Cultivated Compendium

Barrett Brown, a journalist and hacktivist who accepted a plea deal for threatening a federal agent on a YouTube video, is going to be sentenced Tuesday. But prosecutors have asked that their recommendations, as well as the defense's about Brown's sentence be kept sealed, Russia Today reports: "According to a statement made by the Free Barrett Brown group this week, 'It seems clear that the government doesn’t want journalists to attend the upcoming hearing with an understanding of what issues are at stake, and they don’t want further attention to a case that has already proven to be an embarrassment.”' Once First Amendment concerns were raised by Brown's defense and others, the government dropped a computer fraud charge against Brown for posting online a link to credit card information hacked by others.

Law firm Pinsent Masons, writing on its Out-Law blog, reports that the Court of Justice of the EU has ruled that a Czech journalist's use of a CCTV system at his home violated EU's data protection law. The court ruled that "'video surveillance' by individuals that is carried out 'even partially' in a public space is subject to the EU's Data Protection Directive, even if the camera capturing images of people is 'directed outwards from the private setting of the person processing the data.'" UK information commissioner David Smith told the blog that the CJEU's judgment applies to private people using drones with cameras: "The judgment means civilian operators of drones in public places will have to adhere to 'fair processing' requirements if capturing images that can identify individuals and may, in many cases, require them to obtain individuals' consent to the capturing of such footage, among other data protection rules that apply." The result is that the media's use of drones will require getting consent of the people being photographed and videorecorded.

We already knew that Delaware was the land of corporations. But Steven Davidoff Solomon writes in DealBook that, because more than 60 percent of public companies are incorporated in Delaware, the state's judiciary are imposing their "worldview of deal-making" and influencing how other state courts interpret corporate law: the "concepts of impartiality and independence are the guiding principles of Delaware’s view of mergers and acquisitions. It means that Delaware is pushing for deals to be approved and vetted by independent directors. More important, these directors should obtain conflict-free advice that is both studied and considered. And a record should be made or else — so that the Delaware courts can carefully scrutinize the transaction." As a result, Davidoff Solomon reports that stapled financing--in which a bank would offer financing to prospective buyers of a company its advising during a deal--is all but dead. And companies, in order to avoid conflicts, now funnel deals "through independent directors advised by lawyers and bankers who are also independent."

Judicial elections often involve campaign ads attacking candidates for being too soft on crime, even though there is a "growing bipartisan consensus that America locks up too many people for too long," The Marshall Project's Christie Thompson reports.

In 2014, there has been at least $13.8 million spent on TV advertising for state supreme court races, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. And the liberal American Constitution Society found that "as more TV campaign advertising aired in judicial election campaigns, elected state supreme court justices became less likely to rule in favor of defendants," Thompson further reports.

The irony is that many spenders on judicial campaign ads like the Koch brothers actually support policies in favor of decriminalization, but the "tough on crime" ads are used because they play on people's fears, Thompson also notes.

Attorney General Eric Holder has decided against forcing New York Times reporter James Risen to reveal the identity of his confidential source, MSNBC's Pete Williams reports. James Risen said he would go to jail before naming the source who revealed an unsuccessful effort by the CIA to sabotage Iran's nuclear weapons program. The government sought to compel Risen's testimony in the trial of a former CIA official accused of leaking top-secret information.

Executive action by President Barack Obama is giving more relief to immigrants living illegally in the United States, including stopping deportations that take undocumented parents away from their American-born kids. But the downside to the plan is that families with parents back home or older children living in their home countries can't be reunited except for "brief emergency trips," The Washington Post's Pamela Constable reports: "Now, hundreds of thousands of undocumented families who left children or parents behind are in a special bind. They may still be tempted to arrange illegal cross-border visits, but they have more to lose now if they get caught, because it would jeopardize their new legal status and their ability to support the children they have here."

Undocumented immigrants can only leave the country if they apply for an emergency travel document called "advanced parole," but the applications often are denied at the full discretion of immigration officials, Constable further reports. The definition for "humanitarian" travel includes family funerals, but not family reunions.

Right after 9/11, the CIA was given the power to imprison Al Qaeda terrorists, The New York Times' Matt Apuzzo and James Risen report. And the initial plan was to keep those jails in adherence to U.S. standards for federal or military prisons, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee report released this week on the spy agency's harsh interrogation program. But when Abu Zubaydah, a Qaeda logistics planner, was captured in Pakistan in March 2002, he was the first high-level terrorist to be caught. He was kept alone in a cell in Thailand for 47 days while the CIA and the Justice Department debated the legality of using harsh tactics like waterboarding, the Times reports. Then, "for three weeks in August 2002, Mr. Zubaydah was questioned using the harshest measures available, including waterboarding. But the Senate report says he never revealed information about a plot against the United States. The CIA concluded he had no such information."

U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema has ordered the Obama administration to decide by Tuesday whether it will make national security reporter James Risen testify at the trial of a government whistleblower and force the reporter to discuss his confidential sources, the New York Times' Jonathan Mahler (and Risen's colleague) reports. Prosecutors say the defendant Jeffrey Sterling provided  Risen "with information about a botched C.I.A. attempt to sabotage Iran’s nuclear weapons program, which Mr. Risen wrote about in his 2006 book, 'State of War.'"

The Federal Aviation Administration doesn't expect to finalize rules for the commercial use of drones under 55 pounds until 2017 or 2018, the Washington Post's Craig Whitlock reports. Members of a House Transportation Committee panel had a hearing yesterday during which lawmakers questioned if the FAA is keeping aviation standards in pace with consumer drone sales. Rules were supposed to be released by September 2015. 

The FAA also announced it gave permission to four companies to use drones on a limited basis for aerial surveying and inspections.

The Washington Post's Josh Hicks reports that a bill to reform the Freedom of Information Act is on track to be passed by Congress as long as House leaders put a bill passed by the Senate on the schedule; similar legislation was passed by the House several months ago: "Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who sponsored the House bill, urged their House colleagues to approve the Senate version and send it to the president. They said in a joint statement Tuesday that the measure would 'strengthen FOIA, the cornerstone of open-government law.'"

One of the key changes in the FOIA bill would limit exemption 5, which excludes from disclosure records because of attorney-client, attorney work product and deliberative process privileges. Open-government advocates say this exemption is abused by government agencies. Agencies would be required to release information after 25 years, Hicks reports.