This morning, by 6 to 1, the SCC dealt with pornography on a work-issued computer and whether an employee had any reasonable expectation of privacy. The majority of the court set asise the Ontario Court of Appeal’s order in R. v. Cole, to exclude the evidence on the basis that it was obatined in breach of ss. 8 and 24(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Abella J. would have continued the exclusion. A new trial will be held in any event.

Here is the headnote: . . . [more]

Following yet another Apple-Samsung court battle, this time over tablet infringement, a ruling out of the UK has the Judges ordering Apple to make a public online apology. One of the first references I came across this afternoon, and not yet having read the judgement, was a Gizmodo post that poked fun at the Judges’ very specific directions, that Apple is Forced to Run their Public Apology in 14pt Arial font.

I thought it was pretty funny. That the judges would dictate the actual font and font size that must be used; and that Apple, of all companies, . . . [more]

The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) and the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) have co-published a white paper called The New Librarian that looks at the new skills that today’s information professionals need to have or acquire to do well and survive. It is full of examples of how law librarians in different contexts are facing up to the challenges of constant change.

In her introduction, Kate Hagan, Executive Director of AALL, writes:

This joint white paper acknowledges the strategic alliance that has developed between the law librarian and technologist in driving efficient and effective legal information management. The

Lexum, the company that puts the opinions of the Supreme Court of Canada online, has updated the judgments page. The new page shows off Lexum’s product Decisia, software to assist courts and tribunals to put their decisions online.

The new page offers you a few recent decisions and a few news releases, with the option in each case of browsing through the entire database. Judgments can be browsed by date, case name or subject. Sophisticated searching is also possible, of course.

The only suggestion I’d make (after a very few minutes of using the Decisia layout) is that . . . [more]

The second #lawstudent #twtmoot competition will take place November 20, #twtmoot organizer @WCELaw recently announced. Participating #lawschool teams will again #twtmoot an #envlaw question, addressing before the #STCC (Supreme Twitter Court of Canada) the question of a public right to a healthy global atmosphere. West Coast Environmental Law was successful last time in raising awareness not only of the #twtmoot event, which trended in #Canada at the time, but also of #envlaw issues—the focus the environmental #lawfirm brings to the event. Last time around—just this past February—#Osgoode was the #winning team. I could be #biased, but I seem . . . [more]

We’ve learned of a new Practice Direction on Filing Electronic Versions of Documents in Civil Appeals and Judicial Review Applications in the Divisional Court which will be implemented next month – it establishes a regularized process to satisfy the requirement to file electronic versions of factums and transcripts – a requirement that is already in place under Rules 61.09 and 61.12 of the Rules of Civil Procedure. The Practice Direction also encourages parties to file all electronic documents with the Divisional Court in certain proceedings. The Practice Direction does not relieve the requirement to file documents in paper format as . . . [more]

Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times suggests this week that the era of the BlackBerry may be over. In fact, having a BlackBerry today may even carry a stigma:

BlackBerrys may still linger in Washington, Wall Street and the legal profession, but in Silicon Valley they are as rare as a necktie.

 But even in these establishments, change is happening:

Goldman Sachs recently gave its employees the option to use an iPhone. Covington & Burling, a major law firm, did the same at the urging of associates. Even the White House, which used the BlackBerry for security reasons, recently

According to Michael Geist today on his blog, the Ontario Public School Board Association is advising school boards in Ontario to prepare to stop using Access Copyright for copyright licensing next year. They are following a legal opinion obtained by the Counsel of Ministers of Education, Copyright, that advises any material copied in Canadian K-12 schools either already has the correct permissions or would fall under fair dealing.

This follows from five Supreme Court of Canada decisions on copyright that came down this summer which gave guidance on determining fair dealing (see Martin Kratz’ coverage in his Ensuring the Balance . . . [more]

If you could detect an attack on your computer system and defend against it, would you want to do it? should you be allowed to do it? What if defending meant harming the computer of the attacker? What if defending meant at least getting information about intermediate computers between the attacker’s and yours?

There are legal and ethical questions here. A review of the ethical ones appears in Stewart Baker’s blog, Skating on Stilts. (He is a former General Counsel of the US National Security Agency, among other high-level achievements.)

Mr Baker argues for private defence as well as . . . [more]

Juice Rap News delivers detailed, imaginative commentary on the issue of warrantless internet surveillance in rap. It is quite hilarious, trenchant, and intelligible (and it features George Orwell). It comes from Australia.

The single solution The Juice offers (use Tor), may be augmented by the recently assembled free online text CryptoParty Handbook. According to BoingBoing, a Crypto Party is like a tupperware party, but “for people who want to teach their neighbors how to use cryptography to protect themselves from snoopers, especially broad government surveillance.”

However, the project is open source, and considering its subject, is . . . [more]

Online advertisers intend to ignore ‘do not track’ settings set by default. Here’s a story on OutLaw.com about that practice: Advertising industry standards do not “require companies to honor DNT signals fixed by the browser manufacturers and set by them in browsers”. So much for the ‘better business’ in Better Business Bureau. ‘Better For Business…’ appears more accurate.

A very pungent description of the ‘Privacy? Never heard of it!’ world of advertising and the discussions about these standards can be found on ZDNet. (h/t David Cheifetz)

And even browsers set to ‘do not track’ will not comply with the . . . [more]

The 2012 Law Via the Internet conference took place Oct 7-9, 2012 at the Cornell University Law School in Ithaca, New York.

The conference brings together people from the Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) from different countries and continents that together form the Free Access to Law Movement.

Many of the presentations are already online.

Three Australian scholars who took part in the conference, Andrew Mowbray, Philip Chung, and Graham Greenleaf, published an interesting overview of the Free Access to Law concept. Their paper, The Meaning of ‘Free Access to Legal Information’: A Twenty Year Evolution, is available on . . . [more]