Category: Technology

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criminal law Technology

Government Safeguard an Oxymoron?

Last weekend, I had spotted Donald Kerr’s comments about reinterpreting privacy to mean that the government should have access to our private communications and financial information provided proper safeguards are in place. Who trusts the government to erect proper safeguards? Today, PC World reported that a former FBI and CIA employee had plead guilty to accessing a U.S. government computer system for unlawful purposes. The details of this case should make everyone think twice about granting the government unfettered access to all our private data.

In this case, a woman from Lebanon obtained American citizenship by entering into a fraudulent marriage. With her U.S. citizenship in hand, she was then able to secure employment with the FBI and CIA, two governmental agencies you assume would perform rigorous background checks on all their job applicants. Then, while working at the FBI, she looked up information on her family members and Hizballah. Sure, the government was able to secure a conviction, but let’s talk about those government safeguards. We’re talking about an ex-waitress and hostess at a Detroit restaurant, not a highly trained mole trying to embed into the upper echelons of our government. If she can penetrate the FBI and CIA, we’re screwed. And, all your neighbors who work for the government are reading through your file on the taxpayer’s dime. Good grief!

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Technology

No Privacy Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

Was the Fourth Amendment recently repealed? I may have missed it but the Associated Press reports that Donald Kerr recently testified that the time has come for us to adjust our definition of privacy. That’s a one-liner that should scare most Americans, especially when you consider he is the deputy director of national intelligence. If you weren’t scared before, you should surely be scared now.

Instead, Donald Kerr proposes that privacy should mean that the government and businesses properly safeguard our private communications and financial information. That’s frightening! And Congress had the temerity to criticize Yahoo! for turning over e-mail records to the Chinese government?

Seriously. If some people want to change the definition of marriage, that really doesn’t impact most of us on a day-to-day basis. However, if the government can simply siphon all our private information and financial records, and run some terrorist algorithm based on that data, we’re in a lot of trouble. Time for a Defense of Privacy Act.

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Technology

China's PATRIOT Act

BusinessWeek: Jerry Yang on the Hot Seat. On Nov. 6, Yahoo! CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang answered to Congress for his company’s role in landing Tao behind bars. The House Committee on Foreign Affairs called on Yang on Nov. 6 to explain what reasons the Chinese government gave when it requested information from Tao’s Yahoo e-mail account.

Seriously, is this the U.S. House of Representations or the Chinese House of Representatives. I’m all for spreading freedom and democracy abroad, but can’t we first fix a few matters at home? When Tom Lantos criticizes a huge, U.S.-based multinational company for assiduously cooperating with the police, I’m thinking of search warrants for Yahoo
e-mail accounts as well as the Justice Department’s subpoena of Google search data. 🙄 It’s not just the Chinese who require a little protection from over-reaching bureaucrats.

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Technology

Arbitrary and Capricious: The Banning of LexBlog

The Greatest Generation liberated Europe from Nazi Germany, and the most-privileged generation whines about free wi-fi. Yes, I’m from the generation of whiners and complainers. I’m using the “free” wireless Internet connection at a hospital, and I hate it because free also means filtered, censored, or whatever else you want to call it.Now, I know what it feels like to be in China, but worse. I am completely walled off from all the verboten content that exists in the free world for arbitrary and capricious reasons. Once you’ve seen what exists outside the Garden of Eden, you don’t want to go back in.When I try to access a banned site, I am redirected to this IP number: 10.226.37.60. Fortunately, the URL explains why a certain domain was blocked. Based on the categories provided, I think the hospital is using Secure Computing’s so-called SmartFilter for content censorship.

“Dating and Social” websites

I can’t access Plenty of Fish, Match.com or HOT or NOT. If the hospital wants to ban dating and social sites, most people can probably understand how the above three websites fit the bill. However, other sites that fall within this category ban include Facebook and MySpace.If you are looking for an “adult” date, SexSearch.com and Adult FriendFinder are also banned, but as pornography sites, instead of as dating and social sites. However, as some people have discovered, not all the members of sexsearch.com are adults.Since Facebook was banned, I was curious about other social networking sites. I was able to access LinkedIn. As for Avvo, it was banned as a “Spam Email” site. So, if you are in a hospital bed and want to find a personal injury lawyer, try the Justia Lawyer Directory or Martindale-Hubbell instead.

Honorable Mention

One website deserves an honorable mention for earning the prestigious two categories ban. The censors barred access to Orkut as a dating and social site, and also under the personal pages category.

Personal Pages

The personal pages category snares a lot of web sites:

Interestingly, the filters do not shut out all YouTube domains, so I can actually view the YouTube home page. However, several YouTube sub-domains are banned, which compromises the full-functionality of the site.

Legal Web Sites

Here’s where the stupidity of the SmartFilter technology really shines through. They’ve banned Kevin O’Keefe’s Real Lawyers Have Blogs as a personal page, but, Kevin, M.D. – Medical Weblog is o.k. Doctor Kevin = Good. Lawyer Kevin = Bad. However, they aren’t giving all doctor blogs a free pass. Family Medicine Notes is a banned personal page.Kevin (the lawyer) can take some consolation since he is among distinguished company. The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog, Akin Gump’s SCOTUS blog, the Becker-Posner Blog, The Volokh Conspiracy and Professor Eric Goldman’s Technology & Marketing Law Blog are all banned. However, they haven’t touched the Lessig Blog or the Law Professor Blogs.

Isnt it Ironic?

Google Blogoscoped, which constantly rails against Chinese censorship, is banned as a personal page. But my favorite banned website belong to Google’s spam killer Matt Cutts. As the public face of Google, he shares with the community what sorts of SEO strategies can get a website banned from the Google index and someone has banned his site. SmartFilter? Right.In a nutshell, I can read Hillary Clinton’s blog and the Republican National Committee blog, but not the Weblogs at Harvard Law School. I can’t read The Wealth Report, but Al Jazeera, Pravda and The People’s Daily are kosher. And people really pay for this technology?

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Technology

Endangered Species in the Legal System

The Grizzly Bear, Bighorn Sheep and Humpback Whale. Now is a good time to add Doe Plaintiffs to the endangered species list. In Doe 1 et al. v. Ciolli et al., the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants defamed, harassed and threatened them on AutoAdmit, an Internet law school admissions discussion board.Seriously, what’s the point of filing the case as a Doe Plaintiff? When the complaint includes specific phrases with fairly unique combinations of words, someone typing those same phrases into Google can easily retrieve the name of the plaintiffs. Can doe plaintiffs truly be anonymous in this day and age?

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Legal Research Technology

Better Than God

Some people worship God, while others believe that Google is God. While Google’s ability to deliver relevant search results appear miraculous at times, Google can miss the mark. For the standard Google web search, I know that Google’s algorithm can be attacked by spammers and made to seem “off.” But, what’s up with Google Maps? Lately, I’m discovering that Google Maps isn’t as accurate as many would assume.Exhibit A: MarylandMarylandSo, when I searched for Maryland, why did Google Maps take me roughly 12 miles to the wrong side of the Maryland Virginia border? Was Virginia a victim of some weird gerrymandering scheme where a narrow 12-mile strip of land was ceded to Maryland? 😉 Surprisingly, Yahoo Maps knows where Maryland is, but no one thinks Yahoo is God.Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. Google thinks Sunrise, FL is about 6 miles off the Florida west coast. But, Yahoo knows that Sunrise, FL is really off the Florida east coast.But, that’s not all. Google places Kensington, CA in San Diego, but Yahoo knows that Kensington, CA is north of Berkeley, CA. I thought that where a city or state was located should be pretty well established. Evidently, Google begs to differ.

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Legal Research Technology

YouTube and the Billable Hour

youtube.jpgHave you ever billed a client for watching videos on YouTube? If this sounds too preposterous, consider this blog post from David Swanner, a South Carolina personal injury lawyer. David Swanner reports that his client was waiting to turn left at an intersection when a car driving in the opposite direction spun-out and struck the client’s car. In this case, the collision was caught on video and posted on YouTube. You can find the videos as well as David Swanner’s write-up at his South Carolina Trial Law Blog.

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Technology

Free Law and Business Classes

If you’re legal career took some unexpected detours and you’re wishing that you had taken that intellectual property class, it’s not too late. The MIT Sloan School of Management is offering some free online courses, including a few legal-oriented ones, such as Patents, Copyrights, and the Law of Intellectual Property. Or, if you are working as corporate counsel and believe that a strong business background would improve your position within the company, those MIT OpenCourseWare offers those classes as well, such as International Management, Building and Leading Effective Teams, and Managing Innovation.

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Legal Research Technology

Top Five Reasons to Check Out Justia’s Docket Search

dockets-justia-com.jpgJustia just released a beta version of their Federal District Court Filings & Docket search engine. Want to know why you should check it out?

  1. Free. It won’t cost you a dime, or a nickel or even a penny. It is free. No registration required. Nothing. It’s really free! But that’s not all…
  2. Fast. It is fast. Almost too fast, if that is even possible. Just like when Google returns relevant search results in fractions of a second that leaves you wondering whether it really searched through each and every web page in its database. Justia’s docket search is that fast. What about all the allegedly frivolous litigation clogging the courtrooms? Surely, it must take a few seconds to scan through all those records, right? Nope.
  3. Fun. Who knew lawsuits could be so much fun? Look up which companies are suing and which ones have been sued. Before, it would have cost you some pocket change to run the same searches on PACER. Now that the cost of searching is free, you can try out all those searches that previously weren’t worth paying for (or that you couldn’t bill to a client).
  4. Search by Type. Let’s say you’re interested in certain types of lawsuits, such as torts, real property or civil rights. Well, you can select from a list of 105 different types of lawsuits to view. How’s that for customization?
  5. RSS Feeds. Don’t want to return to the Justia site to run the same search each morning. Then, subscribe to an RSS feed. For example, you can grab a feed of all federal lawsuits involving Google.
Categories
Technology

Interview with Tim Stanley of Justia

Tim Stanley, a Google Enterprise Search Superstar, talks about how Justia leveraged the Google Mini to power Justia’s U.S. Supreme Court Center. Tim offers some interesting insight on the power of the Google Mini, as well as Justia’s business plans.