If you sign a petition supporting a controversial ballot referendum should your name and address be publicized (posted online) in the interests of transparency? Do you have a right to privacy or relative anonymity when you engage in political advocacy that trumps the public right to know your identity? These difficult, increasingly familiar questions are…
Category: U.S.
Tenenbaum hit with $675,000 fine for music piracy
In another big victory for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) a federal jury has fined Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum $675,000 for illegally downloading and distributing 30 copyrighted songs. In finding Tenenbaum guilty of willful copyright infringement, the Boston court’s jury fined the 25 year-old doctoral student a sum of $22,500 for each…
Feinstein: Setting the record straight on warrantless wiretapping program
For the past three and a half years there has been a major debate over the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program. This program, which involved the surveillance of communications between Americans and people outside of the country, began shortly after September 11. It was brought to public light in December 2005, was the subject…
Court: Indiana can’t sue itself
An Indiana agency that protects the interests of patients with developmental disabilities can’t sue the state’s social services administration to obtain the medical records of a mentally ill patient who died, the 7th Circuit ruled. A branch of state government cannot draw on federal civil rights laws to sue another branch of government, the Chicago-based…