March 3, 2008 | Vol. XI, Issue 24

UF Law Faculty in the News

Christine Klein
Professor; Associate Dean for Faculty Development

• The Florida-Times Union, Feb. 24. Quoted in an extensive article discussing the recent issues facing the St. Johns River and who is permitted to use the water. Klein said the issue of moving water from one place to another is new to Florida, but not to folks out west, where an arid climate makes water shortages a constant threat to survival. There, water is piped hundreds of miles away, nothing like what's being proposed here. But it's never enough. "Although it might be an attractive short-term solution, it never seems to really satisfy long-term needs," Klein said. "It doesn't solve the underlying problem, which is growth and growing water consumption.”

Jon L. Mills
Professor; Director of Center for Governmental Responsibility; Dean Emeritus

• Law.com- Legal Technology, Feb. 26. Quoted in an article discussing the idea of making case files accessible on the Internet, pushing counties to follow in the footsteps of some state courts in adopting a more fully electronic docket system. One of the issues surrounding the accessibility of the documents is a privacy concern. Mills, who served on a state commission that researched creating an electronic system, said privacy concerns in Florida have been particularly complicated because the state has a constitutional amendment requiring an open record of government proceedings, but also an amendment requiring exemptions to safeguard personal information "Total electronic filing in the world is not that far away," Mills said. "What is an issue is: Are there blanket categories [of filings] that you exempt?" The Manatee County system uses software that automatically redacts Social Security and credit card numbers. Separately, the court keeps confidential some files that have potentially sensitive information, releasing them online only if they're reviewed first, Shore said. Getting judges who are leery of the new system to use it has been the only other obstacle with only about five of 16 taking to the system, he said.

Christopher Slobogin
Stephen C. O’Connell Chair; Affiliate Professor of Psychiatry; Adjunct Professor, University of South Florida Mental Health Institute; Associate Director, Center for Children and Families

• Blogcritics.org, Feb. 23. Slobogin’s new book, “Privacy at Risk: The New Government Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment,” was noted in this blog's book review as a “very important, well-written book should be required reading for every government employee from the local rookie police officer to the president.” Slobogin’s writing is described as “clear and in depth about the different kinds of surveillance the government practices on its citizens and, perhaps more importantly, the lack of legal regulation of these surveillance practices. He also eruditely proposes expanding the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures to include these new technologies the founding fathers could never have imagined.” Read more at http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/02/23/135237.php.

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