Friday, September 21, 2012, by Ken Jennings The House has taken the first step to extend controversial “secret wiretap” authority provided by the 2008 amendments to the Foreign Information Surveillance Act (FISA). The bill, H.R. 5949 (“FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization Act of 2012”), extends the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA) for five years and …
Friday, September 21, 2012, by Collier Johnson II This week, San Francisco, California made a bold step to a renewable energy future. This Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, voted 8-3 to provide a renewable energy option to a majority of San Francisco residents. Ironically, the plan will involve a major contract with a …
Wednesday, September 19, 2012 by Lev Gabrilovich Five years ago, California passed Assembly Bill 32 (“AB 32”), the Global Warming Solutions Act. AB 32 requires the California Air Resources Board (“CARB”) to establish a regulatory structure to monitor greenhouse gasses in California, as well as set emission targets. CARB must implement “the maximum technologically feasible …
Tuesday, September 18, 2012, by Drew Hargrove This month, in Capital Records, Inc. et al. v. Thomas-Rasset et al. the Eighth Circuit held that a trial court’s award of $220,000 ($9,250 per song) in damages for willful copyright infringement was not a violation of due process. In 2005, several record companies began investigating potential …
Tuesday, September 18, 2012, by Carla Gray The drought that struck the Midwest has had devastating consequences on the nation’s corn supply this summer. Because dry weather conditions can hamper many crops and reduce food supply, the Monsanto Company created “DroughtGard,” a Monsanto corn seed that is genetically resistant to drought conditions. The use of …
Friday, September 14, 2012, by Michael Frongello Former New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin took the basketball and sports world by storm last winter as his name and the term “Linsanity” became commonplace in American pop culture. Lin, capitalized on his newfound fame and fortune this summer when he inked a three-year, $25 million …
Friday, September 14, 2012, by Reine Duffy This week it was reported that the Copyright Alert System, or “six strikes” anti-piracy program, is anticipated to arrive within the next few months. The program was first announced in July 2011 and its release was delayed at least twice since its original planned launch date of December …
Thursday, September 13, 2012, by Samantha Surles People have been talking about the decline of local newspapers for a long time, but lately they also seem to be talking about possible solutions to the problem. The importance of local papers to community life is undiminished, but shifts in the advertising industry are making it more …
Tuesday, September 11, 2012 by Tasneem Dharamsi Here’s a lesser-known fact for all of those avid Google users out there: from late 2009 until very recently, the company had blocked the term “bisexual” from its search algorithm. Since the search term is now unblocked, when a user begins to type the letters in the word …
Tuesday, September 11, 2012 by Teresa Cook On August 24, 2012, a jury trial in the Northern District of California found that Samsung Electronics Co. infringed on six of seven patents held by Apple Inc and awarded $1.05 billion in damages to Apple. There is no doubt that America was interested in seeing the showdown …
