One of the recent suggestions we received here at Slaw, was whether we could create separate RSS feeds for of each the individual authors?

Well, it sounded like a great suggestion… At least until Simon F. pointed out that it already exists! And very elegantly placed, I might add, on the Slaw Archives by Author page.

Am I highlighting the obvious? Probably. But if it was a feature you were clamouring for, or, if you can share a little chuckle at Steve’s lack of observation skills… either way, I’m there for you! :)

Happy thanksgiving! . . . [more]

I’m pleased to report that Lesley Harris will be joining Slaw as an occasional contributor.

Lesley is a lawyer, consultant and author who works on Canadian, U.S., and international copyright law, licensing and digital property issues. Based in Washington D.C, she’s a member of the bar in Ontario and is the author of several books including “Canadian Copyright Law” published by McGraw-Hill Ryerson and “Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians”.

Lesley joined the world of blogging in the Spring and now moderates 3 blogs (http://www.copyrightlaws.com/, http://www.copyrightanswers.blogspot.com/, http://www.licensingdigitalcontent.blogspot.com/ ), and uses blogs to teach her online . . . [more]

The states of Nevada and now Massachusetts require that holders of personal information must encrypt that information. Nevada imposes this requirement on businesses with respect to some kinds of information — names associated with social security numbers or various other kinds of access codes. Massachusetts imposes the requirement on everybody and applies it to storage on mobile devices and transmission through open networks.

A memo by the Chicago firm of Wildman Harrold describes both laws and gives citations.

Do we need this kind of rule in Canada? PIPEDA and its provincial counterparts require holders of personal information to keep it . . . [more]

Two stories on cell phones, with a question or two:

1. An article from London Review of Books (“Short Cuts” by Daniel Soar) on how cell phone location records and use records can categorize the users — for marketing, for finding terrorists (or people who may be terrorists …), etc.

Is there a cure for this, besides just using land lines? Or is it a problem, rather than an opportunity?

2. A judicial decision in US district court [opinion of Magistrate Judge | order on appeal] saying that the state needs reasonable and probable grounds before . . . [more]

The Library of Congress has chosen Slaw as one of the legal blogs it will archive as part of one of its four current web capture projects. Styled (somewhat redundantly?) “legal blawgs,” this project will produce:

A selective collection of authoritative blogs associated with American Bar Association approved law schools, research institutes, think tanks, and other expertise-based organizations, containing journal-style entries, articles and essays, discussions, and comments on emerging legal issues, national and international.

The LOC will make its collection of blawgs available to researchers at the library and, ultimately, via the library’s website. . . . [more]

Badasa v. U.S.: Here’s a US immigration case in which the US government offered information from Wikipedia to support its argument about the status of Ethiopian travel documents. The appeals court eventually found that this was not a good source of evidence, and sent the matter back for reconsideration.

ArsTechnica has the story.

Does this sound right to you? Would a print encyclopedia be any better?

I don’t see in this story any concern about the hearsay nature of the evidence — like that of any website, pretty well, surely — though that might depend on the use being . . . [more]

The federal, provincial and territorial justice ministers had a meeting for several days this week and in their final press release said, among other things:

Mandatory reporting of child pornography
Ministers agreed that Canada’s response to child pornography could be enhanced by federal legislation requiring any agency whose services could be used to facilitate the commission of online child pornography offences to report suspected material.

Will “any agency” include telecoms? ISPs? Search engines? What others?

Will the response to this problem be ehanced by mandatory reporting? …Are the various “agencies” contemplated here now reluctant to assist, so that legislation is . . . [more]

Welcome to Shaunna Mireau, librarian at Field Law in Edmonton, and one of our newest core contributors. I count Shaunna as a colleague and friend who inspires me with her energy. She is actively involved in the Edmonton Law Libraries Association (ELLA), and is one of the organizers of the Head Start program, a legal research “boot camp” for law students from various firms put on by ELLA. It involves librarians, lawyers, and judges who all volunteer their time annually to provide the program each June. She contributes to the ELLA blog and is currently ELLA’s web editor. Shaunna also . . . [more]

I first met our new Slaw contributor Omar Ha-Redeye just over a year ago at a meeting of PR professionals when he was doing PR work in the healthcare industry. I was not previously familiar with him, but he stood out to me as one of the most approachable, charismatic people in the room. We immediately hit it off, as I am sure he hits it off with most people. He quietly told me he had applied for law school and was waiting to hear if he had been accepted. I am not at all surprised that he was! Not . . . [more]

[Slaw editor’s note: John Gregory is, among many other things, a Slaw member and also the manager of a highly successful and interesting private email list, ULC_ECOMM, on e-commerce and related matters. He is kind enough to allow Slaw to republish his provocative contributions to that list. We hope that, as they do on his list, they will stir up some discussion here on Slaw.]

Internet Law News today tells us this:

YALE STUDENTS NAME ALLEGED HARASSER IN WEB LIBEL SUIT [Boston.com]
Two female students at Yale Law School who say anonymous, defamatory comments were made about

I’m pleased to report that Alex Manevich has joined Slaw as a core contributor. Alex is a lawyer with Ogilvy Renault LLP, in its business law group, and is interested in a wide range of legal mattters, including patent law, international arbitration, and communications regulation, as well as corporate and commercial mandates. Please join me in welcoming Alex to Slaw. . . . [more]

As Slaw readers will certainly have noticed, in the three years of our existence we’ve opened our arms increasingly wide until we now embrace not simply the legal research and technology that were our original subjects but essentially anything of interest in law. It’s time to acknowledge this broader Slaw and to say, as our revised tagline does, “Slaw is a Canadian cooperative weblog on things legal.” At the same time, I want to reassure those for whom legal research and technology are vitally interesting: we have no intention of abandoning these subjects and will continue to welcome contributors, entries . . . [more]