Information Society Project

Information Society Project at Yale Law School

File:Isp-logo.png Information Society Project at Yale Law School
Formation	1997
Type	Technology research center
Location	Yale Law School, New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Website	isp.yale.edu

The Information Society Project (ISP) at Yale Law School is an intellectual center studying the implications of the Internet and new information technologies for law and society. The ISP was founded in 1997 by Jack Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School.

The Yale ISP faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, and law school student fellows engage in research, education, and social activism geared toward promoting global access to knowledge, advocating democratic values in the information society, and protecting and expanding civil liberties in the Information Age. The research center has contributed to the development of the Access to Knowledge social movement, which aims to build an intellectual framework that will protect access to knowledge both as the basis for sustainable human development and to safeguard human rights. ISP-led courses, projects, a weekly speaker series, and workshops integrate Yale law students into the exploration of new problems in collaboration with departments across the Yale campus. The ISP also provides advice and education to policy makers, business leaders, nonprofit organizations, and the global legal community. International conferences organized by the ISP have addressed topics like Access to Knowledge, Cybercrime, Library 2.0 Symposium, Open ICT Standards, Globalization and Information Flow, and Search Engine Law.

Valerie Belair-Gagnon is the Executive Director of the ISP. Faculty Fellows have included: Yochai Benkler, Professor of Law; Ian Ayres, William K. Townsend Professor of Law; Robert Post (law professor), David, Boies Professor of Law; Carol Rose, Gordon Bradford Tweedy, Professor of Law and Organization; and Henry Smith, Professor of Law. Fellows have included: Laura DeNardis, Beth Simone Noveck, Mike Godwin, Wendy Seltzer, Peter Suber, and Michael Zimmer.

The official Twitter handle is @yaleisp.

History and mission

The ISP has grown considerably since its founding by Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin in 1997. The ISP celebrated its 15th year in 2012. It now hosts a number of initiatives, including the Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression, the Knight Law and Media Program, and the Thomson Reuters Initiative on Law and Technology. The center is housed at the fourth floor of 40 Ashmun Street in New Haven, where fellows from around the globe come to pursue research and produce significant scholarship.

Members of the ISP teach, write books, scientific articles, blog. The Yale ISP faculty and fellows have also conducted major public policy reviews of pressing issues. The ISP host the Abrams Institute for the Freedom of Expression and the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic working on government transparency, access rights, national security, as well as privacy and free speech.

Projects and initiatives

Access to Knowledge

A series of books have been published as part of the A2K initiative. Some of these books include Access to Knowledge in India: New Research on Intellectual Property edited by Ramesh Subramarian and Lea Shaver, and Access to Knowledge in Brazil: New Research on Intellectual Property edited by Lea Shaver.

Floyd Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression

The Institute's mission is both practical and scholarly. It includes a clinic for Yale Law students to engage in litigation, draft model legislation, and advise lawmakers and policy makers on issues of media freedom and informational access. It promotes scholarship and law reform on emerging questions concerning both traditional and new media. The Institute also holds scholarly conferences and events at Yale on First Amendment issues and on related issues of access to information, Internet and media law, telecommunications, privacy, and intellectual property. The Abrams Institute fellow for 2014-2015 is Jonathan Manes.

The Abrams Institute is a Partnering Organization in Free Speech Week, a yearly non-partisan week-long celebration of Freedom of Speech and Expression.

Knight Law and Media Program

The program includes courses related to law and media; writing workshops; speakers, conferences and events; and career counseling and support for summer internships. The Program’s director is Professor Jack Balkin. The Law School received a grant from John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to support many of these efforts through the Knight Law and Media Scholars Program.

Foreign Affairs in the Internet Age

The initiative studies the ways that foreign policy affects Internet governance, and the ways that the Internet has changed how foreign policy is conducted. It represents a collaboration between the Information Society Project (ISP) and scholars of international law and politics at Yale Law School.

Yale Faculty Jack Balkin, David Grewal, Oona Hathaway, and Amy Kapczynski lead this initiative. FAIA works collaboratively with Yale Law students. It has co-sponsored events with the Yale Law National Security Group and the Yale Journal of Law and Technology.

Thomson Reuters Initiative on Law and Technology

The Thomson Reuters Initiative on Law and Technology supports ISP's "ideas" lunches, and the Thomson Reuters ISP Speaker Series on Information Law and Information Policy. In 2014, the Yale Law School Information Society Project hosted a conference on Innovation Law Beyond IP. List of attendees included [[Mark Lemley, [[Amy Kapczynski, [[Yochai Benkler, Lisa Larrimore Ouellette, John Golden, Hannah Wiseman, Rebecca Eisenberg, Michael Abramowicz, Sean Pager, Jessica Silbey, Pamela Samuelson, Barton Beebe, Ian Ayres, Brett Frischmann, Mark McKenna, Bryan Choi, Frank Pasquale, Tal Zarsky, Julie Cohen, Margot Kaminski, Michael Burstein, Bhaven Sampat, Brian Wright, Jonathan Masur, Dan Burk, Liza Vertinsky, Roger Ford, Sean O’Connor, Jim Bessen, Talha Syed, Arti Rai, Orly Lobel, Mario Biagioli, Rochelle Dreyfuss, Ann Bartow, Kiel Brennan-Marquez, Nicholson Price, David Grewal, and Jack Balkin.

Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice

The ISP’s Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice (PSRJ) serves as a national center for academic research and development of new ideas to promote justice with respect to reproductive health issues, provide a supportive environment for young scholars interested in academic or advocacy careers focusing on reproductive rights and justice issues; and provide opportunities for communication between the academic and advocacy communities. Pricilla Smith is the program director of PSRJ.

Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic

The Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic (MFIA) is dedicated to increasing government transparency, defending the essential work of news gatherers, and protecting freedom of expression through impact litigation, direct legal services, and policy work.

File:FOIA 2013.png

FOIA Boot Camp 2013

The clinic was established in 2009 by a group of Yale Law School students and, since then, has provided pro bono representation to clients on a diverse array of matters touching on issues of transparency, free speech, and press freedom. Clients include independent journalists, news organizations, public interest as well as advocacy organizations, activists, and researchers. The practice is focused in the state and federal courts of Connecticut and New York, although the clinic has represented clients in many other parts of the country as well.

The clinic is co-taught by Jack Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment; David Schulz, Abrams Visiting Clinical Lecturer at Yale Law School and Partner at Levine, Sullivan, Koch & Schulz LLP; and Jonathan Manes, Abrams Clinical Fellow and Clinical Lecturer in Law. Schulz and Manes serve as supervising attorneys on the clinic’s cases.

Every year, the clinic hosts a FOIA bootcamp.

MFIA is part of the Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression, which is affiliated with and administered by the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.

Visual Law Project

The Yale Visual Law Project produces short documentary films on legal issues to advance public debate. Films include:

File:482682570 295x166.jpg

The Worst of the Worst

The Worst of the Worst (2012) A hard-hitting portrait of Connecticut's Supermax prison, where inmates and CO's grapple with extreme isolation.

Alienation (2011) “Alienation” follows the story of two families swept up in the 2007 raid and examines current controversies in immigration law and policy in the United States.

Stigma (2011) “Stigma” explores the dynamic between the community and the police through the eyes of three people who grew up on the streets of New York City.

Members

Fellows include or have included Colin Agur, BJ Ard, Rebecca Crootof, Lauren Henry, Kate Klonick, Gabriel J. Michael, Irin Carmon, William New, Dayo Olopade, Rebecca Wexler, Esteve Sanz, Pranesh Prakash, Dan Kreiss, CW Anderson, Wendy Seltzer, Michael Zimmer, Margot E. Kaminski, and Laura DeNardis.

Faculty include Jack Balkin, Emily Bazelon, Linda Greenhouse, David Singh Grewal, Oona Hathaway, Amy Kapczynski, Robert C. Post, David Schulz, and Reva Siegel.

The center also has active groups of affiliates and alumni who host and participate in their projects each year.

See also

• Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School
• Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at Boalt Hall
• Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa
• Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University
• Information Law Institute at New York University School of Law

External links

• Information Society Project website
• Yale Law School