Peer Reviewed Journals

Hello Everyone!
This week was, how shall we say, a bit more productive research-wise. While my search was somewhat more direct and focused this week, I believe I actually found more articles of use to my research topic. There were certainly more relevant articles as opposed to books. I was little surprised by that this time around through the academic literature. This was not my first time going through that part of the library.

In my psychology class last term, many of the weekly posts were about doing some research on the question of the week. This was directed from the reading that week so the topic or an aspect of the mental disorder would nee to be researched in the library. Our restriction was that most sources had to be from an academic journal or other reliable source. Having the library handy for research was really quite convenient. Even if it was somewhat arduous in getting started using the proper database psychology research. It was also quite useful last term when I did a research paper for the same class.

This time finding articles in the academic journals has been a good deal easier as there isn't as limited a scope as there was previously. While most of the journals I have found to be mostly law review sorts of publications, there have been a couple of more social science or history related journals that have had some quite useful material.

Something I found quite revelatory in the reading of this selection of articles was more nuanced arguments for the different ways of interpreting the Constitution as far as what rights are actually granted by it specifically and inferred. On one hand, you have the historical and traditional aspect that reasons along the line of what id actually written, e.g. free speech, etc. and the justices are disinclined to expand beyond those. On the other, you have the more liberal justices that take the approach that rights are inherent to people and what makes them feel as their own person. It's termed the 'personhood' doctrine. I found that that concept has been quite instrumental in a number of rulings. The most important one is probably Roe vs. Wade.

Deeper Understandings

It was an interesting week of research for me. I decided to continue my path of correlating the law and constitution to actual cases that have been heard about privacy issues. But the difference was in which laws. I decided examine all amendments cited in constitution cases not just the three I'm primarily concerned with. I did this to get an overall basis as to what constitutes privacy as embodied by the case law. From there I can make inferences to the specifics of my direction. Secondly, I went for the more practical approach to how privacy issues are being dealt with in the modern society with the instant communication on cell phones and the various social media outlets.

Surprisingly, there have been many privacy issues raised throughout case law. But, I found that the more over riding angle from about 1967 and Katz vs. United States is concept of 'reasonable expectation'. For example if you are doing something in your home, you could expect that what you do there is private. Doing the same thing on a public street corner, you do not have that expectation. This fundamental concept will be central to much of what I examine from here on out.

In the more modern sense of what currents and trends that I looked at, in contrasts nicely with the 'reasonable expectation', in that much of what information is shared is done so voluntarily. Or so it would seem. In legal circles it is referred to as 'terms of use'. Almost no one reads those when using Facebook, for example. In it there is an explicit consent that whatever you do there will be tracked. The same goes with your cable box by the cable company. They will track what you watch. This is all done in the interest of having you see what's more relevant to you. But, that info is stored, probably forever, so that your cumulative viewing habits always looked at to give you what you might want to watch. My next step is to look at how that could be used to do other things, predict other behavior or match it to psychological profiles....

Guided Research Understanding

I am researching for a research paper for my other class HIST 358 - U.S. History and Democracy. The topic for that paper is the right to privacy under the 5th, 9th, and 14th Amendments. As I'm looking at constitutional history and the decisions and reasons for why it exists as it does, I'm looking for the source material of the Founding Fathers that wrote the actual document. I'm also looking at the issue of privacy has been looked at in a legal context in the modern era. To that end, I'm looking at important decisions from the Supreme Court that have applied or interpreted the principles of the Constitution to modern questions and problems.

For an original source document, I choose one written by one of the Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, wherein he argues for the ratification of the Constitution in his home state of New York, the Federalist Papers. Specifically, I choose #84 as it concerns whether or not to include a bill of rights in the Constitution as my research concerns those particular amendments. The Federalists arguments were not to include one as is expressed in this essay.

As for an actual case or application, one of the more famous is a ruling in the case of JOHN GEDDES LAWRENCE AND TYRON GARNER, V. STATE OF TEXAS. That particular case is quite famous as it stated that citizens have a right to privacy not only in their own homes but to relationships that adults will have when making decisions on all aspects in their relationships. As a summary, it struck down Texas' anti-sodomy law that, at that time, only applied to a same sex relationship. The source I found for this was the state's briefs and arguments submitted to the Supreme Court to uphold a lower courts ruling that the law was constitutional.

I was quite enlightened by the symmetry in what these sources contained. The arguments presented by Alexander Hamilton expressed the Federalists views that including a bill of rights and what rights the enumerated, could lead to assumptions about other rights not so enumerated. By way of example he uses the proposed proclamation of the freedom of the press. Why is it necessary to claim that it shall not be infringed when the Constitution does not give the government the power to restrict it anyway? Hamilton argues further that such an expression of right is actually dangerous for it could be implied that because the right was enumerated  that it is possible that other rights might be governed or restricted as the national government has that power.

It is in fact this same argument that the State of Texas uses when advancing that their anti-sodomy law doesn't violate the constitution as there is no specific right granted for people to engage in sodomy. Also, there is no other provision that precludes that people in question have ever had that right as it had never been enumerated such as the right to free speech. So, the brief filed by the state of Texas actually was the fears of the Federalists realized in the state of Texas felt it was in the governments power to regulate a private relationship. 

Welcome To a Small Corner of the Internet

Hello!
I'm Charles McCall. While this is my second semester here at Brandman University, I am no stranger to college having earned my A. A. in Social Science of 20 years ago. It is no wonder that that is appropriate as my major here at Brandman is also Social Science, but with an emphasis in history. After I have earned my bachelors I intend to get my single subject teaching credential in history and even, perhaps, take it as far as earning my masters in history or even further than that should I desire as I also believe I'd like to teach some college classes one day.

I'm new to the Modesto / Central Valley area, having moved here from Reno to be here with my partner, Michele, as she and I begin a new life together. We are discovering many things together, and it was her that led me to Brandman being a Chapman alum herself. I owe her for more than just pointing Brandman out, but for the unwavering support she continues to shower me with as I continue this educational journey. I look forward to getting into the upper division work that awaits me.

A large part of that upper division work are research papers. Something which I discovered after looking through the other class I have this term, History 358. It has a signature assignment of a research paper with some very specific requirements. It's purpose is to not only have you research out your particular topic, but to get use to doing meaningful, good quality research on the topic in addition to being being able to successfully synthesize it into an original work. I find that something of a tall order in comparison to the level of papers and research I have to do in my college career up to this point. It is definitely a challenge I am up for. Even more so with this information literacy course as my second course this term.

Many of the core concepts of the Framework for Information Literacy are going to come into play in this research paper. There a couple of the concepts I am going to have to improve upon, both in this class and for the paper. I think chief among them for this particular assignment is going to be the search as strategic exploration. One of the passages in the text book I found as I was initially perusing it was to be ruthless. To me that means, get to the root of whatever source you have and find whether it not it meets your purpose as quickly as possible and if not, discard it.

Another example is going to be the authority of a particular source. A requirement for the paper is the review of not only the information I discover and it's veracity but also quality of it's source. Whether it is someone quite active and authoritative in their particular field and what their sources might be. Has the author written on the topic before or do they have personal experience with the topic.

For me, the whole being able to do quality research is directly related to my chosen path of teacher and historian. For a more specific answer, though, the concepts of research as inquiry and scholarship as conversation are quite important to me. The conversations that are possible from so many historical subjects are intriguing to say the least. One of my particular passions is Dark Age history and it is an area where a lot of specifics aren't very well known. Primarily as there very few primary sources and much of the information known is somewhat speculative and based only on physical evidence and whatever social constructs, such as mythology and specific social customs exist. To be part of that conversion is very exciting indeed.