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EFF’s warrantless wiretapping case dismissed
A federal judge has dismissed Jewel v. NSA, a case from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of AT&T customers challenging the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans’ phone calls and emails.
January 2010 / 1 min.
Applying the Fourth Amendment to data in the cloud
In a Note called Defogging the Cloud: Applying Fourth Amendment Principles to Evolving Privacy Expectations in Cloud Computing, David A. Couillard explores the potential applicability of the Fourth Amendment to data stored in offsite servers: spreadsheets in Google Docs, accounting data hosted on FreshBooks, and pretty much everything synced through DropBox, just to name three example services.
January 2010 / 3 min.
FBI “technically violated” wiretap laws for years
FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni said in an interview Monday that the FBI technically violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act when agents invoked nonexistent emergencies to collect records.
January 2010 / 1 min.
Should signing a petition be a confidential act?
The Supreme Court has accepted a new case on to its docket concerning the constitutionality of a Washington State law being used as the basis to publish the names of signers of a petition to restrict gay rights.
January 2010 / 4 min.
Google and the historian
Dan Cohen gave an interesting talk at the American Historical Association meeting recently, where he discussed the benefits Google brings to historical research, as well as some pointed criticisms.
January 2010 / 4 min.
How to write attributions for the Creative Commons licensed images you use on your blog
I’ve found that pictures shared under a Creative Commons (CC) license (of all flavors) are a great resource for bloggers who want artwork to accompany their posts. I’ve also realized that not everyone, myself included, has always done an adequate job of meeting the attribution requirements of CC licenses. To help remedy this, here are my recommendations for doing this properly in a blog.
January 2010 / 6 min.
Why can the TSA subpoena bloggers to get at their sources?
The TSA issued a directive aimed at instituting new security measures. After two bloggers published it, the TSA issued subpoenas that sought to compel them to reveal their sources. Why did the TSA think they could do this, and did they have the power to enforce their request?
January 2010 / 3 min.
A guide for non-lawyers researching legal problems
Cocky Law Blawg brings us this note: The Legal Information Services to the Public (LISP) Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) just completed its latest version of How to Research a Legal Problem: A Guide for Non-Lawyers. It’s available in PDF and Word formats from the LISP website.
December 2009 / 1 min.
Law school is harder than grad school
I’ve been debating this since I started a PhD program this fall. (I’m talking about the humanities and social sciences – I don’t know if this applies in other fields!) Granted, grad school is a huge amount of difficult and complex reading. Since it’s essentially professional training for academics, it also means learning a new working environment, a new kind of jargon, and a new bureaucracy. What it isn’t – and what law school is – is a whole new way of thinking about and approaching the world.
December 2009 / 2 min.
Why should we keep others from selling our work?
Techdirt discusses why you shouldn’t be concerned if someone “steals” your work and sells it, noting that “it’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
December 2009 / 2 min.