Privacy Law

Supreme Court Rules Against Cop Claiming Privacy Rights in Text Messages

The U.S Supreme Court has found no Fourth Amendment violation in a search of a police-department issued pager that revealed a police officer’s steamy text messages. The Supreme Court said the search of Jeffrey Quon’s pager was justified because there were was a legitimate work-related rationale. The goal was to…

Jun 17, 2010 2:27 PM CDT

Many Wince at Above the Law Blogger’s Chilling Account of Online ‘Stalk’

Law blogger Kashmir Hill thought she had few illusions about Internet privacy, according to her biography page for a True/Slant blog about privacy, technology and the law. But the online research that resulted in the Above the Law editor’s chilling Assembly article about the enormous amount of detailed personal information…

Jun 16, 2010 12:15 AM CDT

Plaintiff Law Firm Bought Competitor Keywords, Too, Argues Defense in Web Ad Suit

In an unusual lawsuit filed in November, a Wisconsin law firm claimed that a competitor had violated state privacy law by purchasing its name from several search engines for use as advertising keywords. By doing so, Cannon & Dunphy improperly arranged to put its own law firm profile atop the…

Mar 15, 2010 5:10 PM CDT

Convicted Germans Seek to Edit History in Suit Against Wikipedia

Two Germans convicted of killing an actor in 1990 are suing Wikipedia’s parent in an effort to force the online, publicly edited encyclopedia to remove their names from an English-language entry about their crime. The plaintiffs, Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber, say their right to privacy should prevail, the New…

Nov 13, 2009 1:58 PM CST

Airline’s Sham Divorce Case Over Pilot Pension Payments Doesn’t Fly

Nine Continental Airlines pilots apparently thought they had found a wily way to get around benefits rules when they divorced their wives, which allowed the women to collect pension money in a lump sum, and then remarried their ex-spouses. And they were right, according to a federal judge’s ruling yesterday.…

Oct 20, 2009 6:22 PM CDT

Feds Can Monitor Personal E-Mail Sent Privately to Gov’t Workers, DOJ Says

You might think that a private-mail sent to another U.S. citizen’s personal account isn’t subject to government monitoring. But that assumption could be wrong if the recipient is a federal government employee. Both recipients and senders have no reasonable expectation of privacy if an e-mail is opened by a federal…

Sep 21, 2009 4:43 PM CDT

Mont. Town Rescinds Rule Requiring Job Seekers to Reveal Social Web Passwords

Rescinding a controversial hiring policy that one commissioner called “a gross invasion of privacy,” the governing body of Bozeman, Mont., voted yesterday that its human resources department would no longer require job applicants to reveal their personal passwords to social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace. The 2008 policy…

Jun 23, 2009 9:01 PM CDT

Top NY Court Nixes GPS Tracking Unless a Search Warrant is Obtained

An apparent New York State Police practice of using GPS tracking devices on suspects’ vehicles for extended periods is a violation of their constitutional privacy rights unless a search warrant is obtained, according to a divided New York Court of Appeals ruling. In its 4-3 ruling today, the state’s highest…

May 12, 2009 6:19 PM CDT

Farrah Fawcett ‘Sting’ Put Spotlight on National Enquirer

It wasn’t just dozens of high-profile medical files that a rogue worker at UCLA Medical Center peeped into between 2003 and 2007. It was nearly 1,000, reports the Los Angeles Times in a lengthy article today that focuses on one of the victims of the illegal invasion of privacy, actress…

May 12, 2009 12:19 AM CDT

Paralegal Sues Over ‘Herpes’ Blog Post

An unidentified Texas paralegal is suing an Internet gossip blog over an anonymous February post that allegedly portrayed her, using her name, as unattractive and infected with herpes, among other negative characterizations. The cruel post on thedirty.com has humiliated and upset her and made it difficult for her to focus…

May 9, 2009 12:55 AM CDT

Fordham Law Class Collects Personal Info About Scalia; Supreme Ct. Justice Is Steamed

Last year, when law professor Joel Reidenberg wanted to show his Fordham University class how readily private information is available on the Internet, he assigned a group project. It was collecting personal information from the Web about himself. This year, after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made public comments…

Apr 29, 2009 6:58 PM CDT

Probable Cause Requirement for Border Searches is Dropped

Documents and electronic devices seized by border control agents can be copied without any suspicion of wrongdoing under new standards issued by the government this summer. The change lowers a previous bar that had been set for copying materials. Before the change, the government had required probable cause that a…

Sep 23, 2008 12:58 PM CDT

No Suspicion? No Problem: Feds Can Still Take Laptops at Borders, Read Contents

Confirming what some had previously feared, federal agencies say they can confiscate travelers’ laptops at U.S. borders for virtually any reason, and read and share with others the contents of documents the personal computers contain. These policies of the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S.…

Aug 1, 2008 6:50 PM CDT

Web Companies Seek New Federal Privacy Law for Internet Ads

Existing privacy laws concerning Internet advertising are in good shape, a Federal Trade Commission official said in a hearing today before the Senate Commerce Committee, and any gaps can be filled by industry self-regulation. But big Internet companies are seeking a uniform federal law to replace a patchwork of state…

Jul 9, 2008 7:53 PM CDT

Stolen: HealthSpring Laptop Loaded With Data for 9K Patients

A Nashville, Tenn.-based managed care company disclosed Wednesday that an employee’s laptop computer, which contained private data for about 9,000 individuals, had been stolen from a locked car. The HealthSpring Inc. laptop, which held names, dates of birth and social security numbers, was stolen March 30 in Houston, the Tennessean…

May 22, 2008 3:35 PM CDT