Syllabus for INFOSEC 690L Internet Law & Policy

The following is the syllabus from a class taught by Attorney Marvin Cable at University of Massachusetts during 2017.

Instructor

Marvin Cable, J.D., Esq.

Communicating with Instructor. Instructor will attempt to respond to e-mails within 24 hours, except during weekends. There may be other times during the course where response time may be longer – students will be provided notice of such event. Sometimes, it may be necessary to talk on the phone. In that case, instructor will provide a phone number.

Course Description

This course provides basic legal knowledge for Internet related legal issues with a focus on practical information for use by computer professionals.

Course Layout

The course is an eight week course, with 11 units. Each unit has reading material(s) and/or multimedia. Also, each unit will have assignments to complete. There will be bi-weekly lectures on Mondays and Wednesdays, at 6:00 P.M. – 8:00 P.M. at UMass Center – Springfield.

Deadlines

All deadlines will be posted in Blackboard.

Assessment and Grading

There are 8 categories that will be graded:

  1. Lectures. There will be bi-weekly lectures. Attendance is not required, therefore will not be accounted for in the final grade.
  2. Case Briefs. Every week there will be case(s) to read and brief. That means there will be at least 8 cases to brief. Each brief will be assigned a numerical grade of 1 through 10.  Each brief must be completed to pass the course.
  3. Student-teacher conferences. Each student must meet with the Professor twice during the semester. This category counts as 12.5% of the final grade. The student will receive a full 12.% credit for the final grade merely by meeting with the teacher twice. This category is mandatory.
  4. Reading and Questions. Each lecture will have reading assignment along with questions to answer. This category counts as 12.5% of the final grade.
  5. Law review response. Each week the student will be asked to read law review article(s). Along with the reading will be an assignment. This category counts as 12.5% of the final grade. Grading for each assignment will be provided with the assignment, otherwise completion of the assignment will count as full credit.
  6. Mid-Term and Final Exam. There will be a mid-term and final exam. This category counts as 12.5% of the final grade. The method of grading for exams will be provided along with the exams.
  7. Discussion board. Every week there will be 1 to 2 discussion board assignments. This category counts as 12.5% of the final grade. Each discussion board assignment will have certain requirements. The student receives full credit for discussion board assignments, if those requirements are met.
  8. Projects. There will be 3 – 4 projects. This category counts as 25% of the final grade. Each project will be graded on a scale of 1 through 10.

Late Work

An Assignment submitted after the due date is listed as “late.” Assignments are listed as “late” until the cut-off-date. An Assignment cannot be submitted after the cut-off date. Assignments are listed as “missed” after the cut-off date. Penalties for “late work” are 10% off the assignment’s final grade per day.

Textbook (Required)

Issues in Internet Law: Society, Technology, and the Law, 10th Ed.  (ISBN-13: 978-1935971306) (ISBN-10: 193597130)

Topics

Unit 1:  Introduction & Orientation to Course

  • Introduction to Course
  • Class mechanics

Unit 2:  Basics of the internet

  • History of the internet
  • Physical structure of the internet
  • Governance of the internet

Unit 3:  Basic Legal Skills

  • IRAC
  • Case Briefiing
  • Critical Thinking
  • Critical Reading
  • Citation

Unit 4:  Basics of the law

  • Laws, statutes, regulations, common law, stare decisis, treaties, and the interactions between themIssues of local, state, federal, and international laws
  • Jurisdiction related issues

Unit 5:  Contracts

  • Basics of contract law
  • Common examples of contracts, e.g., employment agreements, work for hire.

Unit 6:  Policy issues

  • Privacy
  • Freedom of speech
  • Open internet / Net neutrality

Unit 7:  Intellectual property law

  • Copyright
  • Trademark and unfair business
  • Patent

Unit 8:  Substantive laws

  • The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)
  • Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA)
  • Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA
  • Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
  • Criminal laws
  • Laws dealing with protection of private information, e.g., social security numbers, credit cards
  • We will study other sets of laws, too, depending on class interest

Unit 9:  Ethics

  • Basic ethical dilemmas
  • Whitehat versus blackhat
  • Whistle blowing

Unit 10:  Dealing with employees and internal business relations

  • Employee privacy
  • Intellectual property issues with employees and organizations

Unit 11:  Dealing with third parties

  • Subpoenas
  • National Security Letters
  • Requirements for safeguarding data for, and from, third parties
  • Litigation basics

Technical Support

In the first days of the course, students should independently become familiar with the available technical support resources. Instructors are not expected to know about or how to fix technical issues.

If you need assistance with technical support to participate in this course, please review the Student Orientation & Resource Area or Contact 24/7 Support. You will have the option of email, live chat, or phone. Students may also use the Help Desk for technical support issues: http://uma.echelp.org (from this link, students will be able to chat, email and call technical support).

More technical support information is located on the login page, and should have been provided to students when they received their login credentials. Further technical support information is located in our course, under the Resources menu, on the left side-bar.

Academic Honesty

All students and participants of courses at UMass Amherst are expected to read and abide by guidelines for academic honesty detailed in the Undergraduate Rights and Responsibilities and the Student Code of Conduct. The link to the Code of Conduct can be found here: http://www.umass.edu/dean_students/codeofconduct/

No form of cheating, plagiarism, fabrication, or facilitating of dishonesty will be condoned in the University community. Students will be expected to read and to act in accordance with the University Student Code of Conduct.

Underlying every action of this course, the Academic Honesty Policy. Students should know and understand Academic Honesty policy. The complete Academic Honesty Policy and forms are available at: www.umass.edu/honesty.

Accommodation Policy Statement

The University of Massachusetts Amherst is committed to providing an equal educational opportunity for all students. If you have a documented physical, psychological, or learning disability on file with Disability Services (DS), Learning Disabilities Support Services (DSS), or Psychological Disabilities Services (PDS), you may be eligible for reasonable academic accommodations to help you succeed in your courses. If you have a documented disability that requires an accommodation, please notify your instructor within the first two weeks of the semester so that they can make appropriate arrangements.

Online Course Expectations & Netiquette  

The interactions between students and teachers for online classes are much different from traditional classroom classes. Many times, in online environments, there will be much more interaction between students than traditional classrooms. And, online interactions are not face-to-face.

A few weeks into this course, I predict that everyone in this class will interacted with everyone else in this class. I’m hoping that we can create a robust learning community that inspires and supports everyone’s learning growth.

In support of maintaining a robust learning community, I ask that everyone follow a few simple guidelines:

  • Be a good person. Be respectful and responsible. Do unto others, as you would have others do unto you.
  • Respect people’s time and bandwidth. Written communication should be meaningful and to the point. People are busy. Don’t include large files, unless absolutely necessary.
  • Be formal. As to how formal communications should be, error on the side of being more formal. When possible, please use formal sentence structure. But, be clear and concise. And, use courteous language.
  • Respect copyrights. Do not violate copyright laws.
  • Cite clearly. Citations may, many times, be necessary. When a specific citation format is required, students will be notified. Otherwise, when providing citations please provide citations to authorities so that readers may identify and find those authorities for future research.
  • Be careful about outside materials. Please, be judicious with the use of outside materials. Use of outside materials in this course may be taken down by the instructor at any time.

Legal Statements

While the instructor of this course is an attorney, no statements made by the instructor as a result of being engaged to teach this course should be construed as legal advice nor relied upon for any legal matter. Furthermore, no statement made by instructor as a result of teaching this course should be construed as having created of an attorney-client relationship.

In order to comply with Massachusetts’s wiretapping statute, all students should be aware and understand that all communications for this class may be recorded. By participating in this course, a student consents to any recordings made as a result of student’s activity in the course.

Syllabus may be changed at any time, for any reason.