Ethics and the Law on the Electronic Frontier
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this course on the legal and policy struggles over control of the Internet. Topics include the legal background for Internet regulation, Fourth Amendment law and electronic surveillance, profiling and data mining under the U.S. PATRIOT Act, technologies for anonymity and transparency, and the policy-aware web. The course examines how law, technology, and policy interact to shape privacy and access to information online. Materials include readings, lecture topics, and assignments as published through MIT OCW, free to access without enrollment. No certificate is offered, consistent with MIT's OCW model. The course suits students interested in how legal doctrine adapts to networked technology and surveillance, covering both the regulatory frameworks and the technical tools designed to resist or enable monitoring.