Wednesday, January 9, 2013
California Scout group recommends openly gay member for EagleThe Scouts’ central authority is unlikely to honor the recommendation because of their culture of fear and hate toward LGBTQ people. And the law may be on Boy Scouts of America’s side, at least for now, but history is not. Future …Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Seldo’s Tumblr: Another awesome US immigration experienceseldo: So a little over a month ago I finally got my green card. So for the first time in 7 years of living in the US and periodically leaving it to visit my family, I wasn’t terrified that my visa documents wouldn’t be in order and I’d …Saturday, January 5, 2013
CIA Comments on Zero Dark ThirtyDeborah Pearlstein of the law blog Opinio Juris shared the statement of Michael Morell, the Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, on the film Zero Dark Thirty, about the hunt for and capture of Osama Bin Laden. Its interesting that he would feel …Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Government can still warrantlessly read older emailsThis is unfortunate. There are processes in place that are designed to ensure the preservation of various constitutional rights. The warrant process is one of the most important, and for many people email is far more ubiquitous than other forms of …Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Federal Trade Commission to data brokers: Show us your dataJessica Guynn of the LA Times: The FTC wants to know what the brokers do with the information. It also wants to know if the data brokers let consumers review and correct their personal information or opt out from having their personal …Wednesday, November 28, 2012
NYPD subpoenas call logs of stolen cell phonesJoseph Goldstein, writing for the Times: Mr. Sussmann suggested that the Police Department could limit its subpoenas to phone calls beginning on the hour, not the day, of the theft, and ending as soon as the victim has transferred the number to a new …Wednesday, November 28, 2012
“Gay conversion” snake-oil salesmen taken to courtErik Eckholm, reporting for the New York Times: Referred to Jonah by a rabbi when he was 18, Mr. Levin began attending weekend retreats at $650 each. For a year and a half, he had weekly private sessions with Mr. Downing as well as …Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Grover Norquist on proposed update to Electronic Communications Privacy ActTwenty-plus years is a long time, and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is overdue for an update. A summary of the state of things: Unfortunately these digital documents lack long-held privacy safeguards. Email saved …Monday, November 19, 2012
Professor David Post on the Republican Study Committee’s prematurely-released-then-removed copyright critiqueDavid Post, writing at The Volokh Conspiracy: The Report proposes a series of rather radical — in the Jeffersonian sense — reforms, from dramatically shortening the copyright term (a …Friday, November 9, 2012
EFF’s pre-emptive prior art defense of 3D printingIt’s a great idea, and I hope it yields some useful results.Thursday, November 8, 2012
Judge blocks California’s new ban on anonymity for sex offenderThis one is worth watching. With regard to blogs and forums, particularly, there’s a strong analogy with letter-writing and other modes of communication with the “outside” that are typically allowed. The plaintiffs, two registered …Thursday, November 8, 2012
The Oxford Guide to Treaties: An Opinio Juris SymposiumIf international law interests you at all, particularly the role treaties play, you should click the link above this sentence. Professor Duncan Hollis edited The Oxford Guide to Treaties and is an expert on the topic. I’m currently in his …Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Marriage rights tide turns decisively against US bigotsI hope this is the beginning of an acceleration in the death of “traditional” marriage in the United States of America. Fear, ignorance, and religion are all equally insufficient and shameful excuses to deny universal marriage rights for one …Friday, November 2, 2012
A Map Of America’s 284 Drone Strikes Against PakistanCliff Kuang of Co.Design: Whatever your stance on drone killings, the fact remains that there’s been very little national dialogue on the topic. Indeed, some would say that’s a direct result of the main problem with the policy: Its complete lack …Thursday, November 1, 2012
Professor David Post: Copyright is meant to benefit the publicProfessor Post, writing at The Volokh Conspiracy about the brief he helped write in the Aereo case: copyright law does not exist for the benefit of authors; it uses the benefit granted to authors because that is a means to increase the …Thursday, October 25, 2012
Supreme Court Will Address Antitrust State Action ExemptionSteve Semeraro at the Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog: Government actors are charged with a duty to act in the public interest and thus can generally be trusted to restrain trade only when the public will benefit. Private actors, by …Monday, October 22, 2012
Amazon’s “phantom” 20% VAT for UK ebook salesIan Griffiths and Dan Milmo of The Guardian, quoting ” a contract seen by the Guardian,” presumably between Amazon and one of its UK publishing “partners”: If the base price exceeds the base price … provided to a similar service then … …Saturday, October 20, 2012
Online release of Boy Scouts’ ‘perversion files’ breaks decades of secrecyDespicable.Friday, October 19, 2012
Nebraska court strikes down restrictions on internet use for sex offenders on free speech groundsProfessor David Post of Temple Law served as an expert for the plaintiffs — yes, sex offenders — in this case. His focus, as he points out in his Volokh Conspiracy post, was on the overbroad nature of …Thursday, October 18, 2012
2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals: DOMA violates Equal ProtectionLarry Neumeister, for AP: The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its 2-to-1 ruling only weeks after hearing arguments on a lower court judge’s findings that the 1996 [“Defense of Marriage Act”] was unconstitutional. This is …Friday, October 12, 2012
Deli sues feds for refusing to trademark its ‘Philadelphia’s Cheesesteak’Michael Hinkelman, writing at the Philadelphia Daily News: Campo’s claims in its civil complaint that its sandwich is “so superlative” and “gloriously gluttonous” that only it could be called “Philadelphia’s …Thursday, October 11, 2012
Councilman Kenney Bashes Immigration LawsPhiladelphia Councilman James Kenney made the following comment at the Restaurant Industry Summit, quoted by Randy Lobasso at Philadelphia Weekly's PhillyNow blog: After 9/11, everyone became a ‘terrorist’—including that Mexican guy on a bike going from his …Thursday, October 11, 2012
Lawmakers blast advertisers for ignoring ‘Do Not Track’ on Microsoft’s ExplorerThe Digital Advertising Alliance, announcing they’ll ignore “do not track” browser headers: A ‘default on’ do-not-track mechanism offers consumers and businesses inconsistencies and confusion instead of …Wednesday, October 10, 2012
US Is Bleeding High-Skilled ImmigrantsGregory Ferenstein, writing at TechCrunch about Vivek Wadhwa’s latest research: Nearly a quarter (24.3 percent) of engineering and technology companies had at least one foreign-born founder; in Silicon Valley, it’s nearly half (43.9 percent). Nationwide, …Wednesday, September 26, 2012
USPTO Third Party Prior Art Submissions System - Now Live!This looks, on its face, like a good thing. I wonder (sincerely, not sarcastically) how patent attorneys feel about it.Saturday, September 22, 2012
Gamers confront copyright lawProfessor Greg Lastowka of Rutgers-Camden Law School, in a press release earlier this week about his current research: User-generated content can make a game very valuable, but developers have a legal obligation to look out for copyright infringement. I’m interested to …Friday, September 21, 2012
Justice Ginsburg SmileJustice Ginsburg isn’t allowed to say whether or not she would find equal protection arguments against the “Defense of Marriage” Act1 persuasive. But she’s allowed to smile. I, on the other hand, am allowed to tell you that DOMA is reprehensible and shameful, and every …Friday, September 21, 2012
Longread: Cameron Todd Willingham, Texas, and the death penaltyI usually like to include a quote from the longreads I share, but this story cannot be reduced to a single blockquote. Whether you support or oppose the death penalty, you should read this 2009 article by David Grann at The New Yorker. …Wednesday, September 19, 2012
David Hoffman on quotation approvalTwo days ago, I mentioned a piece by David Carr on quotation approval. This morning, I found that Professor David Hoffman, whose corporate law class I took at Temple Law, had posted his own thoughts at Concurring Opinions. Specifically, this part stuck out to me: …Friday, September 14, 2012
Twitter forced to turn over protester’s deleted tweetsMike Isaac, writing at All Things D: In the end, the New York DA and the judge used a legal maneuver to put pressure on Twitter, threatening to hold the company in contempt of court and levy steep fines if it didn’t hand over the data. …