A trial court in New Jersey said it could be, but the New Jersey Supreme Court has said no: During a primary contest for State Senate, opponents of candidate Brian Stack issued campaign flyers criticizing him for previously hiring a person with a criminal conviction, plaintiff G.D. One campaign flyer stated that G.D. was “a […]
Archive | Privacy
NASA Employees Have No Constitutional Right to Avoid Certain Background Checks
So the Supreme Court unanimously held today in NASA v. Nelson, reversing a contrary Ninth Circuit panel opinion. I think the Court’s result is quite right, for reasons I blogged about earlier; I hope to post more on the reasoning soon. UPDATE: Here’s a quick summary of the Court’s conclusions: 1. The Court “assume[d], without […]
No “Intrusion Upon Seclusion” Tort When Person is Videotaped at a Publicly Visible Religious Service
From Tagouma v. Investigative Consultant Servs., Inc.: On April 8, 2004, [Appellant, Ahmed, Tagouma] fell at work while employed at Arnold Industries. He suffered an acute fracture of his right hand. [Appellant] was later diagnosed with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome (RSD). [Appellant] sought workers’ compensation benefits and Arnold Logistics contested his claim. While the claim […]
Interesting Fourth Circuit Free Speech vs. Information Privacy Case
It’s Ostergren v. Cuccinelli (4th Cir. July 26). I’m on a trip with my son and can’t blog much this week, and the case is complex enough that I can’t quickly summarize it, though the short answer is that the speaker won. But if you’re interested in free speech vs. information privacy questions, you should […]
The Future of Privacy: Facial Recognition, Public Facts, and 300 Million Little Brothers
It’s been a pleasure to blog this week. I hope you’ve enjoyed this conversation and I’d love to continue it. If you’re interested in reading more, check out our book, Wild West 2.0. It is the most-discussed Internet policy book of 2010 (Jimmy Wales called it “an invaluable guide” to the “brave new world of […]
Short Essay on Snyder v. Phelps, Part V: The Intrusion Upon Seclusion Tort
For more about the essay (for an online symposium), see here; to read the full 9 pages, see here. This week, I’m posting (and combining using the Snyder v. Phelps tag) some passages: Earlier, I blogged about Hustler v. Falwell and why it applies here, as well as about the arguments that the liability in […]
Speech Restrictions Aimed at Making Sure People Act in “Right-Thinking” Ways
The comment thread in my “down the memory hole” speech restrictions post reminded me of what I wrote ten years ago about the California Supreme Court’s 1971 decision in Briscoe v. Reader’s Digest (which has since been overruled, based on intervening Supreme Court First Amendment precedent). Here’s my criticism of Briscoe (some paragraph breaks added, […]
“Down the Memory Hole” Speech Restrictions, Supported by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
In an amicus brief EPIC just filed in G.D. v. Kenny — a case pending before the New Jersey Supreme Court — EPIC argues that convicted criminals should be able to sue for “disclosure of private facts” when others accurately report on the criminal conviction, so long as the state court system decided to retroactively […]
Judge Suing Newspaper for Breach of Web Privacy Agreement Over Being Outed as Author of Anonymous Comments
[UPDATE: Note the change in the legal analysis below.] The Complaint is available here; it claims that the newspaper’s identifying Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold as the supposed author of items posted under the “lawmiss” account breached the newspaper’s Privacy Policy. A bit of background, from a WKYC story: A comment by an Internet poster identified […]
Merrick Garland is no friend of the rights of gun owners
Details here, regarding the 2000 case NRA v. Reno, and Judge Garland’s refusal to require the Clinton Department of Justice to obey the federal statute requiring the destruction of records of firearms purchases by law-abiding Americans. The decision also suggests a cavalier disregard for privacy rights in general, such as the right not to be put on a […]
“If you don’t want us to see you naked, maybe we’ll just put bees down your pants.”
TSA is facing new challenges from powerful explosives hidden in areas that usually can’t be searched until after dinner and a nice wine. No one is wild about the millimeter wave and backscatter machines that show how we’d look on the beach if we were dumb enough to wear Speedos. The “puffer” machines that tried […]
New Supreme Court Case on the Constitutional Right to Informational Privacy
[1:58 pm: Bumped up above the other posts on today’s cases.] The Supreme Court has just granted cert in NASA v. Nelson, the Ninth Circuit case I blogged about here and here. Let me repeat below my thinking about the case from that last post: The case involves a challenge brought by various contract employees […]
“Wait, don’t change the channel! We left Fox News out of the Privacy Assessment.”
By Stewart Baker on February 13, 2010 1:11 pm in Libertarianism, Privacy, Terrorism, Uncategorized, War on Terror
With his usual nudge-and-wink, Matt Drudge invites us to be dismayed that “BIG SIS” — his moniker for Janet Napolitano — is “Monitoring Web Sites for Terror and Disaster Info.” Drudge links to a story saying that DHS will be monitoring social media like Twitter, as well as websites like Drudge, to keep abreast of […]
The Surprisingly Narrow Top-Side Merits Brief in City of Ontario v. Quon
Last week the petitioners in City of Ontario v. Quon filed their merits brief. Quon is the pending Supreme Court case on Fourth Amendment rights of government employees in their text messages created using government-provided text pagers. I’ve read the brief, and it makes a surprisingly narrow argument: I suspect that this narrow framing will […]
OLC Memo on FBI-Telco Cooperation
By Jonathan H. Adler on February 2, 2010 6:48 am in Counter-Terrorism Policy, Privacy, War on Terror
Marc Ambinder has an interesting post on a yet-to-be-released, classified Office of Legal Counsel memorandum on the FBI’s authority to seek the “voluntary” disclosure of some records by telecommunications companies. The memo was issued on January 8, apparently in response to a request from the FBI, and is referenced in an unredacted portion of this […]