Articles Posted in Laws

I am dedicating this episode of Congressional Haiku to Representative Cliff Stearns (R-FL).

Interwebs awake

From winter dreams. Dot.gov links,

PageRank blossoms.

Washington is no stranger to political gridlock. And, we expect a certain amount of intransigence when Republicans and Democrats coalesce. But, in a shocking act of all that’s wrong in the Capital City, Congress may be stepping in to compel one government website to link to another. Of course, the surprise is that both websites are presumably run by the same organization–the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.

New Jersey’s governor Chris Christie vetoed a bill on Thursday that would have legalized online gambling inside the state’s borders. Several other states, including Iowa, California, and Florida are considering similar legislation.

In New Jersey, those in favor of the bill touted it as a way to create 1,500 jobs in Atlantic City, the only part of the state where casino gambling is currently legal, and bring in $35 million in tax revenue. Christie vetoed the bill because he felt that voters should be the ones to approve such a measure. Polls show that 67% of New Jersey voters are not in favor of legalized online gambling.

Two months ago, a huge celebration marked the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), the policy that allowed the military to treat gays and lesbians differently than heterosexual members of the armed forces. The repeal represented a big win for the LGBT community.

I know we’re all aware that the Northeast has a lot of snow – and I mean, a lot of snow. What you may not have heard of though is a decision that came down from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court this past July which overturned over a century of law regarding snow and ice removal.

Previously, property owners could escape liability if they did not remove “natural” accumulations of ice and snow from their property. Papadopoulos v. Target Corp. abolished this distinction between natural and unnatural snow and ice accumulation. Landowners must now apply the same obligation of reasonable care to this type of hazard as they would to other hazards on their property.

All’s well on paper, but I was curious during a trip to Boston over the weekend to see if the new rules would make any kind of a difference walking around town (as an aside, lying on the ice Saturday night, having fallen in a puddle of of the slushy slippery stuff, I wondered if maybe I had taken my research just a tad too far). The bottom line: even with more people out shoveling early and often, I’m not sure their efforts are any match for this Winter and we’re bound to see an early Spring of personal injury lawsuits.

Super Bowl XLV is coming up on February 6th, featuring the Green Bay Packers versus the Pittsburgh Steelers. Las Vegas odds favor the Packers by 3 points, but how many of us are going to make the trip to Vegas to bet on the big game? Most people are more likely to place their wagers in small-scale Super Bowl pools with friends or coworkers. But are these friendly wagers legal?

Many states, including Colorado, South Carolina, and Maine, provide exceptions to their usual gambling laws for social gambling.

Last week, President Obama ordered a review of US Regulations to remove rules perceived to be outdated, stifling job creation, and making our economy less competitive in the world marketplace. In an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, he described it as thus:

“This order requires that federal agencies ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth. And it orders a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive. It’s a review that will help bring order to regulations that have become a patchwork of overlapping rules, the result of tinkering by administrations and legislators of both parties and the influence of special interests in Washington over decades.”

We’ve all used work e-mail for personal stuff, haven’t we? You know: connecting with college friends, organizing family reunions, and making appointments with our lawyers, right?

Wait a second….what was that last thing?

If you live in Northern California, take note: a state appeals court just ruled that an employee’s attorney-client e-mails that use his employer’s company e-mail account are not protected, confidential communications.

We’ve come a long way from a parking garage in Virginia. While some of our readers may already know of MapLight.org, I wanted to make special note of this terrific site that tracks the connection between money and politics, especially in light of recent reports that corporate contributions have surged to the new Republican leaders of the 112th Congress.

MapLight helps citizens hold their legislators accountable by creating an easy interface to drill down and research the relationship between campaign contributions made by lobbyists and corporations to specific lawmakers on the one hand, and the votes these legislators make for or against specific bills on the other. Users can follow the money trail in a variety of ways. If you have a specific bill you’re interested in, you can search for it, or also quickly access “Bills in the News.” For instance, check out the page for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act where you can track the total contributions made on either side of the bill, look at “$ Near Votes” which provides total contributions given to House members within 30 days of the vote, or review charts and graphs generated by this data for some interesting visuals.

Getting Organized Over Organized Crime

Like death and taxes, organized crime appears to be an unavoidable part of life around the world. Today’s FBI arrest of at least 100 alleged members of La Cosa Nostra on the East Coast is just the latest chapter in a real-life saga.

Would you rather be an educated organized crime buff, or do you prefer to be stuck in stereotypes from the movies (The Godfather), TV (The Sopranos), and fiction books? After all, criminal syndicates have been part of American life for centuries.

Don’t think that organized crime only involves New York’s ‘Five Families’ — the Bonnano, Columbo, Gambino, Genovese, and Luchese criminal syndicates accused today.

A hat-tip to Mary Minow for alerting readers via her Library Law Blog post last week that Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan introduced HR 67 on January 5, 2011 to extend the PATRIOT Act yet another year to February, 2012. Given the short amount of time available to renew the Act and that the renewal period is only a year, most feel the extension is likely to happen without much notice or pushback. Congress passed the original PATRIOT Act in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Much has been written about its provisions which, among other things, allow expanded use of National Security Letters, permitting the FBI to search telephone, email and other electronic records without first securing a court order. In particular, within the library community, alarm has been raised by provisions which grant law enforcement access to library patron records.

Patriot Act Resources

• H.R.3162 – USA PATRIOT Act, Original 2001 Bill, 107th Congress