Jan

22

Seventh Circuit Clarifies Application of Fourth Amendment to Searches of Computer Hard Drives

Posted by: | January 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment

While working as a life guard instructor, Matthew Mann covertly installed a video camera in a locker room in order to take footage of women changing their clothes.  After the camera was discovered and turned over to the authorities, police executed a search warrant at Mann’s home for “video tapes, CD’s or other digital media, [...]

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Dec

13

Add Judges To The List of Professionals Who Must Take Care In Using Facebook

Posted by: | December 13, 2009 | 6 Comments

Professor Lisa Mazzie posted a blog entry back in September about the use of Facebook and other social networking websites by lawyers.  The post shed light on the trouble an attorney can face when the substance of his or her webpage falls short of professional standards.  As Professor Mazzie explained, postings that “criticize” judges, “reveal” [...]

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Oct

16

What Is Going On Over at the Internet?

Posted by: | October 16, 2009 | 1 Comment

On Thursday, I drafted a blog post inspired by the recent death of 89-year-old former major league baseball player Larry Jansen. Jansen was an outstanding pitcher in National League in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, and was also the primary plaintiff in an early right of publicity case.  I have found that very few [...]

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Jul

27

Future Imperfect

Posted by: | July 27, 2009 | 7 Comments

A couple of weeks ago Amazon remotely deleted two e-books off of its customers’ Kindle readers—and in one of those too-good-to-be-true moments, the books were “1984″ and “Animal Farm” by George Orwell. Ars Technica and the New York Times explain what happened; the Times ran a follow-up story today. Commentary on the incident has ranged [...]

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Apr

1

Reminds Me of Y2K

Posted by: | April 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Wired Magazine’s Threat Level Blog is having fun with the apparent false alarm over the Conficker virus. A sample: Threat Level was skeptical last week that Conficker would do anything more than send spam. But since then we’ve become aware of dramatic new evidence that reporting on a doomsday worm is good for page views. [...]

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Mar

1

Yet Another Reason Not to Fileshare

Posted by: | March 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment

At least, if you work at a government contractor: Iranian hackers may download those super-secret plans for Marine One that you are working on.

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Feb

26

Is Congress About to Require Home Users to Keep Wi-Fi Logs?

Posted by: | February 26, 2009 | 1 Comment

According to this breathless story on CNET, sinister congressional forces are afoot attempting to impose a record-keeping requirement on home networks. But as I warn my Internet Law students every year, you just can’t rely on CNET posts on legislative developments, particularly the more sensational the headline. And that turns out to be true here [...]

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Feb

17

Can You Bug Your Own Cellphone?

Posted by: | February 17, 2009 | 3 Comments

This recent post over at Consumerist caught my eye: A person loses his cell phone. Before he lost it, he set it up to blind-copy him on all emails sent from the cell phone. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that he did this (as the post recommends) as a “pretty brilliant low-tech security [...]

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Feb

5

Bad Idea Jeans – Take Three

Posted by: | February 5, 2009 | 6 Comments

I am not making this up – and from our state to boot.  The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting: A Beaver Dam Middle School teacher is on administrative leave after school officials discovered a photo of her with a gun on Facebook. In the photo, Betsy Ramsdale was training a rifle at the camera. In [...]

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Jan

9

A Reminder: You Can’t Subpoena Non-Party ISPs for Emails in Civil Suits

Posted by: | January 9, 2009 | 4 Comments

I ordinarily wouldn’t blog about an unpublished short opinion from a magistrate judge in the Northern District of Mississippi (even though great things do come from there), but I view this as the leading edge of a wave of such opinions. In J.T. Shannon Lumber Co. v. Gilco Lumber, Inc., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 104966 [...]

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Jan

6

Firing by Facebook

Posted by: | January 6, 2009 | 1 Comment

Although just bad practice in the United States, Minna Kotkin (Brooklyn) brings to my attention a case in Canada where the cavalier nature of a firing may lead to bad faith damages being awarded against the offending employer. Carolyn Elefant of Legal Blog Watch Blog reports: These days, Facebook isn’t just a go-to social media [...]

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Dec

22

Seventh Circuit Week in Review, Part II: Attempted Enticement of a Minor

Posted by: | December 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment

As I mentioned in the first installment of “Week in Review,” the Seventh Circuit decided two cases this past week arising from convictions for attempted enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity.  As a general matter, one is not guilty of a criminal attempt unless one takes a “substantial step” towards the completion of the [...]

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