State Appeals Court Nixes Law Barring Sex Offenders from Social Networking Sites

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In State of North Carolina v. Lester Gerard Packingham (Case No. 10CRS57148), the North Carolina Court of Appeals this week unanimously declared unconstitutional N.C. Gen. Stat. sec. 14-202.5, which made it a Class I felony for a registered sex offender to access commercial social networking Web sites that permit minors to become members.

Under N.C. Gen. Stat. sec. 14-208.7, persons convicted of sexually violent offenses or offenses against minors after 1996 must register as sex offenders and maintain that registration for a minimum 30 years. The appellate court overturned the social networking ban on First Amendment grounds because it "arbitrarily burdens" registered sex offenders from engaging in modes of communication and expressive activity without actually shielding children from sexual predators.

According to the Jurist Web site, a federal court earlier this year overturned an Indiana statute barring sex offenders from social networking sites, ruling the law did not survive strict scrutiny review mandated in free speech cases.

You (Auto)Complete Me: Google Runs Afoul of German Court

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Search engine colossus Google has once again run afoul of a court because of its "Suggestion" or algorithmic autocomplete function.

Germany's Federal Court of Justice in Karisruhe this week ruled that the Mountain View, Calif.-based company is obligated to remove defamatory autocomplete content once it is notified, according to a post by the Jurist Web site (www.jurist.org). The founder of a company that produces nutritional supplements alleged he was defamed because when his or his company's name was entered in a search in Google's German-language site, suggested links to fraud and  the controversial religion Scientology were part of the autocomplete results.

The Federal Court said search engine operators needn't routinely verify that autocomplete search results are error-free, but once apprised that suggested results unlawfully violate an individual's rights, the operators are legally bound to remove the offending material.

As chronicled by this blog, Google has previously been taken to task for autocomplete mishaps, including a Japanese court that ordered Google to pay $3,000 to a person who was wrongly linked to a crime he didn't commit (see "TUOL" post 4/17/13) and by a French court that assessed  $6,000 in attorneys' fees against Google when the suggestions of rapist and Satanist were associated with the entry of an unidentified plaintiff's name in a search (see "TUOL" post 9/27/10).

The staff of "TUOL" in its brush with high school math learned long ago that nothing good can come from an algorithm.

Google's Safari Hijinks Prompts Congressmen to Seek FTC Inquiry

Image via WikipediaFederal Trade Commission Chair Jon Leibowitz last Friday received a letter from Congressmen Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) urging the agency to probe whether social media giant Google has engaged in "unlawful privacy practices" by using source code chicanery to bypass Web browser Safari's privacy settings, Jurist (www.jurist.org) reports.

Responding to a Feb. 17 article that appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Representatives, who serve in the Congressional Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, queried the FTC concerning whether Google's actions that enabled it to track Safari users without their consent ran afoul of a 2011 settlement agreement between the FTC and Google occasioned by the social network Google Buzz's breach of privacy rights during its launch. The accord prohibits Google from misrepresenting its privacy policies to users and requires user consent before the sharing of personal information with third parties.

According to the Journal article, Google employed special computer code that deceived Safari, Apple's Web browsing software, into allowing Google to monitor Safari users, neutralizing Safari's default settings that block user tracking. The Journal article claims Google disabled the code soon after the Journal contacted the social media company for the article.

Google is set to implement its new privacy policy March 1. The company was targeted earlier this month in a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia by the Electronic Privacy Information Center against the FTC (Case No. 1:2012-cv-00206). The suit, filed under the Administrative Procedure Act [5 U.S.C. sec. 706(1)] seeks injunctive relief that would compel the FTC to enforce the consent order of October 13, 2011, in In the Matter of Google, Inc. (FTC File No. 1023136).

Google is also under fire from the European Union, which this month sent a letter to Google urging it to delay implementing its new privacy policy until the EU fully investigates it.

Readers taken aback by Google's behavior in this matter are well-advised to heed comedian Bill Maher's reminder that it's no accident that within the name Google is the word ogle.

RIAA Burned by Reduction in Damages Against File-Sharer

Image via WikipediaIn his 43-page Memorandum of Law & Order last Friday, U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Minnesota Michael Davis in Capitol Records, Inc. et al v. Jammie Thomas-Rassett (Case No. 06-cv-01497) slashed a $1.5 million jury verdict against a woman who illegally shared copyrighted songs on KaZaA  to $54,000, the Jurist Website reported.

Judge Davis granted Jammie Thomas-Rassett's Motion to Amend or Alter the Judgment in her epic struggle against the Recording Industry Association of America ("RIAA") which has involved three trials dating back to 2007 over 24 songs that the 34-year-old Minnesota native shared in violation of the The Copyright Act (see "TUOL" posts on 1/26/10 & 1/29/10). Calling the $1.5 million damages award "appalling" and noting that Thomas-Rassett was a "first-time willful consumer infringer of limited means who committed illegal song file-sharing for her own personal use," Judge Davis reduced the damages to $54,000, or $2,250 for each of the 24 songs, equal to three times the statutory minimum.

The $1.5 million verdict awarded in November 2010, violated Thomas-Rassett's due process rights, Judge Davis held. In an earlier trial, a judge assessed RIAA's damages from copyright infringement at $80,000 a song.

Are You Watching U.S. Supreme Court?: Philippines High Court Allows Televising of Murder Trial

Image via WikipediaThe trial stemming from the 2009 Maguindanao Massacre that claimed 57 lives, including 31 journalists, will be televised, the Philippines Supreme Court has ruled.

As reported by the Jurist Website (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu), the Philippines High Court cited the logistical challenges of accommodating all interested parties in the courtroom as its rationale for permitting the murder trial of clan members, who allegedly killed backers of a political rival, to be aired.

The court, however, has imposed numerous restrictions on broadcasters, such as allowing only one stationary camera to record the proceedings, prohibiting the camera from zooming in or panning the courtroom, barring voiceovers during the trial, requiring broadcasters to air the day's proceedings, commercial-free, from beginning to end and preventing the re-broadcast of daily coverage until after final judgment.

Algeria Urged to Relax Press Controls

Image via WikipediaThe Jurist Website (htttp://jurist.law.pitt.edu) reports that Frank LaRue, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression, has challenged Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to make good on his declared initiative for constitutional and political reforms by taking the government's thumb off of the nation's news media.

Among the changes LaRue wants to see  are the decriminalization of defamation, the removal of government control over Algeria's television and radio stations, and restructuring current laws so that the right to peaceful assembly would be encouraged, rather than oppressed.  Algeria has been under a state of emergency since 1992, when the military halted elections to prevent religious fundamentalists from assuming power.

Verizon Net Neutrality Suit Dismissed by Appeals Court

Image via WikipediaThe Jurist Website (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu) reports that the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has tossed Verizon's lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission challenging net neutrality rules.

In Verizon v. FCC (Case No. 11-1014), the appellate court, in a two-page per curiam opinion, allowed the FCC's motion to dismiss Verizon's complaint on the grounds that it was filed prematurely, thereby depriving the appellate court of jurisdiction.  Verizon and MetroPCS filed suit in January contesting the net neutrality rules that empower the government to regulate the Internet's traffic and maintain the World Wide Web as a free communication platform.

The lawsuit was deemed premature because the document Verizon seeks to derail has yet to be published in the Federal Register pursuant to 47 C.F.R. sec. 1.4(b)(1), and, therefore, is not yet a "licensing decision."  Verizon (motto: "Can We Sue You Yet?") plans to re-file its complaint once the rule-making document appears in the Federal Register. Verizon is leery that the FCC's authority would be unduly broadened by the net neutrality measure.

Legal Advocacy Group Files FOIA Claim on Honduras Coup

Image via WikipediaThe Jurist Website (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu) reports today that the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a nonprofit legal and educational organization advocating for human rights under the U.S. Constitution and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, has filed a complaint under the Freedom of Information Act [5 U.S.C. sec. 552 et seq.] against the CIA and Department of Defense to obtain documents involving the 2009 coup in Honduras in which then-President Manual Zelaya was abducted by Honduran military officers and flown out of the country to Costa Rica.

The FOIA complaint alleges that the named defendants withheld documents from the CCR concerning the coup's impact on the U.S. and its interests. The CCR has filed additional FOIA requests with the CIA and DOD on behalf of the Honduras Commission for Truth, which is probing coup-related human rights violations. Former President Zelaya and officials involved in his ouster all received immunity from Zelaya's successor.

"TUOL" expects that the mainstream news media will pick up on this story if Charlie Sheen adds Tegucigalpa as a stop in his Violent Torpedo of Death/Defeat Is Not an Option Tour.

South Korea Chastises Facebook's Seoul-Searching

Image via WikipediaThe worldwide dissing of Palo Alto, Calif.-based social media king Facebook continues.

South Korea is the latest country to take a poke at Facebook, claiming it is not complying with the republic's data privacy laws, according to an item on the Jurist Web site (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu). Specifically, Facebook is under attack for allegedly violating Article 22 of the South Korean Act on Promotion of Information and Communication Network Utilization and Information Protection.

Article 22 states: "If an information and communications service provider intends to gather user personal information, they shall obtain user consent..."  The Social Network may be doing boffo business at the box office, but nowadays Facebook is struggling to keep nations on its friends list.

Whither COICA?

Image via WikipediaAlthough the Senate Judiciary Committee last week by a 19-0 vote resoundingly gave its blessings to the Combatting Online Infringement & Counterfeit Act ("COICA"), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said: "Deploying this statute to combat online copyright infringement seems almost like a bunker buster cluster bomb when what you really need is a precision guided missile."

As reported by Jurist (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu),  the bill, which would amend Chapter 13 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code by adding Sec. 2324 Internet Sites Dedicated to Infringing Activities, would enable the Attorney General to seek injunctions against both domestic and international copyright-infringing Web sites. Wyden fears the measure could lead to Internet censorship, a position supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The EFF says COICA would affect non-infringing online content, including political speech by interfering with the Internet's Domain Name System that translates site names into IP addresses used by computers to communicate.  The EFF claims COICA would create a "blacklist" of  censored domains.

ABA Wedded to Gay Marriage

Image via Wikipedia

At its just-concluded annual meeting in San Francisco, the American Bar Association overwhelmingly passed a resolution urging governmental entities to "eliminate all of their legal barriers to civil marriage between two persons of the same sex who are otherwise eligible to marry."

According to a report on the Jurist Legal News and Research Website ( http://Jurist.law.pitt.edu), the ABA vote comes one week after Judge Vaughn Walker, the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, ruled Proposition 8 violated the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Jurisdictions that permit same sex marriage include Massachusetts, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and the District of Columbia.

There was a time (too long ago) when the ABA was in the vanguard of legal issues such as gay marriage, rather than playing catch up with the courts, but kudos to the legal association for speaking out at all on the civil rights issue.  Admittedly, this post neither relates to media law nor journalism, but "TUOL" toiled for years for the American Bar Association Press and wanted to give a shout out to the ABA for doing the right thing.