This summer, Lisa Bei Li, JD '18, worked on a special pro bono project at Cooley LLP, where she spent her summer as a corporate summer associate. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) engaged Cooley on a number of different issues, and the firm asked its summer associates to research specific prompts at the ADL's request. Ms. Li chose to write a paper on online harassment, doxing, and swatting. She spoke about the piece, which was included in two top ten lists on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN).
These two common online harassment practices—doxing and swatting—caught Ms. Li's attention after encountering numerous news articles on the consequences of these trends. Doxing is the Internet-based practice of researching and broadcasting private or identifiable information, especially personally identifiable information, about an individual or organization. Swatting involves a person making a fake report of a bomb or shooter at a victim's address, hoping to draw law enforcement officers, such as a SWAT team, to that victim's house. A New York Times article said, "the FBI has estimated that about 400 cases of swatting occur nationwide every year."
Ms. Li's paper, "Data Privacy in the Cyber Age: Recommendations for Regulating Doxing and Swatting," discusses the problems of this unique conduct that relates to and results from online harassment. She analyzed existing laws that regulate such conduct and explains the inadequacy of those laws. Ms. Li then presented various recommendations for amendments to existing federal statutes that would likely result in better regulation of doxing and swatting.
According to Ms. Li, three federal statutes are relevant to the problem, and the statutes relate to data protection: the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act; Stored Communications Act; and the Communications Decency Act. "These are old and have loopholes for internet service providers [ISPs], making them not liable for the information that they host and that they are in control of managing," she explained. "And so, my argument is essentially for the ISPs to have more liability under the law so that they are forced to regulate data use." Ms. Li shared that if this data can be stopped from being easily accessed, then that can stop the extent of harassment and how it is carried out. "It starts off with speech, but the harm really comes from how the data is used," she said. The second alternative that she mentioned in her paper would be to enact specific laws that deal with doxing and swatting activity itself.
Last month, Ms. Li decided to share her work on SSRN in order to further promote her piece outside of Cooley. After a few short weeks, Ms. Li received the news that her paper was included on SSRN's Top Ten download list for: Cyberspace Law - Student Authors eJournal and ISN: Emerging Legal Issues (Topic). "I did not plan to share any of my works on SSRN or anywhere else," she said. "But after thinking about it, I thought, why shouldn't I promote my work?" Ms. Li said she hopes her story inspires students to do the same.
"For students who are interested in sharing their work, this may not always have to mean publishing with a journal through an intensive peer-reviewed process, but it may include putting your work up on SSRN," Ms. Li said. "The internet itself can work wonders, and you never know who may read your piece and have something to say about it. And, that's the point, to generate conversation and add to scholarly discourse in your field."
Ms. Li has since shared that she submitted this paper for the Privacy Papers for Policymakers Student Award for this year's upcoming Future of Privacy Forum. She also shared with GW Law that one of her other works will be published in the coming months. Ms. Li has accepted an offer from Pepperdine to have her Note on appraisal arbitrage published in Volume 11, Issue 1, of the Pepperdine Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law (JBEL).