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Daily Archives: December 4, 2019

Justices debate allowing state law to be “hidden behind a pay wall”

Ars Technica – “The courts have long held that laws can’t be copyrighted. But if the state mixes the text of the law together with supporting information, things get trickier. In Monday oral arguments, the US Supreme Court wrestled with the copyright status of Georgia’s official legal code, which includes annotations written by LexisNexis. The defendant in the case is Public.Resource.Org (PRO), a non-profit organization that publishes public-domain legal materials. The group obtained Georgia’s official version of state law, known as the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, and published the code on its website. The state of Georgia sued, arguing that while the law itself is in the public domain, the accompanying annotations are copyrighted works that can’t be published by anyone except LexisNexis. Georgia won at the trial court level, but PRO won at the appeals court level. On Monday, the case reached the US Supreme Court. “Why would we allow the official law to be hidden behind a pay wall?” asked Justice Neil Gorsuch. Georgia’s lawyer countered that the law wasn’t hidden behind a paywall—at least not the legally binding parts. LexisNexis offers a free version of Georgia’s code, sans annotations, on its website. But that version isn’t the official code. LexisNexis’ terms of service explicitly warns users that it might be inaccurate. The company also prohibits users from scraping the site’s content. If you want to own the latest official version of the state code, you have to pay LexisNexis hundreds of dollars. And if you want to publish your own copy of Georgia’s official code, you’re out of luck…”

CBP Starts Process to Include U.S. Citizens in Facial Recognition Program

NextGov: “U.S. citizens wary of facial biometric technology can opt-out of Customs and Border Protection’s face-scanning programs, though that would change under a proposed rule. CBP has been pushing the use of facial recognition technologies at land, sea and air ports as a means of meeting a longstanding congressional mandate to use biometrics in the… Continue Reading

In Hearing, Scholars Debate Whether Trump’s Conduct Was Impeachable

The New York Times – The Impeachment Inquiry into President Donald J. Trump: Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment – “The House of Representatives on Wednesday, December 4, 2019 opened a critical new phase of the impeachment proceedings against President Trump, featuring legal scholars vigorously debating whether his conduct and the available evidence rose to the… Continue Reading

Study finds North American birds getting smaller

Reuters: “Since 1978, researchers have scooped up and measured tens of thousands of birds that died after crashing into buildings in Chicago during spring and fall migrations. Their work has documented what might be called the incredible shrinking bird. A study published on Wednesday involving 70,716 birds killed from 1978 through 2016 in such collisions… Continue Reading

Benchmarking Accessibility in Cities- Measuring the Impact of Proximity and Transport Performance

The International Transport Forum.OECD: “…This report presents a new urban accessibility framework. It identifies which destinations can be reached on foot, by bicycle, public transport or car within a certain time (accessibility). It then measures how many destinations are close by (proximity). The comparison between accessible destinations and nearby destinations show well each transport mode… Continue Reading

Norway Has The Safest Roads in the World

Forbes: “Only two road traffic deaths per 100, 000 inhabitants were reported in Norway in 2019, making the Scandinavian nation the best-performing country for road safety.  In comparison, the risk of being killed in a crash was six times higher in Argentina than in Norway, and the United States ranked 33 (out of 40), following… Continue Reading