Follow up to previous postings on airport use of full body scanners, news from EPIC: “the US Transportation Security Administration will end the contract for backscatter x-ray devices. As a consequence, all devices that produce a detailed naked image of air travelers will be removed from US airports. Beginning in 2005, EPIC and then a… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Courts
TRAC – FY 2012, A Record Year for Asylum Cases
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse – “The odds of an asylum claim being denied reached an historic low in FY 2012, with only 44.5 percent being turned down. Ten years ago, almost two out of three (62.6%) individuals seeking asylum lost their cases in similar actions. Asylum applicants also made up more than a quarter (29.4%)… Continue Reading
Paper – Much Ado About Preemption
Wareluk, Ewa Justyna, The Analysis of Insider Trading on Credit Derivatives Market by Means of the Event Study Methodology (January 6, 2013). Available at SSRN “Preemption has emerged as the leading contender for conceptual grounding of the patentable subject matter doctrines exclusion of abstract ideas and natural phenomena from patentability. Despite the Supreme Courts frequent… Continue Reading
Chief Justice's Year-End Reports on the Federal Judiciary 2012
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has issued his 2012 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, focusing on efforts by the federal courts to contain costs. “As part of the Judiciarys national data and communications system, the courts are now implementing a national voice-over-IP telephone system to achieve additional savings by providing data, voice, and… Continue Reading
TRAC – Deportation Orders Historically Low
“The latest available data from the Immigration Courts show a continued decline in requests for deportation orders made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. According to case-by-case records analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), there were 14,296 new ICE filings for deportation orders during November 2012, down 5.7 percent from the previous… Continue Reading
TRAC – FOIA Lawsuits Increase During Obama Administration
“A new study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) has found that there were more court complaints asking federal judges to force the government to abide by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) during the first term of the Obama Administration than there were in the last term of President Bush. While the administration-to-administration… Continue Reading
Judicial Activity Concerning Enemy Combatant Detainees: Major Court Rulings
CRS – Judicial Activity Concerning Enemy Combatant Detainees: Major Court Rulings. December 11, 2012 “This report discusses major judicial opinions concerning suspected enemy belligerents detained in the conflict with Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The report addresses all Supreme Court decisions concerning enemy combatants. It also discusses notable circuit court opinions addressing issues of ongoing… Continue Reading
FindLaw – Data Stored on Cell Phones Not Protected, Fed. Court Rules
FindLaw – “Data stored on personal cell phones is not protected by the Stored Communications Act (SCA), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ruled. As mobile technology changes rapidly, legal questions remain about the extent of digital privacy protection. The Fifth Circuit determined that the act does not protect information stored… Continue Reading
National Archives Posts Unsealed Materials from U.S. v. Liddy
“On May 1, 2009, Professor Luke Nichter of Texas A&M University-Central Texas petitioned Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the District Court for the District of Columbia to release records sealed in the case of U.S. v. Liddy, the Watergate break-in case. The sealed proceedings include evidentiary discussions held outside the jury’s hearing, pretrial discussions between… Continue Reading
Judge Orders Tobacco Companies to Publish Statements on Dangers of Smoking
CNN: “Tobacco companies have been ordered by a federal judge to publicly admit, through advertisements and package warnings, that they deceived American consumers for decades about the dangers of smoking. Federal Judge Gladys Kessler issued her ruling [U.S. v. Philip Morris (99-cv-2496)] Tuesday in one of the last legal steps settling liability in the long-running… Continue Reading
TRAC Launches New Judge Info Center
TRAC has now created a new Judge Info Center which features links to four special reports on the working of the federal courts. Also available is a detailed description of the data on which these reports are based, a video tutorial, and information on gaining access to interactive reports about any district court judge who… Continue Reading
TRAC – Sentencing Deviations Within Many Courthouses
“According to a new report by the Transactional Access Records Clearinghouse (TRAC)…tables identifying the 25 courthouses that had the widest sentencing differences among the judges that served in them, and the 28 courthouses that had the narrowest. The five at the top of the list were: Baltimore, Columbia (South Carolina), Philadelphia, Macon (Middle District of… Continue Reading
