Privacy

* John Edwards’s heart condition has improved, so his campaign finance trial will begin in April. Your heart condition would be more manageable, too, if you knew your sex tapes were going to be destroyed. [Bloomberg]

* Despite his love of all things fabulous (like peep-toe shoes), Proposition 8 plaintiffs don’t want Chief Judge Alex Kozinski to hear their arguments on an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit. [Poliglot / Metro Weekly]

* Instead of filing a motion to dismiss like Cooley and NYLS, Florida Coastal School of Law has removed its law school lawsuit to federal court. Will this be the start of a new trend? [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* A witness claims that Dharun Ravi “appeared uncomfortable” because his roommate was gay — so uncomfortable that he allegedly set up a webcam to watch his intimate encounters. That makes sense. [CNN]

* Objection! Lindsay Lohan is hosting Saturday Night Live, but her lawyer had to approve all of her skits. What a shame. Bobby Moynihan would’ve been great as Judge Sautner. [Daily Dish / San Francisco Chronicle]

* Defense lawyer: “I think you’ll be returning a verdict of ‘guilty’ on each and every one of these counts. I mean, crap… Scratch that, reverse it.” [NewsNet 5 Ohio] * It really stinks that Chick-fil-A is a little bit evil, because their food is SO GOOD. [TaxProf Blog] * Attorneys with more pronounceable names […]

* A federal judge tossed out a law requiring tobacco companies to put graphic warning labels on cigarette packages. If paying $7 a pack doesn’t stop you from buying smokes, I don’t think nasty photos will either. [CNN]

* SCOTUS won’t deal with Arizona’s controversial immigration law for a couple months, but the 11th Circuit will hear oral arguments about Alabama’s even stricter law today. But why would you immigrate to Alabama, of all places? Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* The Seventh Circuit ruled that police can search a cellphone for its number without a warrant. Judge Richard Posner compared it to law enforcement’s ability to open a pocket diary and copy the owner’s address. The bigger question is: do drug dealers keep diaries? [Wall Street Journal]

* James Murdoch, the News Corp. heir apparent, has resigned in the wake of the News of the World scandal and related lawsuits. Now everyone can just go back to reading British tabloids for the Page Three Girls. [Los Angeles Times]

* RIP Lynn D. “Buck” Compton, the prosecutor who secured a conviction of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin, and the Army paratrooper portrayed in the book and HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers.” [Washington Post]

* Remember Phillip Closius, the former dean of University of Baltimore Law, who said the university was raiding the law school’s funds? Yeah, he was totally right. Just guess what percent of the law school budget was going to the rest of the university. Starts with “A” and rhymes with “dot.” [National Law Journal]

* The humanity! Oklahoma’s worst fears have come true; American judges are enforcing Sharia Law! Whatever are we going to do? There is no solution in sight — except to maybe stop overreacting… [CNN]

* Mitt Bot won in both Arizona and Michigan last night. Can we send Santorum back to the 16th century yet? [The Washington Post]

* Twenty-five suspected members of Anonymous were arrested across Europe and South America. They ain’t anonymous anymore. [New York Times]

* In other cyberlaw news, Google’s new privacy policy not only stinks, it probably violates European Union law. Hey Google, don’t be evil! [New York Times]

* Justice Clarence Thomas for president? Hey, it could happen. Lat and Kash’s 2010 proposal is getting a second look. [Daily Beast]

* Speaking of presidents, the Arizona and Michigan primary elections are today. I know folks on the coast often don’t pay too much attention to those middle-of-the-country states, but it will be interesting to see what the Illegal Immigration State and Crippled American Auto State have to say about our ragtag bunch of Republican presidential candidates. [New York Times]

* Emails published yesterday by Wikileaks appear to show that Pakistani military intelligence knew where Osama bin Laden was hiding in the months before Seal Team Six raided his garrison and killed him. I hope Wikileaks has juicier material in the pipeline? [Telegraph]

* Congratulations to Tony West, who will become acting associate attorney general, the No. 3 post in the Justice Department. [Chicago Tribune]

* Interesting report on tensions between the White House and the NSA, which has tried to get permission to monitor private web activity, perhaps at the expense of privacy. But Google knows everything you do on your computer, so why shouldn’t the government? [Washington Post]

* Vedel Browne has been charged in the machete robbery of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. He faces up to 20 years if convicted, and with that sentence, we’re betting he wishes he got away with more than $1,000. [CNN] * ¡Viva México! These days, Mexico’s got more than just drug cartels, violence, and prison […]

* Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg thinks Roe v. Wade was a mistimed ruling, saying things would be different today if the court had been more “restrained.” Well, wire hanger sales would be up, that’s for sure. [CBS News] * Bait and switch of the day: personal injury firms are enticing plaintiffs to sue with promises […]

While most law students are shaking off the winter break and settling back in for the second semester, Max Schrems is busy doing his best to bring Facebook to its knees. Last year, the 24-year-old University of Vienna law student spent a semester abroad at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley. His privacy law professor […]

* Time for a Biglaw battle: William Baer of Arnold & Porter is the front runner to take over the DOJ’s antitrust division, but could he lose the spot to one of O’Melveny’s finest, Richard Parker? [Blog of Legal Times] * It’s about time people remembered there’s no such thing as privacy anymore, but in […]

It has already been a big week for legal technology. Yesterday, the Supreme Court handed down its opinion in United States v. Jones. The case dealt with emerging fourth amendment and privacy issues now that law enforcement have increasingly advanced technological abilities. Well, law enforcement in the city of East Orange, New Jersey have also […]

Yesterday, the Supreme Court just handed down a unanimous ruling in one of the most closely watched cases of the year. All the justices agreed on the result, but diverged significantly in reasoning. The central issue in US v. Jones was whether attaching a GPS device to a car (i.e., allowing law enforcement 24/7 access to a person's movements), without obtaining a warrant first, violated the Fourth Amendment. What did the justices say? The ruling might surprise you....

On Monday, my roommate came home griping that his Zappos.com account, which he had not used in a year, had been hacked. Instead of feeling sympathetic, I started wondering how I might write about it. Data breaches are a dime a dozen these days. It seems almost every company loses control of their customers’ sensitive […]

The Internet Movie Database, aka IMDb, found itself under attack for revealing an actress's age and "real Asian name." Kash detailed the charges last October. A few weeks ago, we noted that the woman would have to put up (her name) or shut up (legally speaking). Well, we don't want to waste any more of your precious time. The grand reveal is finally here. After the jump, pictures of an attractive Asian woman....

Chris Danzig had never heard of Max Mosley until yesterday, when he read he was suing Google in Europe to block all search results regarding his alleged participation in some sort of Nazi sex orgy. Ironically, when you search for Mosley's name now, you get a zillion news stories with headlines like "Max Mosley sues Google over 'Nazi orgy' search results‎." Let's learn more about Mosley, the former president of Formula One, and his decidedly unsexy legal battle against Google....

Last week, the tech world caught fire with the newest in an increasingly long list of electronic privacy scandals. Carrier IQ, a small Silicon Valley software company with its product installed on millions of cell phones, made headlines when a young programmer posted a video allegedly showing the software’s ability to log keystrokes and collect […]

Caveat: I did not write the following dialogue. It is from the “comments” section of one of my columns where I mentioned I’d be writing about HIPAA and GLBA. Unfortunately, I cannot attribute the comments to the persons who wrote them, as they are anonymous; however they are quite apropos of today’s subject: 1) “I […]

* Facebook settled with the FTC over its privacy violations. Mark Zuckerberg will be adding a “dislike” button to the site so he has an appropriate way to deal with this. [National Law Journal] * The lawsuit seeking to overturn gay marriage in New York will proceed. Eric Schneiderman just got disinvited from more holiday […]

There has been justifiably a lot of talk over the last few days about U.S. v. Jones, and the privacy issues it raises. Our editor emeritus Kashmir Hill was fortunate enough to hear oral arguments at the Supreme Court in person, alongside top legal reporters such as Jeffrey Toobin and Adam Liptak. But when it […]

The Supreme Court justices were decked out in their usual black robes today for U.S. vs Jones [pdf], a case involving the question of whether police need a warrant to attach a GPS tracker to someone’s car. But given their paranoia about possible technology-enabled government intrusions on privacy, it might not have been surprising if […]

Remember how everyone used say, “Don’t post anything on Facebook you wouldn’t want your boss to see. But if you do, just make sure you set your privacy settings so that your boss can’t see.” Well, things have changed. Now, when companies enter workman’s compensation or personal injury litigation, courts will sometimes order discovery on […]