Month: April 2016

Internet Governance

No Method, No Madness: The FBI will not share with Apple the method used by a third-party hacker to gain access to the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone because the Bureau purchased the rights to neither the method employed nor details about any vulnerabilities exposed through its use.

Privacy

“Likely Guilty”––But Not Yet: A Maryland judge suppressed evidence obtained through a stingray operation on the ground that, though the police had legal authorization to use the stingray to locate the suspect in his apartment, the police’s subsequent warrantless search of the apartment was unconstitutional.

Email Privacy Act Reprise: After the House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the Act earlier this month, the House of Representatives this week ratified the legislation, which would require law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant to access email and other digital communications older than 180 days.

Information Security And Cyberthreats

“We Are Dropping Cyberbombs” The Cyber Command, the NSA’s military counterpart, will for the first time begin to employ “computer-network attacks” against ISIS to disrupt its presence, message, and operations.

Intellectual Property

Your Secret Is Safe With Us: Both chambers of Congress passed the Defend Trade Secrets Act, which would allow companies to bring federal civil suits and pursue damages for trade secret theft, and which would also pave the way for an enhanced dual state-federal trade secret law regime.

Free Expression

“How Do Ya Like Them Apples?”  Chinese authorities shut down Chinese consumers’ ability to purchase books and movies from Apple’s iTunes store without providing any reason for the ban.

Practice Note

A Lawsuit From A to Z: A federal district judge held Amazon liable for not having sufficient safeguards in place to prevent children from making purchases without their parents’ consent while using the company’s app; Amazon must refund the full price of any unauthorized purchases plus pay additional fines.

On The Lighter Side

Red Light, Green Light: Texting and walking just got safer in one city.

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Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law and Founding Academic Director, CLIP

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Thomas B. Norton
Privacy Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Carey McConnell and Idalys Núñez
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Reaching Out-Of-District: A federal judge suppressed evidence federal investigators collected using a “network investigative technique” on the Tor browser in a child pornography case on the basis that the warrant authorizing the collection was invalid.

Droney Delivery: The Senate passed drone safety and security rules which could help realize more widespread commercial drone use; critics of the bill are concerned that it would prohibit states from enacting their own laws on drone usage and safety.

Privacy

Handing Over The Keys: Blackberry confirmed that it cooperates with reasonable law enforcement requests after allegations arose that it provided the Canadian federal police with a “global cryptographic key” that enabled monitoring of suspected Montreal gang members’ PIN-to-PIN communications.

Information Security And Cyberthreats

What’s Privilege Got To Do With It? Plaintiffs in a fraud suit against Ashley Madison seek to use information released in the hack, including communications between the company and its lawyers, to make their case; this leaves the judge to consider an “unresolved area of the law: whether litigants can use hacked data released to the public to fight their battles.”

Intellectual Property

The Final Chapter: The Supreme Court denied certiorari to a decade-long case on whether Google’s digitization of books qualifies as fair use, thus leaving intact the Second Circuit’s decision that Google Books excerpts are transformative.

Free Expression And Censorship

Too Soon, Dude: Venmo refused to disburse or refund a payment titled “ISIS   beer funds!!!” after determining that it did not comply with the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s regulations regarding economic and trade sanctions. 

Practice Note

Facebook Stalking Gone Too Far: The New Jersey Supreme Court allowed a misconduct case to go forward after the state’s Office of Attorney Ethics filed a complaint against defense attorneys who spied on a plaintiff’s Facebook page after the page went private by having a paralegal friend the plaintiff without disclosing the motive for the friend request.

On The Lighter Side

Mind [Whistle]blowing Music: Snowden, an EDM story.

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Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law and Founding Academic Director, CLIP

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Thomas B. Norton
Privacy Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Carey McConnell and Idalys Núñez
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Privacy Shield Impasse: The European Commission’s Article 29 Working Party refused to endorse the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield on the basis that the scheme lacks clarity, does not properly limit how American agencies conduct the collection of personal information for national security purposes, and that the prescribed ombudsperson lacks sufficient independence and power to conduct its duty.

Privacy

ECPA Reform? The Email Privacy Act, which would require law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant in order to access email and other digital communication older than 180 days, was unanimously approved by the House Judiciary Committee and will soon go up for a full House vote.

Sharing About Ride Sharing: Uber released its first ever transparency report, which details the requests and court orders the company has received from the government and describes the extent of Uber’s compliance.

Information Security And Cyberthreats

Apple-FBI Battle Continues: Recently unsealed court documents reveal that a Boston federal magistrate judge granted the FBI’s order to compel Apple to provide “reasonable technical assistance” in decrypting an iPhone related to a Boston gang case.

Congress Enters The Fight: A draft encryption bill proposed by two senators would require companies to comply with court orders to decrypt device data in criminal cases involving serious injury, drugs, or child victims, and in national security cases; critics of the bill argue that it may have serious security and privacy implications for manufacturers and users.

Intellectual Property

Link Swapping Not Illegal: The Advocate General for the Court of Justice of the European Union opined in a Dutch case that a blog link to a collection of unauthorized Playboy photos did not give rise to a copyright infringement claim because while the link facilitated the discovery of the copyrighted works, linking is not equivalent to making the works available to the general public.

Practice Note

Diminished Expectation of Privacy: The Sixth Circuit held that the FBI’s warrantless collection of cell-site data was not an unlawful search on the grounds that the agency obtained the information through third-party business records.

On The Lighter Side

Rorschach-ing Emojis: It turns out we’re not all on the same page when it comes to interpretation.

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Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law and Founding Academic Director, CLIP

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Thomas B. Norton
Privacy Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Carey McConnell and Idalys Núñez
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

FCC Privacy Rules: Newly proposed rules would allow consumers to opt-out of letting their Internet service providers use their data to specifically target ads from the ISPs themselves, and opt-in should consumers desire ads directly from third-parties; ISPs argue that the proposed rules would threaten their advertising revenues and overall business models.

Mum’s The Word: The White House declined to give public support to a soon-to-be-proposed federal bill that would afford federal judges “broad authority” to compel tech companies to help the government decrypt encrypted devices.

Privacy

Replacement Data Plan: The Council of the EU will soon formally endorse a new data protection plan, which will then be passed on to the European Parliament for approval.

Information Security And Cyberthreats

WhatsApp Doubles Down: The messaging service adopted full end-to-end encryption to further protect its users’ messages from unauthorized access; given the services’ international footprint, the move further pitts the tech company against federal authorities in the ongoing debate about encryption backdoors.

Intellectual Property

Taker Or Maker? Under draft Chinese antitrust policy guidelines focused on improving core technological infrastructure, some foreign companies could be forced to license their IP to Chinese competitors.

Free Expression And Censorship

Freedom Of The Press? A Canadian court has ordered a Vice News journalist to relinquish to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police all of his online communications related to an interview he conducted with an alleged Canadian-born ISIS member; critics fear that the ruling will have a chilling effect on investigative journalism.

Practice Note

Sharing Confidence: The Missouri Supreme Court suspended a lawyer for failing to disclose to opposing counsel that information the lawyer used in a divorce proceeding was obtained through his client’s unauthorized access of an email account belonging to opposing counsel’s client.

On The Lighter Side

Coffee Sounds: Hipsters love “white noise.”

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Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law and Founding Academic Director, CLIP

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Thomas B. Norton
Privacy Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Carey McConnell and Idalys Núñez
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

No Bite Of The Apple: The Department of Justice withdrew its legal action against Apple, which sought to compel the tech company to provide means to access the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, after it independently found a way to unlock the phone.

Privacy

Non, Merci: The French data privacy regulator fined Google €100,000 for violating the European Union’s “right to be forgotten” rule by not removing requested links from search results on a worldwide basis, thus rejecting Google’s efforts to balance the EU rule with free speech principles by only delisting links to users with a French IP address.

Get A Warrant: A Maryland appellate court upheld a lower court ruling that police use of stingrays requires a warrant based upon disclosure to the court of the “particularity” of the stingray’s functions and the “manner of the search,” because “cell phone users have an objectively reasonable expectation that their cell phones will not be used as real-time tracking devices” by police.

Information Security And Cyberthreats

Exposing Inadequacy: CNBC published a story to help readers judge their passwords’ adequacy but inadvertently made the inputted passwords available to other users on the same network and to advertisers.

Intellectual Property

Image Control: Retired world-famous soccer player Pelé brought suit against Samsung for $30 million dollars in a Chicago federal court, alleging Samsung impermissibly used his likeness to advertise one of its products after his endorsement negotiations with the company failed.

Court Spikes Publicity Claims: An Ohio federal court dismissed Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords as defendants in a lawsuit alleging that a couple’s publicity and privacy rights were violated when an author used their engagement photograph on the cover of his self-published book “A Gronking to Remember.”

Practice Note

Disclosure Duties: A California federal district court judge gave counsel in the Google v. Oracle case the choice of agreeing to a ban on internet research of potential jurors or disclosing the method and extent of their internet research.

On The Lighter Side

Wrong Demo Turn: Google Maps wrong directions may lead to your house being demolished.

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Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law and Founding Academic Director, CLIP

N. Cameron Russell
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Thomas B. Norton
Privacy Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Victoria Geronimo
Dean’s Fellow, Fordham CLIP

Carey McConnell and Idalys Núñez
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP