Review:
This video is a record of Lawrence Tribe's keynote address at the 1991
Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy.
The point advocated in his talk is that constitutional protections should
exist regardless of whether the communication/action takes place in cyberspace
or in the more traditional real world.
At the end of the talk he formulates a statement of this principle as his proposed
27th Amendment to the Constitution.
Tribe makes several interesting points about how technology has changed
the implementation of protections guaranteed in the constitution.
For example, the constitution guarantees the accused at a criminal trial the
right to confront their accuser.
The constitution was written before television, so confronting necessary meant
both that the accused would see the accuser and the accuser would see the accused.
But with live video feed, it is possible that the accused can see the accuser
with the reverse also being true.
Is this constitutional?
Tribe makes similar points about the laws on wiretapping.
He gives his conclusions and supporting reasons on a number of issues.
Faculty with interests in this area will likely enjoy the video. I enjoyed it. However, overall, I would not recommend this video for undergrad CS/CE/IS classes. While there is some useful content, it is not enough to merit the 75 minutes of class time. Much of the video simply does not communicate to the typical undergrad CS/CE/IS classes. Lawrence Tribe speaks, not surprisingly, like a Harvard law school professor. Most faculty have gotten used to people like this. But many students will have some trouble understanding him, due in part to word choice and sentence structure. Also, this 1991 video is now a little bit dated.
The transcript of Tribe's lecture prepared remarks can be found online at www.sjgames.com/SS/tribe.html (14 July, 1998).
Video Format/Length:
The video was viewed in VHS format, approximately 75 minutes long.
Ordering Information:
This video is listed as ISBN 1-57844-001-7. It is available from: