Privacy Law

Prosecutor Weighs Hate Crime Charges Against Classmates Accused of Secretly Streaming Sex Encounter

Updated: Two classmates are accused of secretly live-streaming a New Jersey college student’s gay sexual encounter days before he committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River. Gay rights advocates are calling the death of Tyler Clementi a hate crime and an example of the…

Sep 30, 2010 11:48 AM CDT

Plaintiff Must Provide Access to ‘Private’ Facebook & MySpace Pages, Judge Rules

By placing her physical condition at issue in a tort claim over a fall from an office chair at work, a woman effectively waived any expectation of privacy in her nonpublic social networking posts relevant to show the extent of her injury and damages, a New York judge has ruled.…

Sep 29, 2010 8:36 PM CDT

Lawyer Charged in Fake Sex Page Case re Neighbor, But Says He Didn’t Impersonate Her

A prominent California personal injury lawyer has been criminally charged for allegedly impersonating a female neighbor on the Internet and setting up pages encouraging strangers seeking sexual encounters to contact her. But attorney Franklin Casco Jr., 49, has been wrongly accused by Irvine police, his counsel, John Barnett, tells the…

Sep 29, 2010 6:41 PM CDT

Do Corporations Have Personal Privacy Rights? Supreme Court Set to Decide

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether corporations are shielded from disclosures under an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act that protects “personal privacy.” The case involves AT&T’s quest to keep secret information gathered in a government investigation, the Associated Press and Bloomberg report. The Federal Communications…

Sep 28, 2010 3:44 PM CDT

Privacy Advocates Decry Anti-Crime Proposals for Internet Wiretaps, Bank Disclosures

Privacy and Internet advocates are raising concerns about new crime-fighting proposals by the Obama administration designed to make it easier to wiretap electronic communications and review banking transfers, no matter how small. The New York Times has the story on the wiretap proposals, while the Washington Post reports on the…

Sep 27, 2010 1:03 PM CDT

Hackers Post Law Firm E-Mail, Exposing Defendant Data, Lawyer’s ‘Lambo’ Tastes

Hackers have obtained e-mails from a U.K. law firm that sues people suspected of illegal file-sharing, according to reports on legal technology blogs. The messages have been posted on the Pirate Bay website and other file-sharing networks, where they have been downloaded and dissected in online reports. E-mails hacked from…

Sep 27, 2010 12:00 PM CDT

Lawsuit Points to Alleged New Tool in Debt-Collection Arsenal: Facebook

When Melanie Beacham was on medical leave from her job last summer, she got behind on her car payments. Although she called the finance company to explain, debt collectors not only telephoned her repeatedly but found another way to make her life difficult, the 34-year-old Florida resident says: Facebook. Locating…

Sep 24, 2010 10:48 PM CDT

Teacher of Year Resigns Over Blog Posts About Her Elementary School Students

A woman who had been named 2010 teacher of the year at Pillow Elementary School in Austin, Texas, has reportedly resigned under fire after administrators found out she had posted photos of some of her students on a personal blog accessible to the public. District administrators said in a written…

Sep 24, 2010 7:25 PM CDT

Lindsay Lohan Settles $100M Suit Over E*Trade’s Milkaholic Baby

Actress Lindsay Lohan has settled her $100 million lawsuit that claimed the milkaholic baby in an E*Trade ad was modeled after her. Terms of the settlement were not immediately available, Reuters reports. E*Trade spokeswoman Allison Jeannotte told Reuters in a statement, “It was a simple business decision. We always have…

Sep 21, 2010 12:28 PM CDT

New Suits Challenge Online Cookies that Defy or Inhibit Deletion

At least six new lawsuits are challenging online cookies that track Internet users’ browsing habits, claiming the modern tracking tools defy or inhibit deletion. Court rulings in 2001 and 2003 found that cookies were legal, the Wall Street Journal reports. The new suits, filed in U.S. District Court for the…

Sep 20, 2010 2:13 PM CDT

Lawyer Gives Examples of Husbands’ Divorce Cases Undone by Facebook

One man who claimed to be unemployed was getting alimony from his soon-to-be ex-wife. On his Facebook page, however, he identified himself as a business owner and described his vacations to exotic destinations with his new girlfriend. Another man in the midst of a divorce claimed he couldn’t afford to…

Sep 17, 2010 5:36 PM CDT

Historians Seek Release of Nixon’s Secret Grand Jury Testimony

A group of historians is seeking the release of former President Richard Nixon’s secret grand jury testimony in connection with the 1972 Watergate break-in that drove him from office. Nixon testified before a grand jury investigating Watergate in June 1975—about 10 months after he resigned the presidency under the threat…

Sep 16, 2010 5:24 PM CDT

11th Circuit Must Decide: Did Lawyer with TB Plead a Sufficient Case Against CDC?

A lawyer who found himself at the center of an international furor after traveling with what was originally publicly proclaimed to be a highly contagious form of tuberculosis is fighting to revive a lawsuit against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alleging that the CDC violated his privacy by…

Sep 15, 2010 7:07 PM CDT

3rd Circuit Gives Judges Discretion to Demand Warrants for Cell Phone Tracking

A federal appeals court has ruled that judges have statutory authority to demand a showing of probable cause when the government seeks cell phone location data to track criminal suspects. The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a Justice Department argument that judges are required to issue orders…

Sep 8, 2010 3:03 PM CDT

Lawyer Sues for $700K After His Arrest for Failing to Show ID in Courthouse

A Maryland lawyer in a hurry to file some briefs decided to take a stand when an officer at the appeals court in Annapolis asked to see his ID. Norman Christopher Usiak refused, the Baltimore Sun reports. His resulting arrest spurred Usiak to file a $700,000 lawsuit claiming false arrest,…

Sep 3, 2010 12:23 PM CDT