Monday, January 23, 2012 at 10:57AM 
Image via physorg.com
The Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that police must obtain a search warrant before using a GPS tracking device to monitor criminal suspects. Questions still remain about how technology has changed an individual's expectation of privacy.
Read more at the New York Times
Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 03:27PM
Part 2 of our interview with Jim and nancy Petro authors of "False Justice...8 Myths that Convict the Innocent."
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 02:42PM Forgot to de-friend your wife on Facebook while posting vacation shots of your mistress? Her divorce lawyer will be thrilled. Family Law Channel host judge Eugene Hyman says "Facebook is playing a much bigger role in family court these days." Oversharing on social networks has led to an overabundance of evidence in divorce cases. The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers says 81 percent of its members have used or faced evidence plucked from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social networking sites, including YouTube and LinkedIn, over the last five years. "Oh, I've had some fun ones," said Linda Lea Viken, president-elect of the 1,600-member group. "It's very, very common in my new cases." Facebook is the unrivaled leader for turning virtual reality into real-life divorce drama, Viken said. Sixty-six percent of the lawyers surveyed cited Facebook foibles as the source of online evidence, she said. MySpace followed with 15 percent, followed by Twitter at 5 percent. About one in five adults uses Facebook for flirting, according to a 2008 report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. But it's not just kissy pix with the manstress or mistress that show up as evidence. Think of Dad forcing son to de-friend mom, bolstering her alienation of affection claim against him. "This sort of evidence has gone from nothing to a large percentage of my cases coming in, and it's pretty darn easy," Viken said. "It's like, `Are you kidding me?'" Neither Viken, in Rapid City, S.D., nor other divorce attorneys would besmirch the attorney-client privilege by revealing the identities of clients, but they spoke in broad terms about some of the goofs they've encountered:
* Husband goes on Match.com and declares his single, childless status while seeking primary custody of said nonexistent children.
* Husband denies anger management issues but posts on Facebook in his "write something about yourself" section: "If you have the balls to get in my face, I'll kick your ass into submission."
* Father seeks custody of the kids, claiming (among other things) that his ex-wife never attends the events of their young ones. Subpoenaed evidence from the gaming site World of Warcraft tracks her there with her boyfriend at the precise time she was supposed to be out with the children. Mom loves Facebook's Farmville, too, at all the wrong times.
* Mom denies in court that she smokes marijuana but posts partying, pot-smoking photos of herself on Facebook. Read more at Parentdish.com
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 03:52PM NLRB Ruling from Sequence Media on Vimeo.
Outten & Golden's Rachel Bien discusses the National Labor Relations Board ruling last week that employers could not prevent workers from filing work-related group or class actions, essentially banning employment agreements at many companies that require workers to pursue all claims individually through arbitration.
In a decision that will no doubt anger many companies, the labor board concluded that a federal law protecting workers’ right to engage in concerted action trumps any arbitration agreement that bars them from bringing group claims. The ruling applies to nonmanagement private sector workers, union and nonunion, from low-wage restaurant workers to well-paid employees on Wall Street.
