Knowledge and Information Policy

Professor Jack M. Balkin

Yale Law School

Syllabus

Knowledge and Information Policy

M 10:00am-12:00noon
Room 112

This course will be run as a research seminar. Students will be expected to choose a topic early in the semester.

One of the first orders of business in class will be to talk about possible topics.

Students' first assignment is to prepare a bibliography of relevant readings in their chosen area, figure out what the key issues are, and summarize their research for the class. The idea is to prepare them for a research paper on a more specific issue within their chosen topic.

Their second assignment will be to present a draft of their paper to the class.

The final paper will be due on the final day of exam period.

Preliminary schedule

For the first three weeks, we will do some readings on particular topics related to knowledge and information policy.

• September 11-- Goverment Control of Information
  

• September 18-- Access to Knowledge (Guest: Amy Kapczynski, ISP Fellow)
  
• September 25-- The NSA Case, The First Amendment and Fourth Amendment

 
In the next six weeks, students will present bibliographies and summaries in different areas.

• October 9 Present Research (two topics)
  

• October 16 Present Research (two topics)
  
• October 30 Digital Archives (Guest: Guy Pessach, Hebrew University)
  
• November 6 Present Research (two topics)
  
• November 13 Present Research (two topics)
  
• November 20 Present Research (if necessary) or no class

 
In the final four weeks, students will present drafts of their papers.

• November 27 Presentation of papers (two topics)
  

• December 4 Presentation of papers (two topics)
  
• December 11 Presentation of papers (two topics)
  
• December 18 Presentation of papers (two topics)