February 1, 2017, the Ontario Court of Appeal released its opinion in R v Paryniuk, 2017 ONCA 87 affirming the residual discretion of a reviewing judge on an evidence exclusion motion to vitiate a warrant to protect the integrity of the prior authorization process. It is an aspect of ...
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Fingerprints or Passwords

On October 30, 2014, MH left her home in Chaska, Minnesota, southwest of Minneapolis, to run errands. Her home was burglarized while she was away and a laptop and items of jewelry were stolen. She found an envelope in her driveway with the name of SW on it. The police ...
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Artificial Intelligence

The developments in artificial intelligence technology during 2016 continued to raise profound ethical questions and dramatic implications for the legal system and the paradigm for delivery of legal services. In an article titled 5 Ways Artificial Intelligence Freaked Us Out In 2016: WaveNet, AlphaGo, Interceptor And More published by Tech ...
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Judicial Freelancing

Detective Moe Banga of the Edmonton Police Service was investigating complaints from individuals who said they received telephone calls from a scammer identifying himself as an employee of the Canada Revenue Agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The investigation led to an application for a ...
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Honestly and Faithfully

The Canadian judiciary is under the microscope. And the intensity of criticism has increased as cases of misogyny and mistake have reached the headlines and erupted on social media. Then, on November 9, 2016, Justice Bernd Zabel of the Ontario Court of Justice in Hamilton strode into his courtroom wearing ...
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The Duty of Candour

On October 4, 2016, Justice Simon Noel of the Federal Court of Canada released the judgment in In The Matter Of An Application By [XXX] For Warrants Pursuant To Sections 12 And 21 Of The Canadian Security Intelligence Act, 2016 FC 1105, that erupted into a national and international media ...
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Just a Face in the Crowd

Do you have a right to privacy in the image of your own face? Is there a difference in privacy interest between the digital image of your face taken by a government agency that regulates drivers' licences and one taken by a security camera in a public parking garage? Is ...
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An Argument That Proves Too Much

On September 28, 2016, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court released its unanimous opinion in Commonwealth v White, No. SCJ-11917, upholding an evidence suppression ruling that probable cause to search or seize a suspect's cellular telephone may not be based solely on a police officer's opinion that the device was likely ...
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We’ll Think of Something

On August 21, 2008, Nosakhare Ohenhen, a black man from Nigeria, was stopped by three police officers on bicycle patrol near the Parkdale Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario. He was driving a Jaguar sedan. On September 16, 2016, after an eight year legal harangue, he was finally acquitted of drug ...
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