Senators Patrick Leahy and John Cornyn have introduced a bill establishing a committee of citizens to make recommendations on improving FOIA performance. A similar version of this bill was introduced in 2005 and went nowhere fast, according to Scott A. Hodes.
Nicole L. Black highlights how our net activities are carefully monitored and meticulously tracked by some of the biggest players, including Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook. Our individual online footprints, from the Web sites we visit, the items we purchase, the people with whom we communicate, to the locations where we access the Internet, are extremely valuable commodities that are increasingly sought after.
Requesters who are new to using the FOIA statute often complain that they have filed a request within the last month but haven’t receive their documents yet. FOIA expert Scott A. Hodes explains that the congressional budgeting process does not specifically provide FOIA operations within an agency a set line item amount. Thus, FOIA Offices usually have limited resources from within their own agencies to fulfill requests.
Courtney Minick and David Tsai provide an overview of the new features Google Scholar provides for the legal research market.
Conrad J. Jacoby details approaches and exercises that contribute to a successful process for calculating – and staying within – a realistic budget for a litigation or regulatory document review.
The court decisions, ethics opinions and articles comprising Ken Strutin’s guide provide background into current legal thinking about covert investigations, and include recent publications addressing online pretexting as well as the privacy limits of social media.
Conrad J. Jacoby discusses his experiences using the Peek mobile e-mail device (Time Magazine’s 2008 Gadget of the Year), which he believes is genuinely useful and an excellent value for its cost.
Attorney, food writer, astrologer and Tarot master Kathy Biehl is a long term contributor to LLRX.com. Her new column explores different avenues to understand the collective challenges that have become an integral part of our lives and perspectives over the past couple of years.
Public interest law advocate Diana Philip’s commentary focuses specifically on the multifaceted, complex and challenging issues that encompass the dichotomy between reproductive health care and rights available to adult pregnant women and pregnant minors. Diana’s position includes references to seminal legal cases as well as to selected scholarly literature in the field of juvenile reproductive health.
Scott A. Hodes comments on the Obama administrations’ decision to continue to fight the release of detainee photos.