Loss of Freedom Archives - Page 13 of 33

Law Enforcement Wants To See Your Facebook

Fox News: U.S. law-enforcement agencies are increasingly obtaining warrants to search Facebook, often gaining detailed access to users’ accounts without their knowledge.

A Reuters review of the Westlaw legal database shows that since 2008, federal judges have authorized at least two dozen warrants to search individuals’ Facebook accounts. Many of the warrants requested a laundry list of personal data such as messages, status updates, links to videos and photographs, calendars of future and past events, “Wall postings” and “rejected Friend requests.”

EPA Funds Groups Who Sue

Hot Air: The EPA gets sued on a regular basis by environmental groups complaining about a lack of enforcement, a process that routinely requires legal settlements and significant taxpayer expense. Investors Business Daily’s report today suggests that taxpayers may be funding more of the process than they know. Among the recipients of grants from the EPA are some of the same groups it faces in courtrooms…

Massachusetts Won’t Tax Online Sales

Boston Herald: Despite intense lobbying by big-box stores and the recent passage of a California measure to force online retailers to charge sales tax, the sponsor of a similar bill in the Bay State said his proposal is headed for defeat.

“The speaker and the governor have made it perfectly clear that they won’t support any new taxes,” said state Rep. Martin Walsh. “My bill has a less than 50-50 chance of passage because legislators perceive it as a new tax.”

Freedom or Independence?

Mauled Again: Today is Independence Day, though most people refer to it as “the Fourth of July holiday.” Late last week, while reading a news report about the rather inept manner in which the State of New York has tried to apply its mandatory e-filing requirement to Amish sects that don’t use electricity, let alone computers and the internet, I noticed that one of the individuals remarked that “it’s a free country.” That phrase, and ones like it, have been tossed about so cavalierly that too many people fail to realize that it’s not true. The United States is not a free country.

Opposition to the Protect IP Act

The Volokh Conspiracy: Happy Fourth to you all! Along with 90 (and still counting) other Internet law and IP law professors, I have signed a letter (drafted by Dave Levine, Mark Lemley, and me) in opposition to Sen. Leahy’s “PROTECT IP Act.” [The letter is posted below — the text of the bill, if you’re into that sort of thing, is posted here.]