Author: Administrator

Law For All

February 3, 2014 Administrator Leave a comment Justice

The law belongs in the public domain (EFF, 14 Jan 2014) – For nearly two centuries it has been a basic precept that the law lives in the public domain. It’s simple: in a democratic society, people must have an unrestricted right to read and speak their own laws. Full stop. Of course, that principle means the law can never be subject to copyright restrictions. If any single entity owns a copyright in the law, it can buy, sell or ration the law, and make all sort of rules about when, where, and how we share it. People should never have to pay a fee to review and compare the rules and regulations they must obey, and no private entity should be the gatekeeper to the law. As an appellate court put it : [I]t is hard to see how the public’s essential due process right of free access to the law (including a necessary right freely to copy and circulate all or part of a given ?law for various purposes), can be reconciled with the exclusivity afforded a private copyright holder . . . . Fortunately, open access crusaders like Public.Resource.Org (whose founder, Carl Malamud, is testifying before Congress today about this issue), and the Center for Information Technology Policy, have worked hard to correct the situation, by publishing legal and government documents and giving citizens the tools to do so themselves. A private company, Google, has also done its part by including court opinions in the Google Scholar database. Until recently, these folks haven’t had to deal with copyright infringement lawsuits as they worked to free the law. No longer. A group of standards-development organizations (SDOs) have banded together to sue Public.Resource.Org, accusing the site of infringing copyright by reproducing and publishing a host of safety codes that those organizations drafted and then lobbied heavily to have incorporated into law. The SDOs argue that they hold a copyright on those laws because the standards began their existence in the private sector, and were only later “incorporated by reference” into the law. That claim conflicts with the public interest, common sense, and the rule of law. The fundamental right to access and share the law does not disappear just because the law in question is a technical standard. And a good thing, too, because these standards are now a significant part of the laws that shape our lives. Once incorporated, they become mandatory requirements, just like any other law. The case involves crucial national standards like the national electrical codes, fire safety codes, and so on. Public access to such codes-meaning not just the ability to read them, but to publish and re-use them-can be crucial when there is an industrial accident, when there is a disaster such as the Moore, Oklahoma tornado, or when a homebuyer wants to know whether her house is code-compliant. Publishing the codes online, in a readily accessible format, makes it possible for reporters and other interested citizens to not only view them easily, but also to search and excerpt and generate new insights.

Provided by MIRLN.

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net/Salvatore Vuono.

Snapchat For Lawyers?

January 30, 2014 Administrator Leave a comment Tech for Lawyers

Confide: an app for execs who want sensitive messages to vanish Snapchat-style (GigaOM, 8 Jan 2014) – Many people associate “disappear” apps like Snapchat with young people who want to send each other bong or boob shots. But kids are hardly the only ones who want to relay sensitive or silly messages without leaving a permanent trace on the internet. That’s the thinking behind “ Confide ,” a new app aimed at professionals who want to message each other about job references, corporate intrigue or other subjects that could cause trouble if a written record landed before HR or the legal department. Messages sent via Confide disappear on reading and can’t be retrieved later. Available for Apple devices as of January 8, Confide is the brainchild of Jon Brod, a co-founder of local news site Patch, and Howard Lerman, the CEO of marketing start-up Yext. Brod says the app came about after Lerman contacted him by email about a potential employee who Brod did not want to discuss in writing. He suggested they speak by phone instead. “We’re busy and it took us six days to connect,” he said in a phone interview, explaining why they created the app. “Professional relationships require tools for impermanence and confidence. We wanted to take the proven model of meeting for an off-the-record cup of coffee and bring it online.” To address the issue of screenshots, which can provide a way to preserve disappearing messages, Confide uses a “wand” feature that requires recipients to pass their fingers over the message to reveal additional words. The app also includes a notice feature, common among other disappear apps, that alerts the sender if the recipient took a screenshot of the message. Confide also includes another feature that might appeal to paranoid executives: end-to-end encryption that means Confide doesn’t possess a retrievable copy of the message. As for the possibility that professionals could use Confide to skirt legal duties (such as by-laws that require them to preserve corporate communications), Brod said the app is simply a platform and that it would be up to individuals to comply with their obligations.

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net/KROMKRATHOG.

US Companies Come Down On The Cloud

January 29, 2014 Administrator Leave a comment Tech

New industry contracts say “no data in the USA,” report says (GigaOM, 27 Dec 2013) – Is this the backlash? A handful of companies are requiring cloud service providers to promise – in writing – that they won’t store any client data in the United States, according to Bloomberg . The report says that a British grocery chain and a Canadian pharma company have responded to the ongoing US surveillance scandal by adding language to existing contracts that mandate suppliers to segment their data and keep it out of America. The report of the revised contracts comes as the cloud computing industry continues to digest news that America’s National Security Agency is tapping underwater cables and infiltrating the servers of storage providers as part of a sweeping counter-terrorism program. In August, shortly after news of the surveillance was leaked by Edward Snowden, a Forrester analyst reported that it could cost the U.S. cloud computing industry up to $180 billion as a result of foreign firms bolting American providers. The $180 billion figure (which appears plucked from the air) was cited as a worst case scenario and so far there has been no systemic exodus from American cloud companies. But the fear and anger in Europe and elsewhere over America’s surveillance activities are very real; a recent PWC report said that 15 percent of German companies are looking for cloud providers that promise not to cooperate with U.S. or U.K. intelligence services. So does the Bloomberg report portend the start of a trend? It’s too soon to say. The report, which also claimed a Canadian agency had asked for the “no data in USA” clause, was based on a single source (an Indiana security firm known as Rook Consulting ) and did not name any of the companies involved.

Provided by MIRLN.

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net/samuiblue.

Japanese Software Security Risks

January 28, 2014 Administrator Leave a comment Security

Japan warns of security risk in software for language input (Bloomberg, 26 Dec 2013) – Japan’s government warned that certain software used for writing Japanese characters could lead to security leaks, including some programs made in China. The National Information Security Center asked all central government ministries to avoid the programs when making confidential documents because a record of the writing can be sent to servers outside the country. The programs, made by Beijing-based Baidu Inc. (BIDU), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Google Inc. (GOOG), allow people to use an English-language keyboard to write Japanese characters by spelling them phonetically.

Provided by MIRLN.

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net/Stuart Miles.

The Costs of E-Discovery

January 27, 2014 Administrator Leave a comment eDiscovery Tech

Costs of keyword searching, data analysis, not recoverable, Federal Circuit rules (Robert Ambrogi, 18 Dec 2013) – To what extent can the costs of e-discovery be recovered by a prevailing party in federal court? The U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has just issued an opinion that provides a detailed analysis of that question, concluding that the answer hinges on which costs fall within a 21st Century definition of “copying.” In CBT Flint Partners, LLC v. Return Path, Inc. , the Federal Circuit considered the extent to which e-discovery costs fall under28 USC § 1920 , the federal statute that lists the costs that can be recovered in federal litigation. The only provision of that statute that would apply to e-discovery, the circuit concluded, is one that allows recovery of copying costs. Thus, e-discovery costs are recoverable only to the extent they fall within the statutory meaning of copying. [W]e conclude that recoverable costs … are those costs necessary to duplicate an electronic document in as faithful and complete a manner as required by rule, by court order, by agreement of the parties, or otherwise. To the extent that a party is obligated to produce (or obligated to accept) electronic documents in a particular format or with particular characteristics intact (such as metadata, color, motion, or manipulability), the costs to make duplicates in such a format or with such characteristics preserved are recoverable. … But only the costs of creating the produced duplicates are included, not a number of preparatory or ancillary costs commonly incurred leading up to, in conjunction with, or after duplication. That means that the costs of imaging hard drives and source media and processing those images would be recoverable in most cases, the court said. Also recoverable would be the costs of creating load files and copying responsive documents to production media. But the costs of decryption, deduplication, keyword searching, data analysis and project management are not recoverable, the court concluded.

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net/hyena reality.

Email And When Your 4th Amendment Rights Might Run Out

January 23, 2014 Administrator Leave a comment Justice

Senders’ Fourth Amendment rights in e-mails seized from the e-mail accounts of recipients (Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr, 26 Dec 2013) – A recent case, United States v. Young (D. Utah, December 17, 2013) (Campbell, J.), touches on a novel, interesting, and quite important question of Fourth Amendment law: Assuming that e-mail account-holders generally have Fourth Amendment rights in the contents of their e-mails, as courts have so far held, when does a person’s Fourth Amendment rights in copies of sent e-mails lose Fourth Amendment protection? To understand the question, consider Fourth Amendment rights in postal letters. Before a letter is sent, only the sender has rights in the letter; during transmission, both the sender and recipient have rights in the letter; and once the letter is delivered at its destination, the recipient maintains Fourth Amendment rights but the sender’s rights expires. But how do you apply this to an e-mail? By analogy, a sender loses Fourth Amendment rights in the copy of the e-mail that the recipient has downloaded to his personal computer or cell phone. But does the sender have Fourth Amendment rights in the copy of the e-mail stored on the recipient’s server after the recipient has accessed the copy? And does the sender have Fourth Amendment rights in the copy of the e-mail stored on the recipient’s server before the recipient has accessed the copy? At what point does the sender’s Fourth Amendment rights in the sent copy expire? * * *

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net/nixxphotography.