Criminal Law Library BlogVolume 3 March 2010
Security and Privacy on Social Networking Sites
From the Desk of David Badertscher
Articles Posted in Commentary and Opinion
U.S. Appeals Court Ruling Curbs FCC Control of Net Regulation
In a unanimous 3-0 Decision last Tuesday April 6 the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the Federal Communication Commission did not have the authority to order Comcast in 2008 to cease and desist interfering with the traffic of Bit Torrent a P2P file sharing service. At the time Comcast ostensibly accepted the order, but ended up appealing the ruling in the courts. The April 6 opinion is the result of that appeal.
As can be expected, reactions have been quick in coming and are quite varied, depending on the perspective and interests of those responding. Some have emphasized the supposedly narrow scope of the ruling attempting to play down its overall importance. Others see it has quite significant, even ground breaking in its scope. For example, will the ruling set a prescedent that allows internet providers to control broadband service as they see fit since it clearly undercuts the FCC’s claim to authority to regulate the internet? What about the FCC’s recently released National Broadband Plan supported by the Obama administration? Many of my fellow libraraians have been looking forward to both participating in and benefiting from this program which contains some provisions related to libraries.? And what about the overarching issues relating to equal treatment for all who use the internet? That not only refers to the “information poor” who often have difficulty getting access under the best of conditions; is could also impact those at the opposite end of this spectrum, eg. Google’s You Tube and Microsoft’s MSN.com?
So many questions, which indicates that this decision really is important with far reaching consequences. Some think this ruling will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court but we will need to wait and see. Meanwhile, the FCC has been handed some significant regulatory issues it will need to try to work around. Can they do it. It appears from a statement issued after the ruling that they are prepared to try.
CRS Report: The Copyright Registration Requirement and Federal Court Jurisdiction
A Legal Analysis of Reed Elsevier, Inc. v, Muchnick
March 18, 2010
CRS Report No. R40944; 3/18/2010; Posted 4/5/2010 Author(s): Brian T. Yeh, Legislative Attorney Subject(s): Intellectual Property
Obtaining and Using Evidence From Social Network Sites
On October 6, 2009 the Electronic Frontier Foundation submitted a request to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for access to records concerning “use of social networking websites (including, but not limited to Facebook, MYSpace, Twitter, Flickr and other online social media) for investigative (crimiinal or otherwise) data gathering purposes created since January 2003…”. The response from DOJ, date stamped March 3, 2010 states that “While processing your request we located one record totaling 33 pages. After careful review of this document we determined to release this item in part.”. It goes on to explain that material being witheld from this one document, Obtaining and Using Evidence From Social Networking Sites, consists of work telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of DOJ attorneys..
Click here to download the document: OBTAINING AND USING EVIDENCE FROM SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES
Final Showdown on Health Care Legislation Set for This Weekend
House Democrats are reported to be making a final push this weekend to pass health care legislation. To that end a nearly final version of a bill, along with a report on the bill’s cost by the Congressional Budget Office, was unveiled yesterday. A final showdown regarding this legislation is expected this Sunday March 21.
As part of our series of postings regarding efforts to overhaul the health care system in the United States we are making the following documents accessible:
SKYRIVER: COULD IT BE A CONTENDER?
Posted by : Joni L. Cassidy, Cassidy Cataloguing Services, Inc. 3/17/10
DEFINITION OF TERMS:
OCLC WorldCat – the union database of bibliographic and authority records contributed by member libraries, the Library of Congress, the National Library of Medicine, the National Agriculture Library, the U.S. Government Printing Office and several other national libraries from around the globe. Records are accessible to all OCLC members.
FCC Introduces Sweeping National Broaband Plan
Udated March 17, 2010.
On Tuesday March 16, 2010 the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced a proposal to overhaul the U.S. broadband* policy by introducing a plan that would provide higher speed internet access and much faster internet connections thoughout the U.S. than are presently available. The plan sets a goal of connecting 100 million U.S. households to broadband connections of 100 megabits per secondf, at least 20 times faster than most home connections now, by 2020.
The plan also calls for every american conmunity to have at least one “anchor” institution, such as a school, library, or hospital that has ultra high speed internet access. The FCC defines ultra high speed in this eontext as at least a gigabit per second, 10 times faster than the 100 megabit per second envisioned for home connections.
New York Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch Unveils Five Year Fiscal Reform Plan
On March 10, 2010 New York Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch released a fiscal reform plan which calls for a five-year plan to eliminate the State’s structural imbalance and introduces a process by which annual budget balance is mandated, minitored and maintained. The plan calls for up to $2 billion in borrowing for the next three years and a financial review board consisting of five members, one each from the Assembly and the State Senate, two appointed by the Governor and one appointed by the New York State Comptroller.:
Once Every Hundred Years?
In an earlier posting on November 5 , 2009 we reported that on November 3, 1909 the criminal court building in Manhattan (bounded by Centre, Lafayette, Franklin, and White Streets) was declared unsafe for human occupancy and everyone in the building at the time was ordered to leave immediately. When the last man was out a squad of thirty policemen took charge of the building, roping it off on all sides and remaining on guard outside the building to forbid anyone to enter or even pass through any of the flanking streets”.
On March 2, 2010 for very different reasons the present criminal court building in Manhattan was evacuated due to smoke and water damage caused by an electrical fire in the basement.. When the last people were out, policemen, firemen and court officers took charge of the building and for a time did not permit anyone to enter the building except for business related to coping with the emergency situation..
As noted earlier there were many differences in the two events. By most accounts the old criminal courts building was in very poor condition by 1909. The present Criminal Courts buiilding is perfectly safe and in good condition with lingering smoke and other residual damage from the fire causing the building to remain closed until March 8.
The Health Care Debate Continues – March 2010
You may have noticed that we have not posted anything about health care for awhile. Other topics have intervened but the health care debate keeps coming back. We are actually glad because for many of us health care reform in the United States is one of the paramount issues of our time.
The New York Times has been doing a good job keeping concerns about helth care alive through its ongong list of articles and editorials telling us what is happening and where they think we might be going. Here are links to a few:
Editorial: