They have done away with the nightmarish scenes from George Orwell’s 1984. They have done away with the unnerving language of insidious dangers around the corner. They have even done away with hypothetical scenarios involving round-the-clock surveillance of each other. The decision that the nine justices on the United States Supreme Court reached last week [...]

The oral argument in the case of U.S. v. Jones before the US Supreme Court started off with an odd imaginative exercise. Chief Justice Roberts asked the court to impose the allegedly unconstitutional actions of the police onto the justices of the Court, and mull over the implications of such an imposition. That is, Chief Justice [...]

“We trust that AT&T won’t take it too personally,” wrote Chief Justice Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) regarding the outcome of a case concerning corporate privacy rights. Flowing from a spate of privacy cases at SCOTUS (most notably, Snyder v. Phelps covered by fellow Contributing Editor, Alysia Lau here and our Amici Curiae [...]

In R. v. Gomboc, 2010 SCC 55, the Supreme Court of Canada was once again asked to consider the application of the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure under section 8 of the Charter. This case has been discussed at great length on this website. Early last month, I offered my thoughts on [...]

Originally argued in front of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) last fall to lively online and media debate, the recent decision of NASA v. Nelson (2011) 562 U.S. (pdf link) was released on January 19, 2011 to considerably less fanfare in the blogosphere. As discussed in my prior post about this case, [...]

Last September, I offered my thoughts on the Alberta Court of Appeal’s decision in R. v. Gomboc, 2009 ABCA 276, a case that dealt with the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure under section 8 of the Charter. At the time, the case had already been granted leave to appeal to the [...]

Two years ago, the Federal Appeals Court for the Ninth Circuit (the “Ninth Circuit”) in Nelson v. NASA, No. 07-56424 (9th Cir. 2008) (pdf link) decided a case that has re-opened constitutional debate about employees’ right to protect personal information – especially from the allegedly prying eyes of the government. At issue for the Ninth [...]

In May, the Supreme Court of Canada heard arguments in the case of R. v. Gomboc, an appeal that came to the Court by way of the Alberta Court of Appeal (2009 ABCA 276). The accused, Daniel James Gomboc, was convicted at trial of producing marijuana and possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking. [...]

Later this year, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the companion cases Kerr v. Baranow, 2009 BCCA 111 and Vanasse v. Seguin, 2009 ONCA 595. Both concern the rules for allocating spousal support between separated common law partners. While I do not expect the cases to add much beyond a gloss on an already robust line [...]

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada heard two appeals testing the constitutionality of s. 517 – the publication ban provision – of the Criminal Code. In both cases, the Court found that s. 517 infringed the guarantee of freedom of expression under the s. 2(b) of the Charter. Opinions differed, however, as to whether this infringement was [...]