Recent Case: Joffe v. Google, Inc. - 127 Harv. L. Rev. 1855 (Apr. 18, 2014)

This is a Harvard Law Review "recent case" note about Joffe v. Google Inc., 746 F.3d 920 (9th Cir. 2013), aka the "Google Street View" case. Here's the link to the case note on the Harvard Law Review website, where you can find other examples of "recent case" articles that summarize and comment on noteworthy recent court cases.

You can read the Ninth Circuit's decision itself here [PDF], but it's a grueling read.

Bear in mind when reading this case note that it is not the court's opinion itself. You must take care to distinguish the descriptive portions of this reading from the prescriptive portions.

In the descriptive part, the author is describing what the Wiretap Act actually says and what the Ninth Circuit actually said and did in its ruling.

The prescriptive part talks about what the author believes the law should be and what courts should do. All the discussion about the "express prohibition test" that the author believes courts should use? That's prescriptive.

Understanding that this reading assignment is an outside observer's commentary, not the court's opinion, has proved confusing to non-law students in the past. And the commentary itself is pretty dense, if you're not used to reading legal academic writing. Trust me, however, when I say that it is still much easier than actually reading the opinion itself.