In $1992$, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. As a result of that case, a woman continues to have a right to an abortion before the fetus is viable (before the fetus could live independently outside the mother's womb). After fetal viability, however, states have increased power to restrict the availability of abortions. The state maintains the power to restrict some abortions because of its legitimate interests in protecting the health of the woman and the potential life of the fetus.

States can pass some laws that regulate abortion, but these laws cannot place a "substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion," the Court said in the Casey decision. However, the Court declined to define specifically what constitutes a substantial obstacle. This decision held that regulations were constitutional if they did not place an "undue burden" on obtaining an abortion. For example, the decision allowed a regulation that requires a woman to give "informed consent" at least $24$ hours before the planned abortion takes place.

Which of the following laws, if any, would place an undue burden on the right to obtain an abortion? Give reasons for each answer.

A state law requires that the father of the baby provide written consent before a woman is able to obtain an abortion.

For each of the following situations, decide what privacy rights or interests are in conflict and what arguments can be made for each side. Indicate whether you agree or disagree with the law or policy.

The government requires taxpayers to reveal the source of their income, even if it is from illegal activities.

Be sure you understand the use of functional notation by working. The Alan Guttmacher Institute provides a summary of the number and rate of abortions for the period 1992– 2000. Based on these data, the United States abortion rate (number of abortions per 1000 women) can be estimated by the linear function R(x)=-0.55x+25.3 where x is the year since 1992 and R(x) is the abortion rate. (a) Based on this function, is the rate increasing or decreasing? (b) Find the estimated abortion rate for 2005 and for 2010. (c) Estimate when the abortion rate will be 10.

In $2001$ a police department distributed pagers to its SWAT officers. The officers were told that they were for official use and that only light personal use would be tolerated. After an officer exceeded the monthly texting limit of the pagers, the department requested a log of the texts to see if they needed to increase their text limit. In reviewing the log, they found many sexually explicit texts and very few work-related texts and disciplined the officer. The officer then sued the city for violating his Fourth Amendment rights.

Does it matter, for the purposes of determining whether the search was reasonable, that the police department reviewed the texts in order to determine whether they needed to upgrade their texting limits ? Explain.

In $2001$ a police department distributed pagers to its SWAT officers. The officers were told that they were for official use and that only light personal use would be tolerated. After an officer exceeded the monthly texting limit of the pagers, the department requested a log of the texts to see if they needed to increase their text limit. In reviewing the log, they found many sexually explicit texts and very few work-related texts and disciplined the officer. The officer then sued the city for violating his Fourth Amendment rights.

Did the officer have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the texts that he sent on his work pager ? Explain.

In $2001$ a police department distributed pagers to its SWAT officers. The officers were told that they were for official use and that only light personal use would be tolerated. After an officer exceeded the monthly texting limit of the pagers, the department requested a log of the texts to see if they needed to increase their text limit. In reviewing the log, they found many sexually explicit texts and very few work-related texts and disciplined the officer. The officer then sued the city for violating his Fourth Amendment rights.

The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. What was the alleged search or seizure in this case ?

In what ways, if any, do you see new technologies interfering with the privacy interests of individuals ? Is there a need for legislative or judicial action to provide greater protection of privacy ? Explain.

Podunk Institute of Technology’s Math Department offers two courses: Finite Math and Applied Calculus. Each section of Finite Math has 60 students, and each section of Applied Calculus has 50. The department is allowed to offer a total of up to 110 sections. Furthermore, no more than 6,000 students want to take a math course. (No student will take more than one math course.) Draw the feasible region that shows the number of sections of each class that can be offered. Find the corner points of the region.

A married male state senator running for governor had a reputation for dating women in the state's capital city. The candidate's wife and two children lived in their hometown about $200$ miles from the state capital. The members of the press who traveled with the senator on campaign trips noticed that his wife seldom came along and that he often dined late at night with one particular woman. The press decided to investigate further and discovered this woman leaving the candidate's hotel room one morning.

Some states have laws requiring that a political candidate reveal the source and amount of all campaign contributions. Do these laws violate the privacy rights of the contributors?

The mentioned exercise gives the lengths of two bones in five fossil specimens of the extinct beast Archaeopteryx:

Duplicate the steps in the Technology Toolbox below to obtain the correlation for the Archaeopteryx data, and compare your result with that calculated by hand in the previous part.

Let G be a Golden Rectangle having base b and height h, and let G' be the smaller Golden Rectangle made by removing the largest square possible from G. Compute the ratio of the area of G to the area of G'. That is, compute Area(G)/Area(G'). Does your answer really depend on b and h (the original size of G)? Are you surprised by your answer?

A married male state senator running for governor had a reputation for dating women in the state's capital city. The candidate's wife and two children lived in their hometown about $200$ miles from the state capital. The members of the press who traveled with the senator on campaign trips noticed that his wife seldom came along and that he often dined late at night with one particular woman. The press decided to investigate further and discovered this woman leaving the candidate's hotel room one morning.

Suppose a reporter also had information that the candidate used cocaine at a social gathering. Would you analyze his privacy rights differently in this situation? Explain your reasons.

The Owasso School District in Oklahoma does not have a formal policy telling teachers how student work is to be graded. Some teachers grade all assignments themselves, while others have students grade some of their own papers after the answers are provided. Still others use peer grading from time to time. This means that students exchange papers and grade each other's work from answers provided.

Mrs. Falvo has four children in the school system. She believes that peer grading humiliates her children and is a violation of their right to privacy under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of $1974$ (FERPA). The school system believes that peer grading provides immediate feedback to students and avoids the problem of`students cheating when they grade their own papers. The school system also contends that peer grading is done for the individual teacher and not for the school system, which does not maintain these educational records (i.e., grades for specific assignments during a semester). Mrs. Falvo wins her case in the lower courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to review the case in order to decide how FERPA applies to peer grading.

How should this case be decided ? Explain.

In the 75th Congress (1937-1939) there were in the Senate 75 Democrats, 17 Republicans, and 4 members of other parties. Suppose that a bill passed the Senate with 16 more votes in favor than against, with three times as many Democrats voting in favor as non-Democrats voting in favor, and 32 more Democrats voting in favor than Republicans voting in favor. If every member voted either for the bill or against it, how many Democrats, how many Republicans, and how many members of other parties voted in favor of the bill?