Privacy

Some judges and justices have noted that today's connected world would be completely unrecognizable to the judges who made the decisions the government relies so heavily on

* Barack Obama laid out his plans for an immigration overhaul last night, daring the members of Congress to pass a bill if they didn’t like it. Consider that to be a presidential burn. [New York Times]

* Who’s got the God View now? In an effort to stop pissing off its paying customers, Uber hired Harriet Pearson of Hogan Lovells to take a look at its data-privacy practices. [Bloomberg]

* Dean Jack Boger of UNC Law will be stepping down this summer. He says his journey to deanship started in hell and ended in paradise. We’re not sure law students ever get out of the hellscape. [Daily Tar Heel]

* South Texas College of Law launched an Oil & Gas Law Institute in the hope of making its graduates’ résumés look pretty enough to get them jobs. [Texas Lawyer]

* Darren Wilson, the Ferguson cop who killed Michael Brown, is in talks to resign ahead of a grand jury’s decision on whether or not to indict him. Wise choice? [CNN]

* Floridian women lawyers got their wish: Bad Judge, plagued by bad ratings, is getting canceled. [Daily Business Review] * A round-up of write-ups about today’s oral arguments in the Israel / Jerusalem passport case. [How Appealing] * Interesting reflections from Professor Glenn Reynolds on the controversial catcalling video. [USA Today via Instapundit] * Things are bats**t insane — literally — at this Utah courthouse. [Gawker] * The D.C. Circuit gives the EPA its way on cross-state air pollution. [Breaking Energy] * Election monitors from the Justice Department: possibly coming to a jurisdiction near you (including Bergen County, New Jersey, where I grew up). [BuzzFeed] * Can cops force suspects to use their fingerprints to unlock their cellphones? Eric Crusius and Lisa Giovinazzo debate, after the jump. [Fox News]

* “There’s too much at stake—too much money and interest.” Biglaw firms in West Africa are surviving, nay, thriving, despite the fact that the area is afflicted by the terrors of Ebola. [Am Law Daily]

* “[T]ake a step back, to pause to consider, I hope, a change of course.” The head of the FBI is pissed about cell encryption, and he wants tech companies to cut it out with this privacy stuff. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney has a new chief financial officer. At Pittsburgh’s third-largest firm, the former litigation practice director could really make a name for himself. [Pittsburgh Business Times]

* Former employees — even lawyers — of the recently failed Canadian firm Heenan Blaikie are filing suit, seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars in severance pay. Good luck with that, eh? [Globe and Mail]

* According to NY AG Eric Schneiderman, 72% of Airbnb rental sites in New York City are operating illegally. This is going to be problematic for those who enjoy the services of faux hotels. [New York Times]

What are the advantages and disadvantages of focusing on a niche practice area?

Ed. note: In honor of Columbus Day (and Canadian Thanksgiving), Above the Law will be on a reduced publication schedule today. We will be back in full force tomorrow.

* The Supreme Court’s new Term is off to a great start: Thanks to a copy machine’s error, we almost missed the surprise cert denials in the gay marriage cases. What kind of screw-ups will this week bring us? [National Law Journal]

* On the other hand, in what’s considered an unsurprising move following its cert denials en masse, the Supreme Court allowed same-sex marriage to begin in Idaho. Congrats to the Gem State. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Jenner & Block’s data privacy practice is making waves in an “uncharted but lucrative field,” and its leader thinks that the “Internet of Things” will help heat up her work soon. [Capital Business / Washington Post]

* A future Law & Order: SVU episode? Sanford Rubenstein, a personal injury and civil rights lawyer who’s been described as “[f]lashy, brash and always camera-ready,” is now being accused of rape. [ABC News]

* Yale Law’s most interesting student goes to all of his classes, but never has to study or take any of his finals. It’s not because he’s lucky — it’s because he’s a 93-year-old course auditor. [New Haven Register]

It may be too clever by half, but maybe the collection of phone data wasn't really a search or seizure? Maybe it's a "reasonable" search?

And remember, this man is asking $1 million a month to rent his brain

Ed note: This post originally appeared on Peter S. Vogel’s Internet, Information Technology & e-Discovery Blog. A recent administrative order was issued for Google to “to take the necessary technical and organisational measures to guarantee that their users can decide on their own if and to what extend their data is used for profiling.” Last […]

Hide your kids, hide your wife, these drones are getting everybody.

Ed note: This post originally appeared on Peter S. Vogel’s Internet, Information Technology & e-Discovery Blog. Privacy issues have been highlighted by a recent Newsweek report that “mysterious devices sprinkled across America—many of them on military bases—that connect to your phone by mimicking cell phone towers and sucking up your data“ and an earlier Florida […]

Ed note: This post originally appeared on InfoLawGroup. In a recently reported study released by the the Global Privacy Enforcement Network (“GPEN”), the GPEN found that a testing sample of 1,211 mobile apps accessed during May of this year failed to provide users with adequate privacy protections under current regulatory provisions in the United States […]

* Mathew Martoma, the former Harvard law student who fabricated his transcript when applying for clerkships, gets nine years in prison for insider trading. [DealBook / New York Times]

* If Bingham McCutchen moves forward on merger talks with Morgan Lewis, a bunch of Bingham partners might bail. [American Lawyer]

* Congratulations to Judge Jill Pryor, who will join Judge Bill Pryor on the Eleventh Circuit. [Fulton County Daily Report]

* Can you be fired for medical marijuana in Colorado, where the drug is legal even for recreational purposes? [ABA Journal]

* Dewey have some good news for the embattled ex-leaders of the defunct law firm? [New York Law Journal]

* Home Depot is the latest major retailer to be hit by a data breach. [Washington Post]

Dude, your daughter is in high school. The only punishment she understands is humiliation...

Ed note: This post originally appeared on Peter S. Vogel’s Internet, Information Technology & e-Discovery Blog. A recent survey about BYOD (“Bring Your Own Device”) resulted in the finding that “78% of employees use their own mobile devices for work” and “the use of personal technology to access corporate data can be solved by better […]

Basically, the government spied on its people just as much in the 60s as it does today, it's just back then knowing gay people made you "a potential terrorist" instead of "Bravo's demographic."

What lessons can lawyers learn from this unfortunate episode?

Ed note: This post originally appeared on Global Regulatory Enforcement Law Blog. Seemingly every day, new types of wearable devices are popping up on the market. Google Glass, Samsung’s Gear, Fitbit (a fitness and activity tracker), Pulse (a fitness tracker that measures heart rate and blood oxygen), and Narrative (a wearable, automatic camera) are just […]

Ed note: This post originally appeared on Peter S. Vogel’s Internet, Information Technology & e-Discovery Blog. A Judge ruled it was unreasonable to ask Apple “to execute a search warrant” which “could pose problems, as non-government employees, untrained in the details of criminal investigation, likely lack the requisite skills and expertise to determine whether a […]

Ed note: This post originally appeared on Peter S. Vogel’s Internet, Information Technology & e-Discovery Blog. As part of a drug trafficking investigation the US government persuaded a Court to issue a warrant that “purports to authorize the Government to search any and all of Microsoft’s facilities worldwide” according to Microsoft’s opposition brief filed on […]