Cultivated Compendium is my personal website with the occasional link to my reporting and to important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news.
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January 10th, 2015
Connecticut and Georgia legislators are mulling drone legislation, The Plainville Citizen's Eric Vo and 13WMAZ 's Lorra Lynch Jones reports.
In Connecticut, "in December, the Program Review and Investigations Committee recommended limiting drone use for law enforcement in the absence of reasonable suspicion of criminal activity or a search warrant. The panel also recommended prohibiting remote operation of weapons including... Continue Reading
January 10th, 2015
The controversy of the Keystone XL oil pipeline project is now in the hands of President Barack Obama after a Nebraska Supreme Court ruling on Friday, which threw out a legal challenge to the pipeline, the Associated Press' Josh Lederman reports. The Congressional Republicans also have kicked the project over to the president with the House having passed and the Senate close to passing legislation to authorize construction of the... Continue Reading
January 10th, 2015
Same-sex marriage bans in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi got a cool reception during oral arguments before the 5th Circuit yesterday, Bloomberg's Daniel Lawton and Andrew Harris reports. A Louisiana judge upheld that state's ban, while Texas and Mississippi judges rejected bans on same-sex marriage in their states. Having listened to a recording of the arguments involving Louisiana so far, the judges indeed were very skeptical... Continue Reading
January 8th, 2015
According to a report in iHealthBeat, the Food and Drug Administration is going to expand a pilot that is using electronic health records, as well as claims data, to monitor the safety of medical devices the agency regulates: "Specifically, FDA said the [Mini-Sentinel] system can examine: More than 350 million person years of observation; Four billion pharmaceutical dispensings; and 4.1 billion patient meetings."... Continue Reading
January 8th, 2015
Judy Dempsey, writing for Carnegie Europe, argues that, in the wake of a dozen people being killed at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, European governments should be encouraged "to protect press freedom and other civil liberties, not restrict them.": "Freedom of the press is inextricably tied to universal values and is not an exclusively Western liberty. To curb that freedom now, and for anti-Islam movements at... Continue Reading
January 8th, 2015
Gallup's Jenna Levy reports that "the uninsured rate has dropped 4.2 percentage points since the Affordable Care Act's requirement for Americans to have health insurance went into effect one year ago." Levy also reports that the uninsured rate among "blacks dropped seven points over the past year, while the rate among Americans earning less than $36,000 in annual household income dropped 6.9 points." Overall, Gallup... Continue Reading
January 8th, 2015
Vietnam has abolished its ban on same-sex marriage, Bloomberg's John Boudreau and Nguyen Dieu Tu Uyen reports: "The revised law, while not officially recognizing same-sex marriage, places the communist country at the forefront of countries in Asia becoming more accepting of gay people." The government won't recognize the marriages or provide legal protections like divorce or rules on splitting up assets upon death. Phil... Continue Reading
January 7th, 2015
Edith Ramirez, chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission, speaking at the International CES tech event, said that privacy by design should be incorporated into products, including to ensure data security for homes outfitted with smart devices, the New York Times reports: "Ramirez seemed to be directing her remarks at the start-ups that are making most of the products — like fitness trackers and glucose monitors — driving... Continue Reading
January 7th, 2015
After the Portland Press Herald defied a gag order, a judge presiding over a domestic assault case involving an attorney retracted the order, the newspaper's Scott Dolan reports: "'It is certainly very clear to me that this particular order was not lawful, and I should not have ordered the media to refrain from reporting what was said,”' Judge Jeffrey Moskowitz said in a Portland courtroom. It was the... Continue Reading
January 7th, 2015
Ruth Reader, writing for VentureBeat, reports that, in 2014, healthcare providers made up nearly one-third of all data breaches: "Hot medical identities can sell for as little as $50, according to a report issued earlier this year by the FBI. With more and more hospitals moving to electronic health records and healthcare breaches on the rise, its hard to see how this problem won’t become more widespread in the coming year."... Continue Reading
January 7th, 2015
Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane is facing a grand jury probe on, well, whether she violated the secrecy rules of yet another grand jury, the Philadelphia Inquirer's Angela Couloumbis and Craig R. McCoy report. Kane has acknowledged that ther office released information to the Philadelphia Daily News about a grand jury case that her Republican predecessors ran looking into alleged financial improprieties of J. Whyatt... Continue Reading
January 7th, 2015
A group of business trade groups filed a lawsuit this week to block a new rule from the National Labor Relations Board to expedite employee votes on joining unions, the Wall Street Journal's Melanie Trottman reports. The plaintiffs say the new rule, adopted by the board 3-2, "could deprive employers of time they need to tell workers why they think a company should remain union-free and limit their ability to launch timely legal... Continue Reading
January 6th, 2015
The Hill's Cory Bennett reports that the hack of Sony Pictures is inspiring much more urgent interest from Congressional lawmakers about cybersecurity legislation, including legal protections for companies that exchange cyberthreat information with the government. But Robyn Greene, policy counsel for New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, told The Hill that “it is unlikely that information sharing would... Continue Reading
January 6th, 2015
The Republican governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, has expressed interest in expanding Medicaid in that state, the Associated Press reports. While North Carolina was one of 24 Republican-helmed states that initially resisted expanding healthcare coverage for the poor under President Barack Obama's signature law, "McCrory said he is open to expanding Medicaid coverage after he and the General Assembly revamp the program to control... Continue Reading
January 6th, 2015
The Daily Report's Greg Land reports on an issue of first impression in Georgia: does the public have a First Amendment right to attend a plastic surgeon's disciplinary hearing? Dr. Nedra Dodds had her license to practice medicine suspended after two of her patients died following liposuction treatments. The doctor doesn't want a local TV station to cover the hearing before an administrative law judge. The doctor's attorney... Continue Reading
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