My occasional take on important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news:
Legal News
Legal News
July 6th, 2014
The Washington Post has another Edward Snowden-related piece: those who are not targeted in surveillance by the National Security Agency far outnumber the foreigners who are legally targeted. Nine of 10 accountholders found in a cache of intercepted conversations were not the intended surveillance targets "but were caught in a net the agency has cast for someone else," the Post reports. The newspaper reviewed 160,000 email and... Continue Reading
July 5th, 2014
Last month, the Iowa Supreme Court threw out the 25-year prison sentence of a man who pled guilty to criminal transmission of HIV for failing to inform a sexual partner of his HIV-positive status, ProPublica reports. The Supreme Court, 6-1, determined that the defendant's defense lawyer provided ineffective counsel when he allowed his client to plead guilty to a charge for which there was no factual basis. Many states criminalize HIV-... Continue Reading
July 5th, 2014
A series of data breaches have put higher pressure on Corporate America, including retailers like Target, to tighten its cybersecurity. But the health care sector is not engaged on the security of electronic health records and faces the risk of hackers exposing sensitive patient information, Politico reports: "As health data become increasingly digital and the use of electronic health records booms, thieves see patient... Continue Reading
July 4th, 2014
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is seeking $84,000 in attorney fees as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, Courthouse News reports. EFF sued the Department of Homeland Security and obtained 700 pages on the use of drones by U.S. Customs and border Patrol.
EFF says it is entitled to the attorney fees because it alleges its FOIA lawsuit was the catalyst for the records to be released, Courthouse News also reports.
July 4th, 2014
Four people, including an attorney working as a legal observer, were awarded $185,000 this week for being arrested wrongfully during the 2004 Republican Convention in New York City, Reuters reports. U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan already ruled the arrests were illegal; the trial was held to determine the amount of damages. Continue Reading
July 4th, 2014
An audit by the Transportation Department's inspector general has found that the Federal Aviation Administration is going to miss the September 2015 deadline for integrating drones into the national airspace, The Washington Post reported earlier this week. While Congress legalized drones in 2012, the FAA was supposed to come up with rules by September 30, 2015. Continue Reading
July 2nd, 2014
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts joined with "unexpected allies--his liberal colleagues--in an alliance that drew some of the Supreme Court's major decisions closer toward the ideological middle in the term just concluded," the Wall Street Journal reports. For example, Roberts aligned with the liberal justices and conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy to uphold a precedent allowing securities fraud class-action plaintiffs... Continue Reading
July 2nd, 2014
The latest state-level ban on same-sex marriage has fallen after a Kentucky federal judge ruled yesterday that "'even sincere and long-held religious beliefs do not trump the constitutional rights of those who happen to have been out-voted,"' UPI reports. Judges now have overturned marriage bans in 20 states, UPI also reports. Continue Reading
July 1st, 2014
The U.S. Supreme Court, 5-4, ruled that closely owned corporations can't be forced to pay for insurance coverage for contraception under Obamacare, the New York Times' Adam Liptak reports. Conestoga Wood Specialties, a cabinet maker, and Hobby Lobby, a chain of craft stores, challenged that part of the health law on the grounds that it violates their Christian beliefs. The Supreme Court found that, under the Religious Freedom... Continue Reading
June 30th, 2014
Another disclosure as a result of the Edward Snowden leaks: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court signed off on the National Security Agency's interception of information about every foreign government but Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the Washington Post reports. The certfication also "permitted the agency to gather intelligence about entities such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the... Continue Reading
June 26th, 2014
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that police officers may not search the cellphones of people they arrest without warrants yesterday. As The Washington Post's Craig Timberg writes, even though the National Security Agency is not mentioned in the opinion, the court's ruling could impact the future of government surveillance and the contours of digital-age privacy. Legal scholars noted that the opinion was unanimous and that the... Continue Reading
June 25th, 2014
The Tenth Circuit ruled today that Utah's ban on same-sex marriage violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution, while a federal judge in Indiana rejected that state's ban on same-sex matrimony, USA Today reports. The 10th Circuit ruling is the first appellate ruling in the country, USA Today further reports. Continue Reading
June 25th, 2014
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is an unconstitutional search and seizure for police officers to search someone's cell phone when arresting them, Volokh Conspiracy's Orin Kerr reports. The court said the searching a cell phone doesn't ensure that officers won't be harmed or that evidence won't be destroyed, which are both reasons that officers are allowed to search arrestees while taking them into custody: "'... Continue Reading
June 25th, 2014
The U.S. Supreme Court, 6-3, has ruled that Aereo's service of streaming free broadcast TV over the Internet violates broadcasters' copyrights, Gigaom reports. U.S. Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, concluded that Aereo was more like a cable company that needs to pay retransmission fees to carry broadcast TV instead of a DVR service that lets consumer time-shift and space-shift where they watch TV, Gigaom also reports. Continue Reading
June 25th, 2014
According to Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Seamus P. McCaffery's lawyer, the justice has been cleared by the FBI in an investigation about fees paid to McCaffrey's wife and chief judicial aide, Lise Rapaport, by law firms for case referrals, The Legal Intelligencer's Gina Passarella reports. The revelation came as part of arguments held on whether preliminary objections should be granted in a defamation lawsuit... Continue Reading
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