Denise Howell is a seasoned appellate and intellectual property litigator based in Los Angeles. Denise writes one of the first and most popular law-related blogs, Bag and Baggage, coined the term "blawg" and helped pioneer podcasting for lawyers. Microcontent obsessed since 2001, she is frequently quoted in the media on legal issues involving intellectual property and technology law. "Sound Policy" is Denise's show at IT Conversations, and it's also what she hopes results from the briefs she submits to court. Email Denise at dhowell@gmail.com.
Dennis Kennedy is a computer lawyer and legal technology expert based in St. Louis, Missouri. An award-winning author, a frequent speaker and a widely-read blogger, he has more than 300 publications on legal, technology and Internet topics, many of which are collected in his e-books. Dennis has been described as someone who knows almost every rock song in existence and, more importantly, how they apply to technology and law. Email Dennis at his gmail address.
Tom Mighell is Senior Counsel and Litigation Technology Support Coordinator at Cowles & Thompson in Dallas. He has published the Internet Legal Research Weekly newsletter since 2000 and blogged about the Internet and legal technology at Inter Alia since August of 2002. With Tom's singing, Ernie on guitar and Dennis' encylopedic knowledge of rock music, we may have the beginnings of a good band, if this whole blog thing doesn't work out. Email Tom at tmighell@swbell.net.
Marty Schwimmer left a partnership in the largest trademark practice in the world and founded Schwimmer Mitchell, a full-service IP micro-boutique in Westchester County, New York, where he represents owners of famous and not yet famous trademarks. He founded The Trademark Blog, the first IP law blog and the one with the most pictures. He is the first to come in and the last to leave in his firm. Email Marty at marty@schwimmerlegal.com.
Ernest Svenson practices law with a mid-sized law firm in New Orleans, specializing in business-related lawsuits. Most of his practice takes place in federal court, especially the Eastern District. He is best known for his weblog Ernie the Attorney, which he started as an experiment. Like many experiments it got out of control. Nevertheless, he continues to practice law and, occasionally,
to seek enlightenment. Email Ernest at esvenson@gmail.com.
About this blog
Between Lawyers provides just-in-time group commentary on the issues
raised when technology, culture and the law intersect. We take you
behind the firewalls and conference room doors to show you how
experienced lawyers deal with these issues and help you prepare for
the new challenges we all face. For more, see our introductory post.
Members of the Between Lawyers blog can be heard in a number of recent podcasts.
Tom Mighell and Dennis Kennedy have posted the latest episode #5 of The Kennedy-Mighell Report, in which they cover the recent ABA TECHSHOW, legal technology trends for 2007, current developments in electronic discovery, and their upcoming book on collaboration tools for lawyers.
Defining community and loosely-joined individuals and interest groups
Community goals and governance (or lack thereof)
External innovation communities such as Procter & Gamble's and ownership issues
Intellectual and liability concerns for company-owned or associated communities
Whether an initiative similar to the Creative Commons movement has or is in the process of emerging
Ownership issues and risk-minimization around products or services that emerge from external ideas
Variations on open source licenses
Individual rights and protections for community contributors and participants
Anonymity and accountability
Nefarious community exploitation: gaming, hacking, spamming
Trust and reputation management
The use of trademark law to use and manage community involvement; selective enforcement, the expansion of certification marks
Insurance industry mechanisms and models
Defamation
Company-sponsored (and owned) communities, and the actions taken by participants who find the terms and conditions of such initiatives too draconian
"Innovator's dilemma" management and patent strategy and the tension between old, successful products and those developed with help from outsourced customer communities
Our rescheduled conference call in anticipation of Community 2.0 (details here) takes place today at 1:00 p.m. PST/3:00 p.m. EST. Call-in details are here, please join us if you are interested.
In connection with our session at the the upcoming Community 2.0 conference, law professor Mike Madison and I will be hosting a public conference call on Monday, February 26 beginning at 1:00 p.m. PST, and we'd love your participation to help us hone in on the ownership considerations (IP; attention; identity), and issues of governance and liability, most critical to the creation, maintenance, and long-term health of business communities. The call will be recorded and made available as a podcast from The Future of Communities blog. You can join us as follows:
From Skype: +990008275785861
From a regular phone (long distance costs apply): US: 1-605-475-8590
In Europe, call: Germany 01805 00 7620 UK 0870 738 0763
[Update, Monday 2/26 @ 1:15 p.m.:] Unfortunately, we had problems with the conferencing service lined up to support this, so are having to reschedule. I'll post the new date, time, and call-in details once they're available, sorry for the delay.
Unless you're our colleague Ernie, that is: "I don't want to put any disclaimers on my blog," said Ernest Svenson, a blogger better know as Ernie the Attorney. "It's a buy-in to a mindset that I want to go away." Well said, as to what should by rights be able to remain unsaid.
A colleague recently asked me what concrete steps I thought an organization could take to help ensure the concepts underlying a blogging policy are actually understood and implemented. Bearing in mind I am so not an employment lawyer, I did have a few thoughts.
Blog. I suspect that companies pursuing their own blogging initiatives in addition to implementing policies intended to cover unsanctioned employee blogs will run into fewer problems with employee mistakes or misunderstandings. This is because the management and culture throughout the organization is bound to better grasp the process and related security and compliance issues. IMO, the best "training" occurs by example and widespread use.
Breathe. As I've pontificated here before, there's a pretty good case to be made that blogs and their ilk are
actually the least risky form of corporate communication. If a company adequately gets across the reasons it expects certain employee conduct with regard to external communications, confidential
information, and technology use, blogs, etc. are at least as "safe" as email and the phone; in fact, because people are more likely to understand up front these technologies are designed to accomplish wide and persistent information distribution, people are more likely to approach their use with caution and respect.
Mix. Organizations need to make sure their P.R./marketing and legal arms are communicating about how employees should be relaying work related information to third parties or the world at large, and they need to have an open-eyed appreciation of all the ways people might be or are using technology to do so. Brace yourself: P.R. and legal goals just might compete. Management needs to understand those conflicts and decide what resolution best fits what they're trying to accomplish (and what the law insists they accomplish).
Looking for another unique, technologically attuned way to market yourself, firm, and/or practice? You could always try gaming MySpace. Or Digg, for that matter. (Please know I'm just kidding, and think those who game social networking sites are a life form on the same sub-primate order as spammers.)
Paul McNamara at Network Worldthinksthis post by Marquette law professor Eric Goldman, critiquing recent lawsuits against Yahoo!, may be defamatory, because the post says Professor Goldman "think[s] these lawsuits are nothing more than a shakedown for cash," and calls the plaintiffs "extortionists." According to Mr. McNamara, "[Professor Goldman's] words practically scream libel." But, as Mr. McNamara clarifies, a lawyer for the Media Law Resource Center assessed things as follows:
In doing a quick search, I found court decisions holding both ways when dealing with similar accusations of 'extortion,' ... The legal issue would likely be whether the statements were actual imputations of a crime, or were 'rhetorical hyperbole,' essentially a statement of opinion, not of fact. The former could be considered libelous, while the latter could not.
Also notable is an observation from one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, Thomas More Marrone, about the amplification role the Web adds to the mix: "It's like a guy standing on a street corner talking to his friends except he's writing it down and disseminating it to hundreds, thousands, millions of people."
The moral, I suppose, is that if you're going to use an online medium to discuss others' potentially wrongful acts (and there's no getting around that a blog or podcast is an attractive place for commenting on disturbing conduct), a little attention to phrasing and characterization can wind up going a long way. (See also thesediscussions of the limited nature of the fair reporting privilege.)
There are a host of reasons (and probably a host of laws) why you wouldn't expect a prosecutor in a criminal case to blog tacky comments about opposing counsel and potentially inadmissible and prejudicial information about a defendant. Notwithstanding, some recent events have prompted the San Francisco D.A.'s office to specify "that criminal cases and office business should not be mentioned on the Internet."
The Korea Times reports on efforts in South Korea to use blogs or other Internet tools as an alternative to physical appearances in courts.
The money quote:
"Korean courts are now experimenting whether they could operate court trials and hearings just through Internet postings, saving everybody the trouble of actually entering the courtroom," the Korea Times reports. "The Seoul Administration Court recently designated one of its court units,which rules on labor-management relations and industrial accidents,to develop a prototype model for Internet-based trial models by the end of this month. Although the court has not yet decided on a detailed framework, it plans to allow the parties in lawsuits to submit their list of evidence, legal documents and other data on Weblogs or Internet message boards to be operated by the court."
For now, it is likely that the traditional defamation standards, including the private/public figure distinction, will continue to apply to defamation cases involving blogs. The very accessibility of blogs, however, may lead courts to reevaluate defamation law standards.
[Via Ian Best] She also looks at the protections afforded by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and I agree with her that "the policies underlying Congress's enactment of the law may encourage courts to extend the provisions immunity to bloggers." (Context; more context.) Also by Jennifer, a more condensed piece on the same themes: Blogs Raise Thorny Legal Issues.
[Update]: This musty Bag and Baggage post is also on point, Are You A "Public Figure?" "Can the day be far off when a blogger will attempt to answer libel allegations . . . by pointing to the subject's Daypop and Blogdex numbers?" (Or the like; Technorati's just a baby you know, albeit a mighty precocious one.)
If you've been following our posts concerning business blogging issues and blogging policies, or if you've just been paying attention to mainstream reporting over the last year or so, you know there has been a good deal of handwringing (some media prompted, some lawyer prompted, some both) about the unique or remarkable legal perils that weblogs and other Web-oriented communication tools supposedly pose for businesses. It was clear to me at last week's New Communications Forum that this meme has had an impact. Even in that very blog-friendly environment, concerns and uncertainties about the legal risks of wholly or partly unfiltered employee communications with the outside world were much in evidence.
Something interesting occurred to me along these lines in the course of being interviewed by Debbie Weil for her podcast. Specifically, of all the various communication tools available to employees, whether while on the job or off the job or both, blogging may actually be the least risky and most innocuous from a corporate risk management standpoint. Consider first that people commonly assume phone, email, cocktail party, and/or hallway discussions are invisible, transitory, and/or confidential. Any one of those situations is thus fairly likely to involve remarks that the speaker, rightly or wrongly, does not expect to come back to haunt them in a public way. Then consider the extent to which public blogs, podcasts, and similar tools are conceptually different from the get-go. The accessible nature of the information put out by these means is part of of the compact. Except in the limited case of behind-the-firewall blogging or podcasting, people using these tools are much more likely to comprehend that a broad audience is possible (usually, desired), and to tailor their communications accordingly.
Unlike a great deal of the reporting I read about the dangers and pitfalls of blogging, I have a hard time isolating any primary legal problems that inevitably go along with employees using communication tools of any sort. Instead, the potential problems are a direct product of the extent to which clear expectations have been set, and the extent to which a particular employee is oblivious or doesn't care. Though there are a host of situations whereby an employee's blog, podcast, photo, or video clip could conceivably subject an employer to third party liability — inadvertent disclosure of confidential or regulated information; harassment, discrimination, or other civil rights violations; false advertising or other unfair competition concerns; and much more — not only are none of them unique to online communications, but it seems to me those using such methods would be almost certain to appreciate that what they're doing is not "private."
Picture a world in which it was a newsworthy event every time someone was fired due to something said in an email or a hallway. Or every time company secrets were clandestinely or inadvertently shared over the phone or over drinks. You'd never hear about the dangers and pitfalls of blogging, because it would constitute such a small part of the overall "problem." (And we could all get back to concentrating on what's reallyimportant.)
David Lat, on the recent blog-occasioned sacking of Senate staffer Stormie Janzen: "Merely working for the government should not prevent you from expressing yourself on matters not directly related to your employment (with direct relation construed narrowly). To adopt a contrary rule would exert an unwanted chilling effect, deterring anyone remotely interesting, creative, witty, or fun from entering government service — which, if the current Congress is any indication, has already happened." Much more, at Wonkette.
The Employment Law Alliance (self-described without blushing as "2,000 of the finest employment and labor lawyers from more than 50 nations") today released the results of a poll on "Blogging and the American Workplace." Though I don't yet see the report or a press release on the ELA site, the pertinent details are summarized here: Work related blogs proliferate. The gist, if you trust the methodology and/or sample:
at least 5% of U.S. workers are blogging; and
15% of U.S. employers have "specific policies addressing work-related blogging."
There's more, go read. Though I haven't seen the actual results yet, I have a number of questions and potential areas of concern. First, it doesn't sound to me from the summary like the survey made an effort to distinguish between purely personal blogging, at one end of the spectrum, and officially sanctioned blogging, at the other. By the same token, it doesn't sound like it begins to address the enormous gray area between the two poles: i.e., blogging that can be sometimes personal, sometimes work-related (like, say, people are), and which may or may not be acknowledged or embraced by an employer. The survey also seems like it could be hyper-focused on issues like whether an employee's blog might include "confidential or proprietary information concerning the employer," "damaging, embarrassing, negative information about the employer," and "criticism or satire about employers, co-workers, supervisors, customers, or clients," while ignoring the myriad potential benefits that also go along with a blogging work force.
I was surprised the survey found 15% of the participants' employers had an actual policy; I would have guessed lower. I was also surprised their research shows "as many as 10 million bloggers among the American workforce;" I would have guessed higher. Whatever my quibbles and questions, I agree with the ELA's implicit suggestion that companies and their lawyers should be paying attention to the impact of employee blogs. I would just urge them to endeavor to address the overall picture, and not limit themselves to a knee-jerk pouring of cold water on potential IP and liability fires; it's bound to splash on PR and marketing ones better left to rage. (Put another way: anyone have 2,000 copies of The Cluetrain Manifesto and/or Gonzo Marketing handy? For dessert: might I suggest a little World of Ends and Long Tail?)
[Update:] I wanted to clarify this is not intended as a criticism of the ELA, its members, or this survey. In fact, I applaud the organization for recognizing an important area of discussion, and adding to the discussion with its polling. I've chatted often with at least one ELA member, my colleague Sara Begley, who understands these nuances perfectly. It's worth emphasizing that I've only looked at a summary of the survey and its results, and — though my suggested reading list is an excellent one, if I do say so myself ;) — that it's highly unlikely Sara is alone in her insights.
[Update:] Related information is now available on the ELA site, including seven pages of charts (PDF). Among the additional items reported:
"Among workers employed by companies with blogging policies, 18% say that the policy encourages employees to promote the company's business or reputation on their blogs."
"49% of American workers employed by companies with blogging policies report that the policy distinguishes between blogging done from the employer's computer system and blogging done from home or other non-workplace locations."
Though I think there's the possibility an implied license argument could prevail in the right case(s) involving syndicated material, I don't for a second think it would fly in circumstances where the feed is automatically provided by a third party host, and it communicates applicable Creative Commons license commercial use restrictions. See (or more accurately, listen to) Adam Curry'sDaily Source Code #320. What do you think?
Steve Nipper's post called "Comment Policy for this Blog" both highlights a practical (and friendly) approach to some of the legal issues involved with comments on blogs and points out some useful resources about those issues. Of special note is the EFF's FAQ on Section 230 Protections for Bloggers, which is required reading for all bloggers who allow comments and highly recommended reading for people who leave comments on blogs.
A teaser from the FAQ:
Your readers' comments, entries written by guest bloggers, tips sent by email, and information provided to you through an RSS feed would all likely be considered information provided by another content provider. This would mean that you would not be held liable for defamatory statements contained in it. However . . . .
Also, if you'd like to learn more about the current discussion and debate on this issue, Om Malik has written an interesting post (that has gotten quite a bit of comment and discussion) on the interplay of splogs and Google's AdSense program.
When I set up my Google News alert for the name of my law firm, and added a similar entry to my Technorati watchlist, I thought it was mostly to keep an eye on what people were saying about the firm. Turns out, this is a pretty great way to stay more current on what things people in the law firm are doing — a potentially impossible task when you're talking something like 1,000 lawyers. Thus did I learn that:
Neither is something that would have filtered through the mass of internal email I receive. Both hit my radar instead because I actually pay attention to things I'm affirmatively looking for. I'm glad they did because both are topics I'm interested in.
For anyone fearful of being overwhelmed by their queries and subscriptions (and it's a very well placed fear): just follow Kevin Heller'slead. And for God's sake, use the "download most recent show only" option in iTunes. Your peace of mind will be tangible.
Red Herring, Bloggers Face the Law: "Bloggers are an unstable subset of many categories, so it’s not always clear which precedents apply." (Thanks, Buzz!)
Boston University School of Law will hold a colloquium on February 11, 2006 "to consider the legal complexities facing the growing blogging community." More information is available from BU's Journal of Science and Technology Law, including a Call for Papers (PDF). Among the multifaceted issues on the table:
Are bloggers journalists? If so, what liabilities and privileges do
they have?
How do intellectual property laws affect what bloggers can or cannot post?
What are the ethical issues bloggers need to consider?
Can bloggers be fired for blogging?
How does the First Amendment apply to blogging?
How do jurisdictional boundaries, international and domestic, affect
the legal issues potentially raised by blogging?
How do any of these issues change with the introduction of
syndication, inline advertisements or tip jars, podcasting, or multiple
authors on a single blog?
The title of this post by Doc Searls says it all so succinctly and so clearly. the post comments (by not commenting) on tsome companies wanting to ban instant messaging because of Sarbanes Oxley concerns.
I'm constantly surprised at the ways some people / organizations forget basic notions of common sense when faced with a new technology. I'm now convinced that there is no way that the telephone would be approved for use in many companies if the issue was addressed in the same way companies look at new technologies. Put your focus on people and not technology and you should end up in the right place.
I noticed via CNet.com and GigaLaw.com that Google has apparently decided to take another step in the ongoing battle among technology comapnies to determine what company can obtain the patent that most infuriates the blogging and Internet community. I believe that Google's patent application for "embedding advertisements in syndicated content" for placing ads in RSS feeds has now put Google comfortably into first place over a host of challengers, capping a recent flurry of efforts that included Microsoft's custom emoticons patent application.
Even though some might complain about the apparent incongruity of Google's aggressive use of intellectual property laws to protect its own intellectual property while developing a business with a market cap in the billions based at least in part on caching copies of other peoples' copyrighted materials on the basis of a "fair use" argument, I choose not to go that route. In fairness to Google, I will assume that the headlines I've seen do not do justice to the nuances in the Google patent application, which I invite you to read for yourself (in part to illustrate why I would not ever want to be a patent lawyer and read patents all day long).
On the other hand, I will also note that I've been talking on my blog and elsewhere about placing ads in RSS feeds for several years and never even once thought that the idea of trying to patent "ads in feeds" (even "automatically") was something I might try to patent. It seemed a little, well, obvious. Probably the hundreds of others discussing ads in feeds over the past few years have reached the same conclusion.
I now wonder if my cautious approach as compared to Google's very aggressive approach to this "invention" and the patent process explains why Google is worth billions of dollars and, sadly, my net worth is far less. The future, at least in the patent world, seems to belong to the filers and not the thinkers and talkers.
Maybe I still have time to try to get that patent for my idea of a combination computer mouse and electric razor to help you freshen up before late afternoon meetings or after-work events.
In fairness, however, let's read the actual text of the patent as well as the articles about it, and then make up our minds. It might be possible to interpret the following paragraph, for example, in many ways:
"47. A system for generating information including targeted ads, the method comprising: a syndicated information and ad mixer including: means for receiving information in a syndicated format; means for receiving a first targeted ad from an automated ad server system; and means for combining the first targeted ad with the received information to generate a set of response information which is also in a syndicated content format."
But, I'm no patent lawyer - just someone trying to make some sense out of all this stuff.
Interesting that Denise and others mention this issue just as I'm exchanging emails with an editor about writing an article on this topic and some other estate planning / probate related matters involving technology and intellectual property that might well affect bloggers and their families. My concern is that a non-tech-savvy probate lawyer, executor or trustee can miss, overlook or not understand technology and IP issues that are increasingly coming into play upon peoples' deaths.
Susan Shor has a nice article on the topic on TechNewsWorld.com and I have also discussed the issue in some detail on my blog in this post.
AKMA, in 2003 (and again): "Bloggers, remember that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return. . . ."
Appropriately enough on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, John Boudreau of the Mercury News picked up the theme again: Pondering new puzzle: who inherits digital data. These are issues it makes sense for today's netizens and estate planning attorneys to pay attention to, e.g.: "People might even want to name a trustee to handle digital information, with instructions on what should be destroyed and who should gain access to e-mails and other material."
The EFF Action Alert lets you send a standard or personalized email to your Senators about the efforts to pass the National Weather Services Duties Act of 2005 that Marty and others have criticized.
I tried out the automatic sending feature and, although the form and instructions are a little confusing, it seemed to work well. It's a great idea for generating ways for the public to communicate their opinions to their legislators, although I wonder how effective email campaigns to legislators will be. The old letter-writing style might work better, but not as well, apparently, as a well-funded effort by well-heeled lobbyists.
It would be great to create a similar approach to automating the sending of Marty's email by those who are so inclined. Perhaps we could look into whether EFF would allow third parties to draft letters that could be incorporated into its action alert service.
Marty's post with his draft of a letter to his Congressional representative got me thinking about our idea to have Between Lawyers show you what happens behind the conference room doors in law firms. I thought it make for a good case study to react to Marty's draft in the same way I might if we were practicing in the same law firm.
So, here are my initial reactions to Marty's letter and the directions he/we might take it:
I can't believe that I finally get the chance to say to Marty what he always says to me - I think your letter is way too long. I really like what you are saying, but I think that it takes too long to get to the point. How about a few bullet points about what you want the congressperson to do?
I think that you are saying:
1. Current methods of getting good information about pending legislation are not only inadequate for those of us who want to learn more about the bills but they also create the impression that bills are the products of secret negotiations with "special interests."
2. You have two recent examples to illustrate this.
3. The lack of information about these laws will increase the suspicion people have about legislators, increase public skepticism about laws and increase the level of cynicism about the political process in general.
4. No one thinks that any of these results can be good things.
5. You have seen the benefits that discussion in the blog world can bring to these kinds of matters and it is a simple and free way to provide citizens with information they really want to have, with the side benefit of giving legislators credit for opening the process and better serving their constituents. Note: I'd expand the notion to blogs in general, not just legal blogs.
6. If they need help setting up a blog, we can help. ;-)
I suggest that you change your approach to the letter/post in the following
ways:
1. Simplify and shorten the letter - some of the explanatory material makes sense in your post but not in a letter that someone with a busy schedule will read. Make it simple enough that even a lawyer will read it.
2. Turn the letter into an action. Post the letter as something that readers who agree with you can copy and send to their Senators and Representatives. Add some links so people can get the contact info easily, so that they will in fact send copies to their Senators and Reps. Tom probably has some good suggestions for those types of resources.
3. Turn the core idea into a movement - Congress should be more open and more blog-friendly and produce RSS feeds for bill tracking and the like. Why not try to make it happen? Why not see if you can show the Congressperson a real-life example of what blogs can do? Why give them one letter from you when your opinions reflect a much bigger constituency? As they say, let 'em know.
4. Invite people to comment on and even revise the letter. See if we can improve it over the next few days.
My two cents.
I hope that your interest in bankruptcy law isn't a reflection on the amounts of money most bloggers currently make from their blogs.
I'm thinking of sending my Congressman an open letter (to be posted here) suggesting that they engage in a dialog with legal blogs about pending legislation in general and the 'Simon Barsinister' weather bill in particular. Maybe you would consider sending a similar letter to your representatives (and posting the letter on your blog).
Dear Congressman ____:
I am a registered voter. My home and business (a law firm) are located in your District. I also write for two blogs, The Trademark Blog and Between Lawyers.
You may be prepared to agree that the US Congress sometimes passes bad laws. There are of course many explanations, but one is the role of special interests, who are able to both hide in smoke-filled rooms and hide in plain sight. They count on the fact that opponents will not be able to mobilize against them, in time or perhaps ever, simply because information about the pending legislation was not disseminated effectively to the right group (I think, for better or worse, the recent Bankruptcy Bill may possibly be an example of legislation that snuck through in broad daylight).
A problem is that only groups that seem to be motivated to effectively track pending legislation are the special interest groups themselves.
However besides the special interests and the uninterested is a 'general interest' group of unknown size and influence. They would understand nuances and implications and would be prepared to communicate their views to their elected representatives. For want of a better term, they are 'concerned citizens.'
I think that this is a group that mainstream media has failed.
I encourage you, in your special role as 'expert federal legislator,' to consider participating in a somewhat novel communications network for creating a conversation about legislation with concerned citizens: legal blogs.
While you cannot avoid stories about the 'blogosphere' these days, there is less general coverage of blogs written by legal professionals (practitioners, academics, students, paralegals) (I learned what little detail I could about the bankruptcy bill not from the Wall Street Journal or the NY Times, but from lawyer-bloggers).
Legal blogs represent a new type of forum for discussing proposed legislation. It is not a gathering of extremist constituencies, nor is it a 'town hall' meeting of the uninformed. It is a good place to get good feedback from an articulate, broad spectrum of voters.
There is now an opportunity for you as an elected representative to reach out and participate in a conversation about a new odd piece of proposed legislation.
I refer to Senate Bill 786 titled “A bill to clarify the duties and responsibilities of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service, and for other purposes.” In short, it prohibits the National Weather Service from disseminating weather information.
A collection of introductory links about the bill can be found here.
It is easy to come to the conclusion that this is a destructive bill intended solely to benefit a for-profit weather information provider that has contributed money to its sponsor. In other words, Washington at its worst.
If the bill is as bad as it seems, and it passes, then that represents one more bit of proof that 'the game is rigged.'
If the bill is not as bad as it seems, then we're interested in learning why it isn't.
But we and our readership can't make an informed opinion yet. May we look to you to 'set us straight'? May we look to your office for commentary, advice and analysis (for the purposes of posting on our website)?
We would also happily advise on setting up your office's RSS feed for legislative information ;-)
Today brings news that a group of bloggers has submitted an amicus brief in the writ proceedings concerning Apple's efforts to discover the sources of certain rumor site stories. As far as I know this is the first time bloggers have banded together to use the legal process to weigh in on a pending legal issue — in addition to blogging about it, of course.
[Update] Thanks to xrlq for pointing out this may be the first case, but (by a few days) not the first time: Bloggers speak up in Apple case
The News.com headline screams: "Blogging Censorship Gains Support." The summary says: "Most Americans believe bloggers should not be allowed to publish sensitive personal information about individuals, according to a new survey."
As I read more, I see that the story is based on a survey conducted by a web hosting company. That's right, a web hosting company. No mention of the scientific validity of the survey.
While only 30% of the respondents had actually visited a blog and 1/3 had not even heard of blogs, 70 - 80% of respondents were in favor of limitations on blogging content.
Most importantly, "the survey revealed bloggers are not taken as seriously as traditional media."
I wonder if the survey results reflect the effects of a steady diet of traditional media stories.
While I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I see this kind of stuff, I do know that we are increasingly likely to see efforts to regulate blogging because of stories and headlines like these.
I am convinced that there is no more important skill to teach our children than the ability to read critically.
Denise Howell
Dennis M. Kennedy
Tom Mighell
Marty Schwimmer
Ernest Svenson
