Cultivated Compendium

Now that the Federal Aviation Administration has released proposed rules for integrating small commercial drones into the American airspace, the next regulatory front for drones is privacy, Slate's Margot E. Kaminski reports. The FAA isn't going to set privacy rules for drones; instead, President Barack Obama issued a presidential memorandum giving federal agencies marching orders on only keeping data collected from drones for 180 days and ordering agencies not to "violate the First Amendment or discriminate against people based on ethnicity, race, gender, or national origin" through their use of drones.

State law may provide the protection for privacy from drones, Kaminski reports, but First Amendment challenges are likely to ensue against such regulation. Wisconsin may have the best model for regulating privacy vis-a-vis drones because that state's law hinges "on whether the subject of surveillance has a reasonable expectation of privacy," Kaminski reports.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon has struck down Nebraska's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage as well as the state's ban on adoption by same-sex couples, the Lincoln Journal Star's Lori Pilger reports. The judge also granted a preliminary injunction in favor of the plaintiffs.

"For the majority of married couples, those without children in the home, marriage is a legal and emotional commitment to the welfare of their partner," Bataillon opined. "The state clearly has the right to encourage couples to marry and provide support for one another. However, those laws must be enforced equally and without respect to gender." The opinion can be read here: http://journalstar.com/links/online-exclusives/read-bataillon-s-order/pd...

Bataillon already struck down the ban before in 2005, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit overturned his ruling. Bataillion's decision notes that the Eighth Circuit rejected the argument in the prior case that the Nebraska constitutional amendment violated the right of gay and lesbian Nebraskans to access the political process; the appeals court also found that strict scrutiny should not apply to gays and lesbians.

This time, Bataillon found that heightened scrutiny should apply to the ban because the "challenged amendment 'proceeds along suspect lines,' as either gender-based or gender-stereotype-based discrimination."

ProPublica's Charles Ornstein reports that federal regulators are rarely fining health care organizations for data breaches. There have been more than 1,140 large breaches affecting more than 41 million people in the last 5.5 years. But there have been fines levied just 22 times, even though the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, known as the HITECH Act, has required healthcare providers to report breaches involving at least 500 patients since 2009.

Arkansas and Kentucky, followed by Oregon, Washington and West Virginia, had the sharpest reductions in their uninsured rates among adult residents, Gallup reports. Of the 11 states that had the greatest increases in the number of their residents who have health insurance, 10 expanded Medicaid.

Massachusetts has the lowest uninsured rate in the country at 4.6 percent, and Texas has the highest at 24.4 percent.

With the Federal Communications Commission having voted 3-2 along party lines to reclassify broadband as a telecom service under Title II regulations, the new Internet rules will be tied up in court for years from lawsuits, Broadcasting & Cable's John Eggerton reports.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is confident that the new net neutrality rules will survive a court challenge even though prior rules did not, Ars Technica's Jon Brodkin reports. Wheeler said that "'the DC Circuit sent the previous Open Internet Order back to us and basically said, 'hey, you're trying to impose common carrier-like regulation without stepping up and saying, 'these are common carriers.' We have addressed that issue, that is the underlying issue, that is the sine qua non of the all the debates we've had so far. That gives me great confidence going forward."'

There are now bright-line rules against blocking and throttling Internet traffic as well as against having paid fast lanes for Internet traffic. 

In dissent, Eggerton reports that Commissioner Michael O'Rielly said that, while there are three bright-line rules, they are "'mere needles in a Title II haystack,"' and the FCC's case-by-case standard for reviewing behavior by internet service providers that fall outside those areas will "'be conducted through case-by-case adjudication, mostly at the Bureau level and in the courts.'"

The White House released a proposed bill to protect consumers' digital privacy, the Washington Post's Andrea Peterson reports, but the bill may not be strong enough. The Federal Trade Commission said that the legislation wouldn't provide "strong and enforceable protections" for consumer privacy. The bill would allow industries to develop their own privacy codes of conduct, which the FTC could then enforce. But the bill would preempt state laws dealing with data collection and handling and could preempt state laws like California's that have more stringent standards than at the federal level for data breaches, the privacy of minors and other consumer protection laws. The Recorder's Cheryl Miller notes that a private right of action is explicitly rejected, but that state attorneys general as well as the FTC would have enforcement authority.

One of newly elected Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf's nominees for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has withdrawn from consideration, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Centre County Judge Thomas K. Kistler allegedly forwarded an email showing a black man and a black woman during a visit in a prison with the caption "Merry Christmas From the Johnsons." Kistler did not mention the email in withdrawing from consideration.

Disability rights advocates in Wisconsin are dismayed about a plan that would eliminate the autonomy that people with disabilities have to self-direct some of the money expended by the state government for their care. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has put forth a plan for long-term care for people with disabilities that would lead "the Department of Health Services to cease operation of other long-term care programs or waivers, including IRIS — a program for self-directed long-term care. IRIS currently has more than 11,000 participants, who choose the program because of their ability to self-direct their supports, including hiring their own caregiver," The Capital Times' Jessie Opoien reports.

The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has ruled that government employees must be notified before their home addresses are publicly released, Newsworks' Bobby Allyn reports. The court majority said the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know law doesn't take into account how turning over a home address could cause personal harm. In a two-member dissent, Judge Dan Pellegrini said the majority was "'succumbing to unfounded fears and a parade of speculative horribles.'"

Five Rhode Island lawmakers had introduced drone legislation that would make it illegal for drones to take pictures or videos of private buildings without permission, Media General's WPRI 12's Allison Gallo reports. Other legislators have introduced legislation to create a panel to study how other states are regulating drones.

The Federal Aviation Administration has just released long-awaited rules to integrate drones into the American airspace, but those rules aren't expected to become final for two years or more.