MaryAnn Spoto reports: A blogger who was sued for what she wrote about a Freehold-based company in the online pornography industry is taking her case to the Appellate Division after a Superior Court judge in Monmouth County refused to reconsider a decision keeping the lawsuit alive. Shellee Hale, a mother of five from Washington State,…
Leahy introduces legislation to reauthorize expiring PATRIOT Act provisions
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Tuesday introduced legislation to address expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, which are slated to sunset on December 31. The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act on Wednesday, September 23. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the chair of…
First Amendment lawsuit challenges Florida ‘Police Privacy Statute’
Robert Brayshaw says that the City of Tallahassee arrested and prosecuted him twice for publishing a police officer’s address online at Ratemycop.com. Now Brayshaw is challenging the constitutionality of Florida Statute §843.17, which states: Any person who shall maliciously, with intent to obstruct the due execution of the law or with the intent to intimidate,…
Universities Spar Over Disappearing Electronic Messages
John Markoff reports: In less than two months after a group of University of Washington computer researchers proposed a novel system for making electronic messages “disappear” after a certain period of time, a rival group of researchers based at the University of Texas at Austin, Princeton, and the University of Michigan, has claimed to have…