Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Supreme Court clarifies basis for why copyright suits over unregistered works should be dismissed

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Supreme Court overturns Second Circuit, holding that a copyright plaintiff’s failure to register the work before filing suit does not deprive the court of subject matter jurisdiction.
Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick, Slip. Op., 559 U.S. ___ (March 2, 2010) [View opinion here]
“Subject matter jurisdiction” refers to a court’s power to hear the matter [...]

Equal Access to Justice for the Poor

The Legal Service Corporation (LSC) was established by Congress in 1974 to secure equal access to justice by providing civil legal assistance to low-income Americans. Today, LSC helps fund nearly 140 legal aid programs across the country in their efforts to represent the poor on a number of vital issues such as combating predatory lenders, [...]

No Justice Can Come From Guantánamo Military Commissions

(Also posted on Huffington Post)
According to news reports, the Obama administration will decide by November 16 whether or not to move the cases of the 9/11 defendants from the Guantánamo military commissions system to U.S. federal courts. It should make this important move and put an end to a shameful era in American history.
I am [...]

Keeping America Safe AND Free

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald pointed out an interesting coincidence today. He writes:

The ACLU has long had as its motto for  its National Security Project: “Keep America Safe and Free.” Here is their new logo:

Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol just created a new organization…Its name is Keep America Safe and this is its logo:

It’s as though they took the [...]

Group sex photos case heads to trial

Peterson v. Moldofsky, No. 07-2603, 2009 WL 3126229 (D.Kan. September 29, 2009)
Defendant took pictures of his ex-girlfriend “engaged in various sex acts with two other people.” Later he emailed some of the photos to his ex-girlfriend’s mother, ex-husband, ex-in laws, boss and co-workers.

The ex-girlfriend sued for intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of [...]

Justice Means Sometimes Having to Say You’re Sorry

The New Yorker’s Amy Davidson points out a fatal flaw in the administration’s justification for continued detentions at Guantánamo:
The difficulty in releasing him was that he might be mad at us for holding him unjustly? How is that solved by continuing to hold him unjustly? Wouldn’t he just get madder? Sometimes our government acts like [...]

Remembering

Jimmy Carter on Accountability for Torture

Former President Jimmy Carter recently stated that he respects but disagrees with President Obama’s decision to block the release of photographs that depict U.S. use of torture and other harsh interrogation methods under the Bush administration. The ACLU is with President Carter when he talks about the hope to be “much more open about the [...]

Expanding the Internet with Community Media

One of the best things about the broadband portion of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act is that it recognizes the importance of community media for expanding the Internet. The concern now is that if you focus too much on the medium itself, you miss that what really brings people online is the sense of [...]

Internet Heroes and Villains

If the history of Internet policy were a movie, it would feature the public tied to the tracks before an onrushing train of corporate lobbyists.
The villain, however, is not just the powerful phone and cable companies these lobbyists represent, but the politicians who tightened the knots and then stood smugly by as our interests [...]