Illinois Prohibits Employers From Seeking Social Networking Passwords

On August 1, 2012, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed into law a bill that prohibits employers from requesting or requiring employees or prospective employees from providing “any password or other related account information” to gain access to the individual’s social networking account. Ill. Public Act 097-0875. By enacting the legislation, Illinois joins Maryland as states that prohibit employers from obtaining social media account password information. The law amends the Illinois Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act, 820 ILCS 55, and is effective January 1, 2013.

Illinois’ new social media legislation confirms that employers maintain the right to create lawful workplace policies that regulate the use of computer equipment, e-mail, and internet use. Moreover, the law also allows employers to monitor employee use of the employer’s electronic equipment and e-mail. Employers also may still obtain publicly available information concerning employees or prospective employees under the new law.

As part of the Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act, the law is subject to investigation and enforcement by the Illinois Department of Labor. Potential damages under the law include reasonable attorney’s fees if the violation is found to be willful and knowing.

This legislation comes in response to public criticism of reported incidences of employers seeking social media account password information for purposes of evaluating position applicants. Illinois employers who currently engage in such practices should be aware that any hiring policy or practice that requires applicants or employees to reveal such information will be a violation of Illinois law after the end of the calendar year.

Cross-posted to General Counselor.

 

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Sentencing and the Limits of Actuarial Risk Assessment

As child molesters go, Cory Reibel seems a relatively low-risk proposition.  He is a first-time offender, was not sexually abused himself as a child, and victimized a girl instead of a boy — studies indicate that all of these factors point to a reduced risk of recidivism.  Yet, he was sentenced to the statutory maximum of 30 years in prison by a judge who wanted to prevent him from offending again.

The judge’s sentence seems to fly in the face of the science of risk assessment.  Actuarial risk assessment (that is, the determination of an offender’s risk based on a statistically sound analysis of recidivism data involving other offenders with similar characteristics) seems to be playing an increasingly prominent role in both pretrial release and post-conviction sentencing decisions.  Scientifically speaking, this is pretty clearly an advance on pure intuition as a basis for predicting risk.  However, actuarial risk assessment does present some important ethical difficulties when it is used as a basis for determining how severe a punishment should be.

These difficulties were on display earlier today when the Seventh Circuit turned aside Reibel’s challenge to the reasonableness of his sentence.  

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Parking Garage Quietly Marks the 225th Anniversary of the Northwest Ordinance

This post is authored by J. Gordon Hylton and Jane Casper.

July 13, 2012 marked the 225th anniversary of the signing of the Northwest Ordinance.

As some users of the Eckstein Hall Parking Garage know, excerpts from the text of the 1787 Northwest Ordinance are transposed on the walls of the Tory Hill/Clybourn Street floor of the garage and on the elevator doors on the same level. (The Magna Charta excerpts are on the walls of the underground garage’s other level.)

The Northwest Ordinance was one of the first landmarks of constitutional government in the United States. It “organized” the Northwest Territory, the first United States territory, and it set down a series of guidelines that would dramatically affect the development of the “western” United States.

The Northwest Territory included the present day states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota, and its passage was made possible by the willingness of eastern states, particularly Virginia, to cede their western land claims to the national government.

The Ordinance dictated that new states would be created from the Territory when the population warranted; it abolished African-American slavery in the region during the territorial stage; it propagated the first bill of rights issued by the United States government; it committed the policy of the United States to the support of public schools (and religion generally); and it established the “gridded township” system of development advocated by Thomas Jefferson that defines to political organization of states like Wisconsin to this very day.

At the same time the Congress was enacting the Northwest Ordinance in New York City, our so-called “Founding Fathers” were meeting in Philadelphia and were in the process of drafting the Constitution that would replace the Articles of Confederation. That the Northwest Ordinance was unaffected by the ratification of the new Constitution was confirmed on August 7, 1789, when new President George Washington signed into law a re-enacted Northwest Ordinance (which contained only minor alterations).

Plans are in the works for a festive event in the summer of 2014 to celebrate the 225th anniversary of the signing of the re-enacted Ordinance.

 

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