Two papers posted online that may be of interest to Lawmeme readers.
The first paper, by UCLA's Lynn Lopucki, is entitled "Did Privacy Cause Identity Theft?" An excerpt from the abstract:
This essay argues that the decline of public identities over the past three decades, combined with increasing secrecy in the process of identification, is the root cause of the burgeoning problem of identity theft. Identity theft is easy because impersonation increasingly takes place in private transactions that are invisible to the victim. . . . [The author distinguishes] between identification information (name and social security number) and personal information (information descriptive of the consumer or the consumer's circumstances). . . . The author would sever the link between the two kinds of information, make identification information--which is harmless--public, and allow consumers to use it to create public, thief-proof identities.
Get the paper here.
The second paper, by Chicago's Emily Buss, is entitled "The Speech Enhancing Effect of Internet Regulation." An excerpt from the abstract:
This article . . . suggests that certain speech-reducing regulations will, in fact, be speech-enhancing for children. This is because children are vulnerable to far greater censorship at the hands of their parents. Regulations that inspire parents to relax their grip on their children's access to information are likely to produce significant net speech gains for children.
Get the paper here. (Links via Legal Theory Blog.)