Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Employee Manuals Need Spring Cleaning Thanks to the NLRB Jason Shinn, writing at Michigan Employment Law Advisor: But this is where employers really need to be concerned: The distinction between what is permissible and what is not is somewhat anemic to begin with, and if your company’s policies are …Friday, March 20, 2015
Tesla will enable automated freeway driving this summer Chris Taylor reporting at Mashable: So to recap: Tesla cars will start self-driving this summer, on freeways at least. (It seems likely that once we've gotten used to that notion, autopilot for the full ride will be unlocked.) Google could …Wednesday, March 11, 2015
The Night His Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who He Was An anonymous author writes at Vice.com: 'This is perfectly normal,' I thought, as she scrolled through her phone looking for George's name. 'I'm just a guy, standing here, getting my girlfriend's ex to vouch for my existence.' Her first …Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Petraeus reaches plea deal with Justice Department Kevin Johnson and Tom Vanden Brook, reporting for USA Today: The explosive details in the agreement show that Petraeus lied to investigators, divulged a massive amount of sensitive data to Paula Broadwell and worried about how she handled them in …Friday, February 27, 2015
Goodbye Leonard Nimoy Krishnadev Calamur, reporting at NPR: Actor Leonard Nimoy, best known for his role as Mr. Spock, the logical half-Vulcan, half-human in the original Star Trek series and several movies, has died at his home in Los Angeles, his granddaughter, Madeleine, told NPR. Nimoy was 83. …Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Snapchat selfie gets teen arrested on murder chargeJill Daly, reporting at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: On Thursday, a woman told police her son had a copy of a Snapchat photo sent from the accused. Jeannette Sgt. Donald Johnston saw the photo, depicting the wounded victim in the chair as found by …Monday, February 9, 2015
Gay marriage begins in AlabamaJustices Thomas and Scalia were none too pleased that their colleagues refused to continue a stay on same-sex marriages in Alabama pending the Court’s resolution of the issue later this year: Yet rather than treat like applicants alike, the Court looks the other way as …Friday, February 6, 2015
How the DMCA criminalized DIY farm equipment repairKyle Wiens, writing at Wired: Manufacturers have every legal right to put a password or an encryption over the tECU. Owners, on the other hand, don’t have the legal right to break the digital lock over their own equipment. The Digital Millennium …Thursday, February 5, 2015
Innocent until convinced otherwiseSusan Perry, reporting at MinnPost.com on a study led by psychologist Julia Shaw of the University of Bedminstershire and published in the journal Psychological Science: The results were stunning (so stunning that the researchers stopped the study after …Tuesday, February 3, 2015
The Guardian explains ‘three-parent’ babiesIan Sample has a clear, concise explainer over at The Guardian about the procedure, passed by British MPs today, that would allow replacement of faulty maternal DNA with third-party female mitochondria. One of the primary legal issues raised by the vote is …Sunday, February 1, 2015
The science of smarter teamsThis is a fascinating article about what characteristics distinguish smarter teams from less effective teams. I’m a big fan of thinking about the bigger picture of emerging research like this. Think about how it applies, and how to apply it to improve, newsrooms, law firm …Friday, January 30, 2015
Aol dials up the stupid with 150 editorial layoffsBrianna Royce, Editor in Chief of Massively, the MMORPG arm of popular gaming blog Joystiq, which is also going away, talking about Aol Corporate’s most recent stupidity: I would like to be able to tell you truthfully that this is an equitable and …Friday, January 30, 2015
EFF Wins Battle Over Secret Legal Opinions on Government SpyingThe EFF said in a press release yesterday: The U.S. Department of Justice today filed a motion to dismiss its appeal of a ruling over legal opinions about Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the controversial provision of law relied on by …Friday, January 23, 2015
Federal judge strikes down gay-marriage ban in AlabamaI’ll just leave this right here…Wednesday, January 14, 2015
South Dakota same-sex marriage ban fallsI’ve probably used this line before, but I can’t help myself… Another one bites the dust.Monday, January 12, 2015
A Reminder To Ditch The Disclaimer This Tax SeasonKelly Phillips Erb, writing at Forbes: According to the final Regs, “the rules in the final regulations are intended to eliminate the need for unnecessary disclaimers.” In other words, the IRS gave a nod to how crazy things had become, noting, …Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Join the bone marrow registryDrew Olanoff (@drew) is facing cancer for the second time. He is fighting it in public again, this time to bring greater awareness to the bone marrow registry. Go sign up for a free registration kit. I did. It only took me ten minutes. I did it on my iPhone. Skip your …Monday, January 5, 2015
Google Calendars as a timekeeping toolKeri Mahoney of Law Technology Today writes about using Google Calendar to track and bill for attorney time, but this is a clever technique for anyone who needs to track time. Alternatively, Toggl is great for basic time tracking and Harvest is even better if …Friday, January 2, 2015
Message scanning lawsuit against Facebook won’t go awayJohn Timmer reports at Ars Technica: The court responded to this request by pursuing an extraordinarily rare course of action: it read Facebook’s entire terms of service. And, in this case, their vague language—typically used to provide …Wednesday, December 31, 2014
What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2015? Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain: Current US law extends copyright for 70 years after the date of the author’s death, and corporate “works-for-hire” are copyrighted for 95 years after publication. But prior to the …Friday, December 19, 2014
Treatment of Transgender Employment Discrimination Claims Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 It’s about damn time. According to a DOJ press release: Attorney General Holder announced today that the Department of Justice will take the position in litigation that the protection of Title …Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Employees sue Sony over email leaksSaba Hamedy and Meg James, at the LA Times: Hackers began releasing sensitive data after the studio’s security breach became public on Nov. 24. The group, calling itself Guardians of Peace, has released data including thousands of pages of emails from studio …Monday, December 15, 2014
The ethics of reporting on the Sony hackEmily Yoshida (@emilyyoshida), entertainment editor at The Verge, one of my favorite tech news sites, on the publication’s ongoing and deep contemplation of the ethics of reporting on unethically leaked information: The contents of the leak are already …Wednesday, December 10, 2014
HBO without cable confirmed for April 2015Finally, although HBO’s decision to use MLB Advanced Media instead of HBO’s own streaming tech prompted CTO and former Xbox executive Otto Berkes to resign.Friday, December 5, 2014
Tim Cook will lend his name to Alabama LGBTQ billApple initially expressed corporate reluctance, but Apple General Counsel Bruce Sewell later told Pamela Todd, Alabama’s only openly gay lawmaker, that CEO Tim Cook “would be delighted” to have a bill named after him which would protect LGBTQ Alabama …Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Searching Google ScholarI’m trying to post fewer links, which means I’ve been posting less frequently in general. I’m working on some articles, but until they’re ready to publish I’ll still share the occasional link. This one is a great article from the American Bar Association’s Law Technology …Friday, November 21, 2014
Serial podcast presents novel collision of law and technologyThe incredible true crime podcast Serial presents a novel collision between technology and the law. This time, it’s not that technology plays or should play a particular part in the case itself, but that a podcast has shed light on a cold …Friday, November 14, 2014
Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy ProgramDevlin Barrett reports at The Wall Street Journal: The program cuts out phone companies as an intermediary in searching for suspects. Rather than asking a company for cell-tower information to help locate a suspect, which law enforcement has …Thursday, November 13, 2014
Warrantless seizure of child pornography evidence fatal to prosecution’s caseThe Michigan Court of Appeals issued an opinion on November 6, 2014 affirming a lower court’s decision excluding evidence recovered from Maximilian Paul Gingrich’s (“Defendant”) laptop computer in a child pornography …Wednesday, October 22, 2014
SCOTUS Servo tracks and announces changes to Supreme Court opinionsGitHub is where most software developers maintain their projects. It provides version control, issue tracking and much more to its users. I even have a few repositories of my own. SCOTUS Servo is developed by V. David Zvenyach, a …