This past semester I interned at the Pro Bono Partnership of Atlanta which is modeled after the Pro Bono Partnership that covers New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. The idea behind these groups is to provide transactional attorneys an opportunity to provide free legal services to 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations. The services provided vary widely and the attorneys are always presented with a wide variety of clients as well as issues. Transactional attorneys don't often have an easy way to provide pro bono work and these organizations are an excellent way for civic-minded attorneys to assist non-profit organizations.

Of course he could just contact the non-profit organization of choice directly but there are several advantages to the "clearinghouse" approach. A major advantage is that the work is task-based. This affords the attorney the opportunity to help out without having to worry about over committing. Also, if your friend is interested in IP and has no interest in redrafting bylaws the organization manages the process of having these other tasks covered by attorneys with the appropriate skill-set, desire, and available bandwidth.

As somebody who is soon to graduate law school after 12+ years in business / technology the experience at PBPATL was very encouraging. I met many wonderful attorneys who genuinely appreciate the opportunity to utilize their skills to assist non-profits with their missions. Some of these people work for HUGE companies and never get a chance to deal with the public one-on-one; it was genuinely touching to participate in their meetings and see the attorneys get just as much out of the relationship as the non-profits did.

Anyway... just a thought but if your friend is in the NY area or Atlanta area I'd suggest checking them out. The model is fairly new and so I'm not sure if it has been replicated elsewhere.

(First, IANAL but am on break before my final semester of law school)

When we're asking if something is a crime I believe that we're actually asking two things: (1) is it a crime, and (2) should it be a crime? Here, the answer to (1) is pretty straightforward because it's been addressed by the state legislature. The trickier issue is if it *should* be a crime, for example, if the statute is held to be unconstitutional then it would be invalidated; trickier still are public policy issues. In any case I'll focus on the straightforward aspect.

Here's, the Michigan statute in question: Section 752.795 FRAUDULENT ACCESS TO COMPUTERS, COMPUTER SYSTEMS, AND COMPUTER NETWORKS (EXCERPT)

As his actions were presumably intentional it appears that the issue is: Were his actions without authorization or did they exceed his valid authorization? According to the following article this is a fact-based issue that will be up to the jury to decide. Essentially "she" claims that the computer was hers alone and the password was a secret and "he" claims that he regularly used the computer and had easy access to the passwords. Ease of access to the password will likely be the determinative factor as to if he had "authorization" to access those emails.

Although his rationale for accessing those emails do not appear to be relevant per the statute, I imagine that it would be an issue when it comes time for sentencing. If instead of finding out that she was (presumably) engaged in adultery with an ex-spouse who (presumably) beat her, how would the prosecutor's office have reacted if he had accessed emails showing that:
- she was a drug dealer?
- she was a child pornographer?
- she was a terrorist?

Is reading wife's e-mail a crime? Rochester Hills man faces trial

My initial question was why the prosecutor's office pursued this case in the first place; the following article discusses Cooper's decision to stop supporting treatment courts due to its need to "deal with the surge in violent crime and the surge in technically complex cases." The pursuit of the case at hand doesn't fit with the purported need to focus on a "surge in violent crime...".

Cooper's office threatens to pull out of drug courts

Earlier this year Cooper's office charged a widow of her husband's murder before the autopsy indicated a cause of death. Lloyd Johnson Autopsy Reveals Attorney Not Murdered, Laura Johnson Vindicated? Cooper's reaction to the announcement that no murder occurred is a bit strange: Ms. Cooper sends her regrets, sort of

from: http://s3.parature.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=596

Knowledge Base > Completing the Application > General questions >

My text is cut off when I preview my application.

Not all answers that ‘fit’ on the online application will ‘fit’ on the PDF of the Common Application. While the answers you provide on the online application are below the character limit for a given field, it is possible that those answers may be truncated when the PDF of your Common App is generated. There is often very limited space on the PDF of the Common App. In these cases every attempt has been made to fit the maximum amount of text but still preserve the readability of the information.

It is critical that you preview your Common App and check for truncated information using the Preview link in the top menu bar and the Print Preview link on the Signature page. Because your colleges will see exactly what you see, if you preview the Common Application and find some of your text is missing, you should attempt to shorten your response to fit within the available space. If necessary, you can add more information in the Additional Information section of the Common Application. Colleges that use the Common Application are aware that there is limited space on the PDF.

This is an example of why the operator of a gripe site should avoid commercial activity; although parodies are protected under The First Amendment, the target of parody could argue that the gripe site is no longer parody and instead is a profit making venture. That doesn't mean that their argument will be successful, but it does provide some legal ammo and is not as cut-and-dried as the treatment of a non-commercial gripe site.

Here's a good write-up on parody as it relates to free speech and copyright: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/speech/arts/topic.aspx?topic=parody_satire .

My guess is that it's mostly about initial perception of number of people vs the rate at which the lines are moving. (A) has five lanes with five customers in each queue; (B) has twenty-five customers in one queue.

When you arrive at (A) it looks moderately busy and by comparison at (B) you see a l-o-o-ong line. Obviously the collective queue (B) is processing around 5x the speed of each individual queue (A) but I guess this isn't as obvious (especially initially) as the number of people in each individual queue.

I actually thought that most people knew that single queues were better; I guess not!

IANAL (I'm currently on semester break from my last year of law school) but these types of websites are generally protected from many lawsuits due to their treatment as a form of free speech. Additionally under the CDA ( Communications Decency Act) ISPs are generally not considered the publishers of content posted by their users which provides them some degree of immunity.

Check out this Wired article for some highlights of the legal issues related to a "sucks" / "gripe" site: Legal Tips For Your 'Sucks' Site. Although it was written in 2000 and so might be a little outdated, it's worth reading for some interesting info.

Two important points: (1) The site operator should avoid any commercial activity (at all) on the gripe site and; (2) The site operator should ensure that visitors would never think that the site is in any way associated with the entity that is the focus of the gripe site. While a properly designed gripe site is generally safe from losing a lawsuit it's definitely best to check with an attorney to make sure that you're doing everything properly before heading down a potentially expensive road.

Hmm, very interesting. While it appears you read my post, apparently I wasn't clear when I said "I live in Atlanta and have a few options for broadband but realize that many people are not as fortunate." Perhaps if I clarify:

Me live in big city. Big city has options. Options = good. Me understand that other people exist. Me also understand that others no have options. No options = bad.

In any case I might take you up on your suggestion to move somewhere else; if nothing else I'd be interested to see if you're as charming a neighbor as you are a commenter.

Actually, from the first site returned by the search: "The FCC says that broadband is available via DSL to 79 percent of local telephone company subscribers, and via cable modem to 93 percent of cable television subscribers." It appears that around 20% would not have DSL as a (presumably secondary) broadband option.

I live in Atlanta and have a few options for broadband but realize that many people are not as fortunate. Here's a study which finds that at the state level about 1/2 have a duopoly and some states arguably have a monopoly: http://www.georgia.gov/vgn/images/portal/cit_11783501/151286677State_of_Broadband_Competition_in_America_2010.pdf

http://www.google.com/search?q=broadband+availability

How to be safe(r) online

Here's an excerpt from an article I wrote for my law school's paper about online security w/ some suggestions about passwords. (I doubt there's any interest in the whole article but here's the link if you are for some reason: http://law.gsu.edu/thedocket/node/519 )
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1) Stop using the same password for everything. At a minimum come up with a base password and then append (or prepend) it with something unique for each application. If your base password is "fido" then for Twitter you could use "fidotwit" or "twitfido."

2) Don't use "Fido" as your password. One of the most common passwords is the name of the user's pet (Paris Hilton's Sidekick was hacked because the cracker knew her dog's name was Tinkerbell). Teenage guys often use the type of car they drive. Parents often use the names of their children. Law geeks often use the name of their favorite Justice.

3) Change your passwords occasionally. Just because you haven't noticed anything amiss doesn't mean that your emails aren't being accessed. If you have a base password of "fido" (which you won't because you're faithfully adhering to #2, you might change it to "fidomarch2010."

4) Avoid dictionary words (even non-English words). One fairly simple technique is to come up with a phrase that has some meaning to you and then use the first letter of each word. "I love taking Fido to the park when it's sunny" becomes "iltfttpwis" which could be used as your base password. Applications that allow you to use upper-case and lower-case characters as well as numbers and symbols exponentially increase the complexity of your password. "I love taking Fido 2 the park when it's sunny!" then becomes "IltF2tpwis!" and you have a fairly robust base password; when combined with a variation for each site and occasional changes you should have a decent password system.

Our corporate overlords will never allow it. Even judges are only as good as the corporations pay for.

Fortunately the Constitution has something to say about copyrights. Check out this Congressionally-mandated report about the feared impact of DMCA on the first sale doctrine.

DMCA Section 104 Report

A plausible argument can be made that section 1201 may have a negative effect on the operation of the first sale doctrine in the context of works tethered to a particular device. In the case of tethered works, even if the work is on removable media, the content cannot be accessed on any device other than the one on which it was originally made. This process effectively prevents disposition of the work. However, the practice of tethering a copy of a work to a particular hardware device does not appear to be widespread at this time, at least outside the context of electronic books. Should this practice become widespread, it could have serious consequences for the operation of the first sale doctrine, although the ultimate effect on consumers is unclear. (emphasis mine)

And here's an interesting law review article about the most significant obstacle to applying first sale to digital rights "digital exhaustion." Digital Exhaustion: UCLA Law Review, Vol. 58

Amazon (and publishers) are much better off if they can keep Congress from either creating legislation or the Courts from creating precedent about the first sale doctrine as it applies to digital media; one or the other is going to happen if they don't treat digital media more like traditional media.
And that's why Amazon is begrudgingly offering this "lending" feature.

If I were Amazon I would be doing more than this because the first-sale doctrine will eventually be held to include digital goods. The more that Amazon does now to treat ebooks like physical goods the longer that they'll be able to continue before they are explicitly required to do so. The fact that their current licensing scheme has lasted as long as it has surprises me; this has to be at the back of their minds.

And FYI, libraries around the world (in countries including the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, Mexico) are already offering ebooks online. Check out http://search.overdrive.com/ListLibraries.aspx

If the current network availability is poor and the new network availability is managed by the college then I'm assuming that the issue comes down to preventing the students from access the college's wi-fi during the exam period. The college's network might be able to block access to wi-fi for those students enrolled in your class during that exam period.

To bypass this roadblock your students might "borrow" the credentials of a friend not enrolled in your class to still gain access but this approach might still be fairly effective (and without expense).

In 2007 Verizon blocked text messages from Naral, an abortion rights group claiming they had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages. They reversed position quickly but not before a significant media backlash:

ConsumerAffairs article: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/09/verizon_abortion.html

Although there might be some way of parsing this to make sense to somebody more familiar with Philosophy I'm inclined to think that it could just be a typo. The paragraphs that follow seemed much more approachable. Possibly it should read as:

"So in virtue of that, is it true that there could have been Aliens when in fact there are none, and when, moreover, nothing that exists in fact could have been an Alien?"