As announced yesterday July 23, 2009, U.S. federal agents swept accross New Jersey and New York, charging 44 people (including mayors, rabbis and one alleged trafficker in human kidneys) of being involved in public corruption and international money laundering practices.. The following are links to some documents related to that…
David Badertscher* For almost forty years I have been in charge of law libraries. During that time I have acquired great appreciation and respect for the value and work of library catalogers. This posting is a small token of that respect and gratitude. Have you ever wondered how all the…
Can the offering of goods and services such as Google searches free of charge be considered in violation of antitrust? Many librarians have expressed an interest in this issue. They are concerned about what any resolution of this question wll have on their continuing efforts to provide knowledge based goods…
David Badertscher Legal experts and prosecutors are quite concerned about possible results of the June 25, 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts 07-591. In this decision the Court has ruled that forensic analysts conducting tests must be in court to testify about their test results and that lab…
The Unclassified Report of the President’s Surveillance Program released on July 10, 2009 is a review of the National Security Agency Warrantless Search Program, created during the presidency of George W. Bush some time after September 11, 2001. The unclassified report was prepared by the inspectors general of five government…
TITLE: A Right to Discriminate? SUBTITLE: How the Case of Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale Warped the Law of Free Association AUTHOR: Andrew Koppelman with Tobias Barrington Wolff PUBLICATION DATE: July 2009 PUBLISHER: Yale University Press PAGE COUNT: 192 pp. ISBN: 978-0-300-12127-8 PROBABLE PRICE: $38.00 Koppelman (law &…
Lyonette Louis-Jacques of the D’Angelo Law Library at the University of Chicago has conducted a quick, informal, but very interesting survey asking law school librarians how many of their faculty members use Kindles. As often happens with such surveys, the results or responses reveal more than was originally intended, thus…
The Association of the Bar of the City of New York (New York City Bar) has just published its Report on the Merger of the Bronx Supreme and Criminal Courts. Commenting on the Report in his June 11, 2009 New York Law Journal article, “City Bar Report Cites ‘Serious Problems’…
The background information regarding U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor at our earlier posting has been updated to include her completed questionnaire which was delivered to the Committee of the Judiciary of the U.S. Senate on Thursday June 4, 2009. For those who have not seen it, that posting which…
According to Ed O’Keefe in a June 5, 2009 Washington Post article, “Library Officials Accused of Interference”, Senator Charles E. Grassley has written a sharply worded letter to the Librarian of Congress , James H. Billington, stating “…Your office attempts to influence and/or control [the Office of Inspector General] appear…