Category: Mass Communication Law

Justice Dept. Asked For News Site’s Logs

Justice Dept. Asked For News Site’s Visitor Lists – Taking Liberties – CBS News

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day. The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site “not to disclose the existence of this request” unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

This is an amazing story… I really think it speaks for itself.

Law.Gov to be an amazing tool

Law.Gov: America’s Operating System, Open Source – O’Reilly Radar

An amazing announcement about law.gov, a tool that could revolutionize access to legal documents in America:

We envision Law.Gov as a distributed, open source, authenticated registry and repository of all primary legal materials in the United States.

From the public.resource.org site:

Law.Gov is an effort to create a report documenting exactly what it would take to create a distributed registry and repository of all primary legal materials in the United States.

Transparency in law is at the foundation of why a democracy works.  That these documents are still largely locked inside private databases and books, despite being absent of all copyright protection, in this age of easy storage and access is surprising. Perhaps all that was needed was an initiative like this one.

Noting all of the prominent IP academics on the “Co-Conveners” list gives me hope that there will be easy access for citation managers (the one technical requirement thing on my wish list).

Copyright treaty still classified

Special Interests See ‘Classified’ Copyright Treaty; You Can’t | Threat Level | Wired.com

Want to know the language of the ever-transforming proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement? It’s classified.

The fact that this treaty continues to be discussed in secret is beyond explanation.  Has anyone started a petition against this?

Here’s a bit more