Year archives: 2023

Whistleblowers Are the Conscience of Society, Yet Suffer Gravely For Trying to Hold the Rich and Powerful Accountable For Their Sins

Lawyer, activist, author, and whistleblower Ashley Gjovik states: “I blew the whistle and was met with an experience so destructive that I did not have the words to describe what happened to me. I set out to learn if what happened to me is a known phenomenon and, if so, whether there are language and concepts to explain the experience. I found it is well studied. This article focuses on experiences like mine, where a still-employed whistleblower takes disclosures of systemic issues public due to inaction or cover-ups by the institution. This article does not intend to discount the other varieties of whistleblower experiences; instead, it seeks to explain, expose and validate the turmoil many whistleblowers in similar positions are often forced to endure alone.” Gjovik’s article is an extensively researched and documented history of major whistleblower cases in the United Stated, across sectors and decades.

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Legal Research

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, April 30, 2023

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Privacy Guides – Search Engines; The true numbers behind deepfake fraud; 6 riskiest medical devices for cybersecurity; and ‘As an AI language model’: the phrase that shows how AI is polluting the web.

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cyberlaw, Cybersecurity, Government Resources, Internet Trends, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines, Search Strategies, Social Media

Mifepristone is under scrutiny in the courts, but it has been used safely and effectively around the world for decades

A flurry of court rulings in April 2023 has left the future of the abortion pill mifepristone in question. For now, a U.S. Supreme Court decision on April 21 allows the drug to remain accessible without additional restrictions as the merits of the case are weighed in lower court proceedings. Depending on the outcome, the pill could face a ban or tightened restrictions on its usage, a possibility that has many health care providers concerned. Grace Shih, a family physician practicing in Washington state, explains the science behind mifepristone as well as its safety and efficacy in medication abortions.

Subjects: Food & Drug Law, Health, Healthcare, Legal Research, Privacy, Supreme Court, United States Law

Imagine there’s no partners. And no associates, too.

Jordan Furlong, Legal Sector Analyst and Forecaster, presents an engaging and actionable plan for figuring out how law firms are going to work in future. Furlong states this will occupy countless partnership meetings, conference agendas, and consulting engagements all over the legal industry throughout the next several years. Don’t worry if you don’t have all the answers — nobody else does, either he says. We’re all just getting started. What he suggest though is that figuring out what law firms are going to become requires first letting go of what they used to be. A good start towards accomplishing that would be to abandon the antiquated titles and categories into which we’ve been cramming law firm personnel for the last hundred years.

Subjects: AI, KM, Leadership, Legal Marketing, Legal Profession, Management

El Niño is coming, and ocean temps are already at record highs – that can spell disaster for fish and corals

During El Niño, a swath of ocean stretching 6,000 miles (about 10,000 kilometers) westward off the coast of Ecuador warms for months on end, typically by 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1 to 2 degrees Celsius). A few degrees may not seem like much, but in that part of the world, it’s more than enough to completely reorganize wind, rainfall and temperature patterns all over the planet. White corals indicate bleaching from heat stress. Marine heat waves can trigger coral bleaching. Dillon Amaya is a climate scientist who studies the oceans. After three years of La Niña, he advises that it’s time to start preparing for what El Niño may have in store.

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, April 22, 2023

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Twitter forces all links to go through its own t.co link shortener; Hijacked AI assistants can now hack your data; AI Incident Database; and New ChatGPT4.0 Concerns: A Market for Stolen Premium Accounts.

Subjects: AI, Computer Security, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Healthcare, Privacy

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, April 15, 2023

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: Privacy Violation by GoodRx and FTC Remediation; Does ChatGPT Have Privacy Issues?; Firefox rolls out Total Cookie Protection by default to more users worldwide; Why Banks Are Suddenly Closing Customer Accounts; and A Real-Time Website Privacy Inspector.

Subjects: AI, Cybersecurity, Economy, Financial System, Healthcare, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media