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This paper provides a legal analysis that interrogates the Information Communication Act (ICA) in Zimbabwe. Its purpose is to examine the extent to which the ICA protects journalists and lawyers privileges, critical constituencies in any democratic state. The ICA, passed in 2007, has remained a heavily contested legislation in the country. On the one hand, it is understood to be security minded legislation, yet, other critics have argued that it interferes with the journalist's source privilege, and lawyer–client confidentiality. In this paper, we are concerned about whether the Act provides adequate safeguards where the subject of surveillance is a practising journalist or lawyer. Thus we ask; to what extent does the ICA provides adequate legal safeguards to lawyers and journalists? Through a qualitative textual analysis of the law, the paper determines the constitutional implications of the main provisions of the Act on whether they reflect constitutional norms that safeguard the legal privileges accorded to the professions. We note that the ICA does not provide adequate safeguards for the protection of lawyers and journalists. We, therefore, argue that ICA is a weaponized legislation meant to emasculate these two communities of practice. As such, we call for the Act's alignment with the current broadened constitutional provisions. South Africa's Constitutional Court has invalidated unconstitutional provisions within its surveillance and interception laws, likewise identical provisions within its neighbouring state, Zimbabwe should follow the same. Both countries share common historical, political and economic ties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Save everything-just in case--and search for it later. This is a modern mantra fueled by the ubiquity of smartphones, laptops, tablets, and free or low-cost data storage that leads users to store massive amounts of data in the cloud. But when users trust third-party cloud storage providers with private communications, they also surrender Fourth Amendment constitutional certainty. Existing statutory safeguards for these communications are lower than Fourth Amendment warrant and probable cause standards; this permits the government to seize large quantities of users' private communications stored in the cloud with only minimal justification. Due to the revealing nature of such communications, the existing protections for them are insufficient under the Fourth Amendment. To prevent broad intrusions into users' reasonable expectation of privacy, this Comment proposes an approach akin to Berger v. New York, where the Supreme Court invalidated a statute that allowed invasive real-time eavesdropping because the statute did not require sufficient particularization. Like in Berger, seizures of private communications in the cloud should require a warrant based on probable cause that is sufficiently particularized to protect against indiscriminate, large-scale data collection and roving searches by the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In United States v. Dahda, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that, under Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 ("Title III"), the lower court properly denied Dahda's motion to suppress evidence gathered by law enforcement using a mobile interception device- a device that wiretaps cell phones. A key part of the decision focused on the definition of mobile interception devices. The Tenth Circuit defined them as devices used to intercept communications that are movable. The Seventh Circuit, in contrast, has defined mobile interception devices as devices used to intercept mobile communications. This Comment argues that both definitions are overly broad in the modern context and are at odds with the congressional intent underlying Title III. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumer products increasingly record the content of user communications without regard to whether the recorded individual is the primary user-the purchaser of the product-or the secondary user-an individual who uses the product but is not the purchaser. The distinction between primary and secondary users proves significant when considering the enforceability of the product's privacy policy, which purports to establish user consent to the collection of communications content but is only agreed to by the primary user, and protections available under federal and state statutes, many of which prohibit the recording of communications content without consent, and may thus benefit secondary users. This Note analyzes several privacy policies accompanying communications-capturing technologies as well as state eavesdropping laws and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to demonstrate that the current consumer privacy regime does not adequately protect secondary users of communications-capturing technologies. In designing protections for secondary users, this Note argues against requiring companies to provide front-end protection through notice of their privacy policies. Instead, this Note proposes a framework for incentivizing communicationscapturing technology producers to distinguish between primary and secondary user data use on the back end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on origin and development of modern arrangements for authorization and oversight of interception of communications within Great Britain. Topics discussed include role of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in shaping the contours of British surveillance law, court's power to enforce the human rights provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and government surveillance and privacy rights with the law of telephone wiretapping.

The article explores the European Union (EU) Charter's limitations concerning the interception of telecommunications and emails seizure. Topics discussed include background of the case brought by Hungarian-based commercial company WebMindLicenses (WML) against the National Tax and Customs Authority, judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on the issue of privacy, and information on the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU.

In March 2014, in People v. Clark and People v. Melongo the Illinois Supreme Court held unconstitutional a large portion of the Illinois Eavesdropping Act ("IEA "), one of the nation's strictest criminal eavesdropping statutes. However, on December 30, 2014, outgoing Governor Pat Quinn signed into law a new eavesdropping statute remedying what Clark and Melongo deemed unconstitutional. Prior to 2014, under the IEA, if employers caught employees recording conversations at work, the employer hardly needed a justification for employee discipline or discharge: the employee was violating the law. Thus, Clark, Melongo, and the December changes to the IEA raise questions for not only criminal jurisprudence, but also employment law; specifically workplace recording policies. Currently, although eavesdropping in Illinois is only illegal if an individual surreptitiously records a private conversation, employers may still discipline their employees for violating a company recording policy. The following Comment addresses the legality of workplace recording policies and what effect, if any, Clark, Melongo, and the December changes to the IEA will have on such policies. The Comment draws from existing case law as well as examines other state eavesdropping statutes and concludes that, notwithstanding the recent Illinois Supreme Court decisions and the December changes to the IEA, an Illinois employer may still implement a workplace recording policy and discipline employees for violations of that policy. Furthermore, when Seventh Circuit federal courts and Illinois state courts review such recording policies and discipline for violations, the courts should view such actions as legitimate and favorably uphold employer actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The extent of the data mining and surveillance operations being conducted by US intelligence services revealed by Edward Snowden has taken many by surprise. Yet is there real cause for alarm in what we have learned? The present article considers eavesdropping technologies and governmental surveillance, with a special focus on the US National Security Agency's (NSA) Prism programme, its telephone metadata recording, and similar data mining programmes. The related questions of whether or not we have an obligation to our government, and if so to what extent, and the manner in which probability relates to utility regarding relevant security concerns are also examined. Some of the main objections to surveillance and possible replies to them are considered in light of the programmes highlighted. It is argued that in addition to greater public safety there are some perhaps unexpected benefits for increasing ethical behaviour to 'being watched', and that those benefits are derived from the knowledge of possible surveillance more so than they are from any actually occurring surveillance. Moreover, the operation of programmes like Prism should be judged separately from the uses to which such programmes are put. The following is a defence of the tools and the techniques that we now know to be in use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the Telecommunications Interception Act 1979 (Cth), telecommunications data does not equate to private communications. Telecommunications data is viewed as the address on the envelope rather than the contents of a letter. As such, law enforcement and a range of Commonwealth, State and Territory government agencies can request and access such data from telecommunications and internet service providers without a warrant. However, recent media articles have revealed that the collection of telecommunications data by such agencies, in which authorisation for the disclosure of specified information is first required, has now progressed to a much larger scale through the technique of 'tower dumps'. This technique allows agencies to collect metadata generated from mobile phones on a mass scale by requesting telecommunication providers to provide all data collected at a particular mobile phone tower over a period of time a period of time. This article explores the issue of metadata collection from tower dumps to identify the warrant access requirements to such data and thus re-examines the complex balance between governmental law enforcement requirements and information privacy protections for individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on protection of stored electronic communications in New York State. Topics discussed include New York's eavesdropping law, the conflict between the plain language of New York's eavesdropping statute and the courts' interpretation of New York's eavesdropping statute, and the problems in New York's framework to government access to stored communications like text-messages and emails. It mentions the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) enacted by the U.S Congress.

As United States Federal Appeals Courts continue to hold that private citizens have a fundamental right, protected by the First Amendment, to record on-duty police officers, states must end their practice of charging these citizens with violating outdated wiretapping and eavesdropping laws. Advances in technology, particularly the proliferation of personal cell phones with audio and video recording capabilities, creates an urgency to reexamine these outdated laws. Laws that prohibit an individual's right to record, such as the United Kingdom's Counter Terrorism Act of 2008, go too far and will surely fail Constitutional scrutiny under recent Federal Appeals Court holdings. Moreover, any proposed legislation that seeks to strike a balance between the individual liberties espoused by the courts, and public safety and national security, ignores the fact that laws already exist which address these factors. Instead, Congress should amend Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 - the federal wiretapping law - to create an exception allowing for the recording of on-duty police officers carrying out their official duties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the surveillance in Russia with attention paid to the System of Operative-Investigative Measures (SORM). The author focuses on the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) which has the right to intercept phones and emails, and through the use of a system, called Semantic Archive, to monitor online social networks. Topics include the regional military alliance Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), measures against opposition, and banning of websites.

The article discusses intercepting and recording communications and the Federal Wiretap Act in the U.S. It mentions that the principle federal wiretapping statue was aimed at providing privacy protection for oral and wire communications. It concludes that it is almost always prohibited to record a phone call or private conversation to which one is not a party regardless of whether state or federal law governs the situation. INSET: Discussion.

The article discusses the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit's ruling in the 2012 case American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois v. Alvarez which deals with American constitutional law, the First Amendment to the nation's Constitution, and eavesdropping laws. The right to communicate in the U.S. is addressed, along with conversational privacy and the ACLU of Illinois' plan to monitor police misconduct by openly recording the actions of police officers.

The article discusses the balancing of an American citizen's right to use audio and video equipment to record the actions of police officers against the privacy rights of the officers as of February 2013, focusing on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, freedom of speech rights, and federal and state anti-wiretapping and anti-eavesdropping statutes. One-party and two-party consent statutes are examined, along with a reasonable expectation of privacy standard and open recording laws.

The study examines the issue of unlawful interceptions and audio or video recordings made during preliminary acts, i.e. prior to prosecution; this is a common problem the case law courts are often faced with. The conclusion that interceptions and carrying out audio or video recordings prior to the start of a criminal trial are unlawful is produced by the author based on the analysis of the Constitutional Court's jurisprudence on this matter and of power of res judicata accompanying the Constitutional Court's judgments which is attached not only to the operative part, but also to the considerations underpinning it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the Court of Appeals of the New York State in the case People v. Rabb, in which the Court affirmed the judgments against defendants Reginald Rabb and Steven Mason for their conviction of grand larceny and corruption against construction companies. It analyzes the whether the Court should have borrowed from the New York Criminal Procedure Law (CPL) 700 while following electronic eavesdropping procedures.

The article focuses the recording of police officers or law enforcement by individuals under the Illinois Eavesdropping Act. Topics include a police officer's expectation of privacy, the constitutionality of the Act, and the legislative intent of the Act. Information is provided on American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois and its challenge of the Eavesdropping Act.

The article assesses the ways in which the Supreme Court handles cases involving the use of new technologies under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It highlights the Court's decision in the Katz v. United States case which involves the use of an electronic bug to record a conversation. It also notes that the decision of the Court to consider bugging as intrusion of the expectation of privacy led to the need for a reasonable expectation of privacy in order to establish a search.

The article focuses on the impact of electronic interception to decisions and statutory laws in the U.S. It discloses the development of wiretapping law and defines several modern communication technologies including instant messaging (IM). It also discusses the description of Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and Stored Communications Act (SCA) and how both laws imply to the communications technology. Moreover, Charles Katz v. U.S. case underscores the features of right to privacy.

The article discusses political events in the U.S. and Zimbabwe that led to the development of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act of 2008 and the Interception of Communications Act (ICA) into law. In spite of the broad coverage of the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) signed into law by former U.S. President George W. Bush, the Department of Justice demanded for greater control to include international surveillance activity investigations. The constitutional and political structure of Zimbabwe is also outlined.

Presents an overview of federal and state eavesdropping and wiretapping statutes and cases in the context of matrimonial disputes in the U.S. Federal and state telephonic interception law; Exceptions to the rule of telephonic interception law; Cellular and cordless phone interception.

The article discusses the British court case Halford v. The United Kingdom wherein the home and office telephone calls of Alison Halford was allegedly intercepted by her employer to have information to use in her industrial tribunal claim. The European Court of Human Rights examined the claim under the Interception of Communications Act of 1985. The court reviewed the case and found out the employer violated the Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.