The NSA has been causing technology providers of all stripes — on-premise hardware vendors, cloud application providers, traditional software vendors — no end of headaches as the Snowden revelations continue to pile up. As a recent article by security expert Bruce Schneier outlines, the scale and impact of the NSA surveillance machine is almost beyond comprehension.
Microsoft’s GC, Brad Smith, went so far as to characterize the NSA as an “advanced persistent threat,” a industry term usually reserved to refer to sophisticated and malicious hackers backed by a foreign government. The cost to US technology providers of the NSA . . . [more]
Two articles I noticed this morning emphasize that while social media can bring its own set of legal issues, sometimes its use can have the same consequences as any other form of publication.
The first is a CBC news report that a man has been charged with criminal harassment for his tweets. He was charged a couple of years ago for derogatory and threatening messages. The case is now at trial.
The second is a post at ipblog.ca about a decision regarding an employment non-competition clause. It was alleged that the defendant had contacted customers in violation of confidentiality obligations. . . . [more]
A recent US decision held that a person’s browsing history on web dating sites – not just his profiles, which were clearly intended for public use – could be disclosed to police because the person had authorized the administrators of the sites to know what he was looking at. The case, People v Holmes, involved a high-profile defendant in a criminal case (the person who shot up the Colorado movie theatre – allegedly), but these cases should not turn on whether the person claiming a privacy right is sympathetic.
The key for the court is contained in this passage . . . [more]
The Commons on the photo sharing site Flickr has brought together institutions from around the world to share their images (photographs, illustrations and the like) that are either in the public domain or available for open use.
I was surprised to notice last week that a Law Society of Upper Canada Archives is part of The Commons.
According to an undatec LSUC press release:
. . . [more]The Law Society Archives is pleased to announce that it has been admitted to The Commons on Flickr, a grouping of institutions from around the world that contain archival photograph collections which are available on
How do you use social media in conjunction with events, whether “live and in person” or online? The upcoming Twitter Moot always impresses me in how they have redefined an in-person event for the virtual space, holding the actual moot online–and publicly!–so that others can follow along and even participate. It changes the whole dynamic of the event.
How else can social media be used in conjunction with events–to plan them, promote them, engage people at the event or people just observing, how to “capture” or record the event, and how to allow everyone to learn from the event? Daniel . . . [more]
On December 4, 2013, the Honourable James Moore, Minister of Industry announced that Canada’s new anti-spam law (CASL) will come into force on July 1, 2014.
Concurrent with this announcement, Industry Canada published its finalized Electronic Commerce Protection Regulations (ECPR) with respect to CASL. These regulations were released in response to concerns that its initial set of regulations imposed unnecessary and overly burdensome requirements with respect to the dissemination of commercial electronic messages (CEMs).
After further consultation, Industry Canada introduced a degree of increased flexibility in the ECPR by including, among other things, changes related to familial relationships, excluded CEMs, . . . [more]
Each year on December 1st we open up Clawbies.ca for “nomination season”, a month long process where online participants can highlight some of their favourite voices within the Canadian legal blogosphere.
This past Sunday we were pleased to carry forward that tradition once again – unbelievably for the 8th time! The website theme and award badges got their annual facelift, and the announcement post went live at 9:00 am eastern/6:00 pacific.
A handful of days later, and I’m happy to share our annual “good will project” is off to a great start (and not just Erik Magraken, who now famously . . . [more]
I don’t know if Gmail and Google Calendar are much used within practice — I can think of a bunch of reasons why they shouldn’t be — but I’m certain that many of us who work in the legal industry use these applications in our private lives. In either case, it’s important to have control over your data. If you don’t access your Gmail via IMAP, you don’t have a local copy on your own machines. Now Google plans to let you simply download your mail data as they roll this ability out over the next month. Calendar data can . . . [more]
The November 2013 issue of Connected is now available online.
The bulletin covers news about the impact of social media on courts. Most of the items are about the United States, but there is occasional coverage of other jurisdictions.
The bulletin is published by the Virginia-based National Center for State Courts and the Conference of Court Public Information Officers.
In this issue:
. . . [more]
Auditions are currently open until December 6th for students who would like to participate in the third Twitter Moot taking place on Friday, February 28th. Unlike a traditional moot held in a courtroom type facility, a Twitter Moot takes place online via Twitter (hashtag #Twtmoot).
From the West Coast Environmental Law website:
. . . [more]On Friday, February 28th, 2014 at 10am PST (1pm EST), students from law schools across Canada will argue an appeal over Twitter about the duty of Canada’s governments to consult First Nations on mines development.
The appeal, to be heard before three judges of the
Having spent the last 3 weeks in Australia and Hong Kong, I will be using Slaw to discuss some of the ideas and the firms that I met while out in the Wild East. *** Listen for the audible sigh of relief from everyone at the Law Society of Upper Canada as they learn that I won’t be throwing any more daggers at them – this year ***.
Australia is a beautiful country with a legal market not that dissimilar to Canada. Although with a population of about 20 million people and about 37 law schools, Australia is ripe for . . . [more]
This project has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada | Ce projet a été rendu possible en partie grâce au gouvernement du Canada
