Special Report: Inside Washington

Despite Congressional gridlock on a number of critical national issues, legal work that grows from government relations and federal regulation continues to spell opportunity for lobbyists and lawyers.

Source: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202664409483?rss=rss_nlj

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The FBI’s Massive Facial Recognition Database: Privacy Implications

On February 12th of 2008, the FBI announced that it had hired Lockheed Martin to build its Next Generation Identification system (NGI) to deploy multimodal matching to biometric data of US citizens. Today, NGI's database contains several types of unique identifiers including fingerprints, iris prints, and facial recognition. On this episode of Digital Detectives, hosts Sharon Nelson and John Simek interview Jennifer Lynch from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Together they discuss false identifications, mandatory background checks, and the First Amendment right to be anonymous. Tune in to learn more about EFF's FOIA request and how the FBI is using the data of the innocent to look for guilty parties.
Jennifer Lynch is a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to defending civil liberties in the digital world. At EFF, Jennifer works on privacy issues in new technologies such as biometrics, domestic drones, and location tracking devices. She successfully sued the Federal Aviation Administration and Customs and Border Protection to obtain thousands of pages of previously unpublished drone records and has testified about facial recognition and its Fourth Amendment implications before the Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law.
Special thanks to our sponsor, Digital WarRoom.

Source: http://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/digital-detectives/2014/05/fbis-massive-facial-recognition-database-privacy-implications

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This Week on Legal Talk Network (7/7/2014)

Hello. This is Laurence Colletti for This Week on Legal Talk Network. Monday, Digital Detectives hosts Sharon Nelson and John Simek asks special guest Bob Ambrogi about a new survey that suggests that 77% of lawyers at not trustworthy with client data. Here's a preview.
On Wednesday, The Legal Toolkit's Heidi Alexander takes to the road for a Special Report and interviews Clio's Jack Newton at the recent MASS LOMAP conference about his views on cloud technology and customer centricity.
Thursday, we spotlight Heidi again at MASS LOMAP as she speaks to Jim Schonrock from Findlaw about the concept of a "silver bullet" in marketing.
And on Friday, we finish the week with Lawyer 2 Lawyer - our hosts Bob Ambrogi, J Craig Williams and guests discussing the recent Hobby Lobby Supreme Court ruling and how it will effect free speech, women's reproductive rights and the Affordable Care Act. So tune in. It's all right here . . . This Week on Legal Talk Network.

Source: http://traffic.libsyn.com/sr/This_Week_on_LTN_7-7_Audio_Only.mp3

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Novartis Loses Home-State Advantage on Drugs Claim

A federal appeals court has dealt a blow to Novartis? attempt to apply the sharp limits on punitive damages claims of its home state New Jersey to litigation over its cancer drugs Aredia and Zometa.

Source: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202637622472?rss=rss_nlj

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Obama Floats Idea for Limited Refugee Program in Central America

President Barack Obama said Friday that the U.S. could establish a limited refugee program in Central America, allowing people to apply for entry to the country without first making the often-dangerous journey to the U.S.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/07/25/obama-floats-idea-for-limited-refugee-program-in-central-america/?mod=WSJBlog

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Backup Tapes Scrutinized As Hunt for Missing IRS Emails Resumes

WASHINGTON—The inspector general for the Internal Revenue Service is reviewing some agency computer backup tapes to find out whether missing emails are still recoverable, Commissioner John Koskinen said at a congressional hearing Wednesday. Mr. Koskinen's comments to a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee confirmed a report Monday that some of the backup tapes —which perhaps contain copies of the missing emails—might not have been reused, as the IRS has previously said.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/07/23/backup-tapes-scrutinized-as-hunt-for-missing-irs-emails-resumes/?mod=WSJBlog

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Eric Turkewitz on Legal Blogging

Eric Turkewitz, of The Turkewitz Law Firm and author of the New York Personal Injury Law Blog, offers dos and don'ts for first-time legal bloggers.

Source: http://www.law.com/jsp/law/sign_me_in.jsp?article=http://www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/PubArticleLTN.jsp?id=1202596852680&rss=newswire

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Project Aims To Attract, Train Public Defenders

Atlanta-based nonprofit Gideon's Promise has launched a new program called the Law School Partnership Project, aimed at making it easier for Southern public defenders to hire talented new law graduates.

Source: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202631276654?rss=rss_nlj

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Oh, You’re Going To Give Me That Sweet And Sour Sauce

Even if you like sweet and sour sauce, ain’t no way you like it as much as this Washington State man. As reported by The Highline Times:

A man entered a fast food restaurant at the 14800 block of 4th Ave. S.W. asking for some condiments. The clerk told him no. That angered him so he pulled out a knife and demanded they hand over some sweet and sour sauce. There were no reported injuries and it was unclear if they had the suspect in custody.

Clearly a head-scratcher.

Source: http://rss.justia.com/~r/LegalJuiceCom/~3/tm1D7oZYI4c/df-3.html

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No district court jurisdiction for federal employee challenging adverse employment action (6-3)

The US Supreme Court held this morning that the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) precludes district court jurisdiction over Elgin's claim that his removal from federal service was based on an unconstitutional statute. The procedural route prescribed by the CSRA is by appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and, if dissatisfied with the result, appeal to the Federal Circuit, whose decisions in turn are reviewable by the Supreme Court.

Elgin v. Dept of Treasury (US Supreme Ct 06/11/2012)

A federal statute bars employment in the executive branch of male citizens who failed to register for the draft. Elgin, who had been discharged from his job, first challenged the decision before the MSPB - arguing that the statutory bar was unconstitutional - but an ALJ dismissed his case on the ground that the MSPB lacked authority to review the constitutionality of a federal statute. Rather than appealing from that decision, Elgin sued in federal district court.

The US Supreme Court held that the district court lacked jurisdiction because it is "fairly discernable" from the CSRA's text, structure, and purpose that Congress precluded district court jurisdiction over Elgin's claims. Based on CSRA's text and structure, there is no exception for constitutional challenges to federal statutes. If the MSPB lacks power to hear such claims, they can be meaningfully addressed by the Federal Circuit.

The DISSENT argued that Elgin's "constitutional claims are a far cry from the type of claim that Congress intended to channel through the [MSPB]."

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Source: http://www.lawmemo.com/blog/2012/06/no_district_cou.html

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‘State’ of Confusion: The Crux of the Disagreement in the Obamacare Cases

In the span of two hours on Tuesday, two strikingly different opinions landed on a key part of the Affordable Care Act. The conflicting decisions essentially come down to one thing: definition of "the State."

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/07/22/state-of-confusion-the-crux-of-the-disagreement-in-the-obamacare-cases/?mod=WSJBlog

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European Court exposes illegal detention facilities linked to CIA's extraordinary rendition program in Poland

[JURIST] The European Court of Human Rights [official website] handed down two rulings [judgments, PDF] finding the Polish government in violation of European human rights laws based on the establishment of prison center used for illegal detainment and torture of terrorist suspects. Amnesty International (AI) [official website] on Thursday reported [AI report] that the secret prison was established by the Polish Government in an effort to contribute to the US Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) [official website] extraordinary rendition program [JURIST...

Source: http://jurist.org/paperchase/2014/07/european-court-exposes-illegal-detention-facilities-in-poland.php

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Court Grills SEC Over Costly Conflict Minerals Rule

One of the most controversial — and costly — rules in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission history is under scrutiny by a panel of federal appellate judges, who questioned whether the requirement that publicly traded companies disclose the use of certain minerals from the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo violates the First Amendment.

Source: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202636876934?rss=rss_nlj

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So You Got A Check For More Than The Asking Price, And You Weren’t Suspicious?

You list a car on Craigslist, and get a check for almost twice the asking price. Are you suspicious? You should be. This scam has been around for a long time. As reported by The Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, South Carolina):

The victim said Thursday she listed her vehicle [on CraigsList] back in December. She said she was contacted online and via cell phone.

On Dec. 5, she received a check from someone in Cleveland for $2,200 for the vehicle. She was only asking $1,200, the report said.

HUGE RED FLAG!

The victim said she was instructed to deposit the check and then send the buyer $1,000 of it to pay for the towing, the incident report said.

Don’t do it! It’s a …

She said she sent $1,000 through Western Union to a woman in California on Dec. 16.

… scam!

The callers are still trying to scam her for more towing expenses, the victim said.

And why wouldn’t they? That’s what they do.

Source: http://rss.justia.com/~r/LegalJuiceCom/~3/Y7wHLPqSbtI/sfdg-2.html

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Dubious in the First Degree

While many folks from the heartland despise the New York Times for its purported coddling of criminals, its contents don't always bear out this sensibility. It's done it again by publishing Lawrence Downes' homage to ignorance in its editorial notebook.

Payback is a bitch, and to the extent Downes' screed offers anything, it's the insight to what motivates this tyranny of the majority against the 600 Long Island Railroad retirees on disability who had the misfortune of following the LIRR's advice and going to Dr. Peter Ajemian. Long Islanders hate the LIRR. They hate the price of tickets. They hate having to stand on their daily commute despite the absurdly expensive cost of the ride. They hate the uncaring conductors enforcing rules that presume their passengers to be criminals seeking to get free rides. The LIRR has done much to cause this hatred, and only a fool would deny it's well deserved.

This is payback time. Finally, the media and the government have given us an easy target of this hatred, this simmering anger, and the rest of us, the commuters, the business people who paid the hated Commuter Tax, have an excuse to unleash our venom.

For a working schlub who commutes from the suburbs, the Long Island Rail Road disability scandal of 2008 was powerful evidence that the game of life is rigged.

Hundreds of railroad employees — engineers to white-collar managers — would retire in fine health as early as 50, then become instantly and lucratively disabled. If they took their phantom neck and back pain to the right doctor and to an obscure federal railroad board that almost never said no to a disability claim, the checks would start to flow. The daily grind turned into daily golf.

Hundreds?  Name them, Downes. After years of investigation, the government has prosecuted a grand total of 33 defendants, of which 25 have pleaded guilty. Does this amount to hundreds on disability playing "daily golf" using the New York Times version of math?

The scheme cost taxpayers more than a quarter of a billion federal dollars from 2000 to 2008. It also gouged the L.I.R.R., which had to pay for all those early retirees’ pensions and for overtime and training new employees. What was most shocking about this gravy train was how many L.I.R.R. employees were on it. Every year from 2000 to 2008, between 93 percent and 97 percent of employees over 50 who retired with 20 years of service got disability payments. Experts had to wonder what other workplace, besides the gulag, crippled so many of its workers.

Experts knew exactly what happened, even if pundits were confounded. Older employees cost the LIRR a lot of money. They were paid at a much higher rate than new employees, and to reduce costs, the LIRR sought to persuade older workers to move on so they could be replaced with far less expensive employees. Nothing hard to grasp here, Downes. It's just money.

So the LIRR held seminars for the older workers about how they could retire on disability, and steered workers to facilitators who would help them navigate their way through the Railroad Retirement Board's disability system. These workers were sent to physicians who knew what was needed and could help them obtain a disability annuity.

Of course (and nobody seems to get this part of it), the RRB would have these retirees examined by their own physicians, who would review not only the narrative reports of docs like Ajemian, but the treatment notes, x-rays and MRI's as well.  Suggesting that one doc like Ajemian could single-handedly defraud the federal the government is absurd, unless you eliminate the nasty facts and ignore the parts that don't conform to the narrative of payback.

It's not that this doesn't give rise to issues. A railroad disability isn't like a disability that applies to desk jockeys. It's an occupation disability, where it's given because of the inability to do railroad work, meaning those guys who fix the broken switches in the middle of the night in a snowstorm so you can hate them during your morning commute.

Do you really want the guy popping Vicodin because of his herniated disks responsible for the lives of a thousand people?  The potential for harm is so great that railroad workers have been singled out for random drug testing, approved by the Supreme Court in 1989 in Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Assn even thought suspicionless testing would be unconstitutional if applied to, say, New York Times pundits. 

Even putting aside these and myriad other "details" wholly ignored by the media, there remains a flagrant flaw:

The Railroad Retirement Board has only now decided to cut off payments to about 600 of the dubiously disabled, months after the doctor who signed off on their diagnoses, Peter Ajemian, pleaded guilty to fraud in federal court.

Meet the new criteria for terminating rights by the federal government, dubiousness. Forget "beyond a reasonable doubt," "preponderance of the evidence" or "probable cause." Heck, not even reasonable suspicion. Dubiousness. And why does the New York Times endorse the new standard of "dubiousness" for deprivation?

Disenchanted riders are counting on the feds and the L.I.R.R. to get the money back, and send the belated message that the schemers will be punished.

It's not about proof of wrongdoing. There is no proof of wrongdoing. The only "proof" is that guys with missing limbs and multiple surgeries went to Peter Ajemian (plus the unmentioned RRB doctors, but let's not muddle up anger with facts).  As long as people are angry, we don't need no stinkin' evidence.

Lest someone get the misimpression that it's just the Times feeding into the anger and ignorance that pervades the media attention, Newsday offered an editorial as well:

Now the LIRR wants to revoke their pensions as well. Workers who are truly disabled can reapply for disability benefits -- a hassle, probably, but a crucial step to whittle out those who committed fraud.

Because it would be far too hard to expect the government of the United States of America to figure out first whether someone did wrong before convicting them of dubiousness in the first degree and denying them due process?  The difference here is that expectations of thoughtfulness by Newsday are inherently lower than that of the Times. Tell the families who use the disability annuity for food that they just need to suffer the hassle of the next year without it to make the government's job easier.

As far as I can tell, I may be the only voice speaking out for the LIRR disabled, which is itself curious given that I commuted for 25 years on the railroad and hate the LIRR as much as the next guy. But my hatred of the railroad doesn't obscure the facts, my rage doesn't make me desire payback from innocent targets.

For those of you who rail about constitutional violations when it comes to the police, what's being done here isn't materially different. These 600 have been painted with the Ajemian brush, though none have been found guilty of any fraud nor afforded a fair opportunity to challenge the taint imputed to them for committing the crime of dubiousness. 

But then, you aren't getting a disability annuity, so why should you care if the government wrongfully beats the crap out of some other guys, as long as you get to go about your life unimpeded. And besides, everybody hates the LIRR, so it's just too hard to muster any sympathy.  Too hard for Newsday. Too hard for Downes. Too hard for the New York Times. Thinking is too damn hard. Let's just burn them all at the stake and call it a day.

© 2007-13 Simple Justice NY LLC. This feed is for personal, non-commercial & Newstex use only. The use of this feed on any other website is a copyright violation. If this feed is not via RSS reader or Newstex, it infringes the copyright.

Source: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2013/07/08/dubious-in-the-first-degree.aspx?ref=rss

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Ex-Dewey & LeBoeuf Executives Settle With Bankruptcy Trustee

Two former Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP executives have settled a civil suit brought by the defunct firm's bankruptcy trustee to recover nearly $22 million, according to a Tuesday court filing.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/07/22/ex-dewey-leboeuf-executives-settle-with-bankruptcy-trustee/?mod=WSJBlog

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Ethiopia court charges journalists with terrorism, inciting violence

[JURIST] An Ethiopian court on Friday charged nine journalists with terrorism and inciting violence under Ethiopia's anti-terrorism law [text, PDF]. The journalists, including six bloggers, were arrested [HRW report] in April and have been prevented from accessing their families or legal counsel since their arrests. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) [advocacy website], since the implementation of the anti-terrorism law in 2009, Ethiopian authorities have used it as a tool to limit journalism critical of the government [CPJ...

Source: http://jurist.org/paperchase/2014/07/ethiopia-court-charges-journalists-with-terrorism-inciting-violence.php

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Ethiopia court charges journalists with terrorism, inciting violence

[JURIST] An Ethiopian court on Friday charged nine journalists with terrorism and inciting violence under Ethiopia's anti-terrorism law [text, PDF]. The journalists, including six bloggers, were arrested [HRW report] in April and have been prevented from accessing their families or legal counsel since their arrests. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) [advocacy website], since the implementation of the anti-terrorism law in 2009, Ethiopian authorities have used it as a tool to limit journalism critical of the government [CPJ...

Source: http://jurist.org/paperchase/2014/07/ethiopia-court-charges-journalists-with-terrorism-inciting-violence.php

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Supreme Court blocks Utah same-sex marriage recognition

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] on Friday issued a stay [order, PDF] on the recognition of same-sex marriages performed in Utah pending final disposition of the appeal by the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit [official website]. Last week the appeals court denied Utah's request to block legal recognition of the marriages, and Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes [official website] appealed [press release] the case to the US Supreme Court. The state's ban on same-sex marriages...

Source: http://jurist.org/paperchase/2014/07/supreme-court-blocks-utah-same-sex-marriage-recognition.php

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Employer Fraud and Recommendations from New York State Supreme Court’s Grand Jury Report

A recent Grand Jury Report from the New York State Supreme Court brought recommendations of change to handle Employer Fraud in Workers' Compensation. Among the recommended areas of change are the application process, criminal statutes, and the method of collecting data. On this episode of Workers Comp Matters, host Alan Pierce interviews Gilda Mariani of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Together they discuss the results of the Grand Jury Report and the subsequent victims of premium fraud. Tune in to learn more about employee classifications, the involuntary insurance market, and drivers of cost for workers' compensation insurance.
Gilda Mariani is with the New York County District Attorney's Office, having held supervisory positions including Deputy Chief of its former Frauds Bureau as well as Chief of its former Money Laundering and Tax Crimes Unit. She has had a significant role in drafting legislation, including the New York Money Laundering Statute and the misdemeanor crime of Providing a Juror with a Gratuity. She has conducted several investigations that have led to issuance of Reports by the New York County Grand Jury, including the Grand Jury Report released in March 2014 on workers' compensation reform. Mariani is also a recipient of the Robert M. Morgenthau Award by the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York.
Special thanks to our sponsor, PInow.

Source: http://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/workers-comp-matters/2014/05/employer-fraud-recommendations-new-york-state-supreme-courts-grand-jury-report

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