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The Courts

Submission + - FBI Doesn't Tell Courts About Bogus Evidence

dprovine writes: According to a joint investigation by series of articles in The Washington Post and 60 Minutes, a forensic test used by the FBI for decades is known to be invalid. The National Academy of Science issued a report in 2004 that FBI investigators had given "problematic" testimony to juries. The FBI later stopped using "bullet lead analysis", but sent a letter to law enforcement officials saying that they still fully supported the science behind it. Hundreds of criminal defendants — some already convicted in part on the testimony of FBI experts — were not informed about the problems with the evidence used against them in court. Does anyone at the Justice Department even care about what effect this will have on how the public in general (and juries in particular) regards the trustworthiness of FBI testimony?
The Internet

Submission + - Rowling Sues Harry Potter Lexicon (arstechnica.com)

Snape kills Trinity with Rosebud writes: "Apparently famous authors don't like it if you try to make a buck using their Imaginary Property because J.K. Rowling is suing the publishers of the Harry Potter Lexicon for infringement. This should prove an interesting test case for fair use given that the lexicon contains mostly factual information about the series, not copies of the books' text. Of course, both sides seem a bit touchy about imaginary property rights, with Rowling's lawyers being miffed after being told to print it themselves when they asked for a paper copy of the lexicon's website, and the lexicon website itself using one of those insipid right click disabling scripts."

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