Law Librarian Blog

A Little Google Fun

1- Go to Google
2- Type in the word "Failure"
3- Instead of clicking "Google Search," click "I'm Feeling Lucky."

Hat tip to Mevil. [JH]

Georgetown Launches Faculty Blog

Georgetown joins Chicago in the field of faculty group blogs. It will be interesting to compare what each school's faculty bloggers view as worthy of commentary. This week, Hamdan was a hot topic on both blogs:

Chicago's Cass Sunstein | Georgetown's Carlos Vázquez (not listed as a regular contributor; see also posts by Rebecca Tushnet, who is a regular contributor).

Note to Georgetown: Date your posts! [JH]

Maryland's Thurgood Marshall Law Library Launches Electronic Scholarship Repository

Excerpt from the press release: In an effort to consolidate the School of Law’s growing Faculty Scholarship, the Thurgood Marshall Law Library has launched a new Electronic Scholarship Repository. According to Pamela Bluh, Associate Director for Technical Services and Administration it provides "a stable, perpetual archive for the intellectual output of the faculty of the School of Law."  [T]he new E-Scholarship Repository has received over 100 submissions from Law School faculty. Though the system is currently text-based, it will eventually include a variety of multimedia files. [JH]

Opening: Reference Librarian, Kentucky

The University of Kentucky Law Library has an opening posted a Reference Librarian.  The position description is available on the UK Libraries' web page or download an unofficial copy (PDF). The deadline for applications is July 21, 2006, but may be extended if necessary.

St. Louis: Library faculty will be available to answer questions at the American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting in St. Louis.

New on LLRX.com

• Public Defense Systems, by Ken Strutin
• Pathfinder on the Generic Pharmaceutical Industry, by Sarah Spear
• The Government Domain: Google's New U.S. Government Search, by Peggy Garvin
• Faulkner's Practical Web Strategies for Attorneys: How to Select a Website Designer, by Frederick L. Faulkner IV
• E-Discovery Update - by Fios Inc.: Controlling the Accidental Release of Digital Information, by Conrad J. Jacoby
• Commentary: Who Really Benefits From the Death Tax, by Beth Wellington
• CongressLine, by GalleryWatch.com: The State Legislatures, by Paul Jenks
• The Tao of Law Librarianship: The Truth About Blogging, by Connie Crosby
• Reference From Coast to Coast: Our Uncodified Puzzlers, by Jan Bissett and Margi Heinen
• A Cup of Creativi-tea: How To Enhance Your Next Meeting, by Terri Wilson
• FOIA Facts: The Return of the Backlog, by Scott A. Hodes

Interim Progress Report on Class Action Fairness Act Study

New from the Federal Judicial Center:

This interim progress report on the impact of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 was presented to the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules on May 22, 2006. The report examines class action filing trends from July 1, 2001 through June 30, 2005 in three federal district courts and includes data on the first four months after CAFA went into effect. Future reports will present the results of statistical tests of the impact of CAFA on federal courts across the country.

[RJ]

China to purify blogs and search engines

Xinhua is reporting that the Chinese government promises to ratchet up supervision of blogs and search engines in China. Cai Wu, director of the Information Office of the State Council, was quoted as saying the following at a Wednesday meeting:

As more and more illegal and unhealthy information spreads through the blog and search engine, we will take effective measures to put the BBS, blog and search engine under control.

Extent of the Chinese Government's Problem: According to a Qinghua (Tsinghua) University study, Chinese blog sites have reached 36.82 million and are expected to exceed 60 million by the end of the year. Last year, Chinese search engine users reached 97.06 million, accounting for 87.4 percent of Chinese Internet users, according to iResearch Consultative Ltd. iResearch forecasts that the number will top 100 million this year.

Get ready for another round of "we're abiding by the law of the land" press releases from Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, and other US IT appeasers. [JH]

Where does the nation-state end and globalization begin?

Territory, Authority, Rights:
From Medieval to Global Assemblages
Saskia Sassen

Cloth | $35.00 | ISBN: 0-691-09538-8 | Princeton, 2006

From the blurb: Where does the nation-state end and globalization begin? In Territory, Authority, Rights, one of the world's leading authorities on globalization shows how the national state made today's global era possible. Saskia Sassen argues that even while globalization is best understood as "denationalization," it continues to be shaped, channeled, and enabled by institutions and networks originally developed with nations in mind, such as the rule of law and respect for private authority.

[JH]

Arkansas City limits hens to 4 per household, bans roosters

Effective July 13, the City of Rogers, Arkansas, will restrict the number of hens per household to 4 and will ban roosters. At first blush one might think the City's action was taken in response to a rumor that former President Bill Clinton was moving to Rogers. Details from the CNN report. [JH]

New Schools Join SSRN's Legal Studies Research Paper Series

SSRN's Legal Scholarship Network recently announced that the schools listed below have joined the Legal Studies Research Paper Series.

Temple University Beasley School of Law
Subscribe:
http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=temple-univ-legal-studies
View Papers:
http://www.ssrn.com/link/temple-univ-legal-studies.html

University of Michigan Law School
Subscribe:
http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=u-michigan-legal-studies
View papers:
http://www.ssrn.com/link/u-michigan-legal-studies.html

University of Missouri - Columbia School of Law
Subscribe:
http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=u-missouri-columbia-legal-studies
View papers:
http://www.ssrn.com/link/u-missouri-columbia-legal-studies.html

University of Maastricht Faculty of Law
View papers:
http://www.ssrn.com/link/u-maastricht-legal-studies.html

[JH]

Hamdan: Supreme Court Rejects Military Tribunals as Illegal

In a 5-3 decision, the Court ruled that military tribunals did not have the authority to try Hamdan because "its structure and procedures violate both the UCMJ and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949." Four Justices also conclude that the offense with which Hamdan has been charged is not an “offens[e] that by . . . the law of war may be tried by military commissions.”

Read more about it at NY Time, Washington Post, and SCOTUSblog. Hat tip to Ron Jones.

File under "the pendulum is swinging back to the rule of law." [JH]

Leiter's Law School Faculty Quality Survey: Who is Up and Who is Down Since 2003

Texas Law Prof Brian Leiter has posted the results of his reputational survey of law schools in terms of overall faculty quality, the first update since his major 2003 study.

Thumbs up: Yale, Michigan, Duke, Vanderbilt, Illinois and, maybe also, Harvard, NYU, Berkeley, Texas, and UCLA

Thumbs down: Chicago, Virginia, USC, Cornell, and, maybe, Northwestern

[JH]

Google Checkout Launched

Google has launched Google Checkout, a checkout process that "makes online shopping faster, more convenient and more secure for Google users." Looks like Google has found a way to clone into one service both Amazon.com and EBAY. Here's a video introduction to the service. [JH]

Senate Commerce Committee Approves Telecom Bill Without Net Neutrality Amendment

The Senate Commerce Committee defeated, by a 11-11 tie vote, a net neutrality amendment to S 2686, the Communications, Consumers’ Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006. By a 12-10 vote, the Committee also rejected a second amendment that was broader. The amendment, proposed by Sen. Daniel Inouye, (D-Hawaii), included not just net neutrality anti-discrimination language but also addressed topics such as video franchising and universal service.

Read more about it: Net Neutrality Amendment Rejected, Washington Post. [JH]

Oath Betrayed : Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror

Oath Betrayed : Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror
by Steven Miles

List Price: $23.96
Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Random House (June 27, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN: 140006578X

From the book description: In Oath Betrayed, Miles explains the answer to the question, “Where were the prison doctors while the abuses were taking place?” Not only were doctors, nurses, and medics silent while prisoners were abused; physicians and psychologists provided information that helped determine how much and what kind of mistreatment could be delivered to detainees during interrogation. Additionally, these harsh examinations were monitored by health professionals operating under the purview of the U.S. military.

Miles has based this book on meticulous research and a wealth of resources, including unprecedented eyewitness accounts from actual victims of prison abuse, and more than thirty-five thousand pages of documentation acquired through provisions of the Freedom of Information Act: army criminal investigations, FBI notes on debriefings of prisoners, autopsy reports, and prisoners’ medical records. These documents tell a story markedly different from the official version of the truth, revealing involvement at every level of government, from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to the Pentagon’s senior health officials to prison health-care personnel.

Oath Betrayed is not a denunciation of American military policy or of war in general, but of a profound betrayal of traditions that have shaped the medical corps of the United States armed forces and of America’s abdication of its leadership role in international human rights. This book is a vital document that will both open minds and reinvigorate Americans’ understanding of why human rights matter, so that we can reaffirm and fortify the rules for international civil society.

About the author: Steven H. Miles, M.D., is an expert in medical ethics, human rights, and international health care. A professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School and a faculty member of its Center for Bioethics, Miles is also a practicing physician. He has served as the chief medical officer for a Cambodian refugee camp and worked on AIDS prevention in Sudan and on tsunami relief in Indonesia with the American Refugee Committee. He has also worked with the research committee of the Center for Victims of Torture. The recipient of the Distinguished Service Award of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities, Miles is widely published on a wide range of health- and health-care-related topics.

Accessing the Internet Through the Neighbor's Wireless Internet Connection: Physical Trespass in Virtual Reality

Arkansas-Fayetteville Law Prof Ned Snow has published Accessing the Internet Through the Neighbor's Wireless Internet Connection: Physical Trespass in Virtual Reality (Nebraska Law Review, Vol. 84, p. 1226, 2006) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

As wireless computer networks are becoming commonplace, so also is the practice of accessing the Internet through another's wireless network. The practice raises a simple question of law: Does accessing a wireless network, without express authorization, violate the property rights of the network operator? This Article argues that it does. A neighbor who intentionally accesses the Internet through a network operator's connection appears to trespass on physical property of the operator - the operator's router. Recent Internet jurisprudence suggests that the electronic signals that the neighbor sends through the router are sufficient to find trespassory physical contact. The same jurisprudence suggests that the possibility that the neighbor could slow down the operator's Internet connection satisfies the tort's requirement of harm. Furthermore, the defense of consent does not appear to apply. Although the neighbor can raise an argument that the network operator consents to the neighbor's access when the operator fails to password protect the network, this argument is flawed. Failure to protect property does not imply consent to use property. The absence of password protection does not demonstrate consent, especially given that there is no economic reason that a network operator would want a neighbor to free ride on the operator's Internet connection. Finally, from a policy standpoint, the neighbor's conduct should be proscribed because of its negative externalities to Internet service providers. The free-riding neighbor strips Internet service providers of a return on their investment in Internet technology. To prevent this outcome, the conduct should be tortious. Trespass to chattel should lie.

Google Launches Book Search Blog

Did you miss this? I did. Google has started a blog devoted to the Google Book Search project, Inside Google Book Search. Why? To convience readers that scanning millions of books in university libraries is legal, of course, and obviously beneficial to humankind.

Google Book Search News & Views. The blog references an number of pages on the Google Book Search website, including The History of Google Book Search page opens with "In the beginning, there was Google Book Search." Sounds like the gospel according to Google. On the site, see also the Legal Analysis page which includes links to the CRS report titled The Google Book Search Project: Is Online Indexing a Fair Use Under Copyright Law? (2005) and the ALA OITP Technology Policy Brief, The Google Library Project: The Copyright Debate (2006). Additional pages include "Thoughts & Opinions" by Authors, Publishers, Librarians, Students & Teachers, Readers, and Media.

Opening: Reference Librarian, Denver

The University of Denver, Westminster Law Library is seeking a creative, enthusiastic and flexible individual to join our team of Reference Librarians.

Duties:

• Provides research and reference services to the law school and University communities, attorneys, and the public via phone, email or in-person assistance. The schedule will include some evening and/or weekend shifts.
• Participates actively in teaching legal research classes. Provides basic and advanced legal research instruction to library patrons including lectures, workshops, and tours to students from the law school and University communities, as well as outside groups.
• Assists patrons with the use of various computer-based research programs including Westlaw/Lexis, Internet and over 50 electronic databases.
• Prepares bibliographic and other in-house materials including handouts, tutorials, newsletters, etc. Past projects have included a case-finding video, digitization project on the history of the law school and Internet research links portal.

Minimum qualifications:

• M.L.S. required by the time employment begins. Spring & Summer graduates are encouraged to apply.
• Demonstrated knowledge of standard MS Office applications; Lexis & Westlaw. Knowledge of legal resources (all formats) and skill in legal research methodology.
• Interested candidates must have excellent organizational and interpersonal skills as well as an ability to work independently and as part of a team environment.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Any combination of the following that would provide a background in legal research strongly preferred: JD, law library experience, paralegal, or classes in law librarianship & legal bibliography.
• Teaching or presentation experience preferred.
• Interest in developing digital initiatives that will advance our educational mission - including some experience with programs such as Access, Dreamweaver, Adobe Acrobat, and image editing software.

Environment: The University of Denver Sturm College of Law is a private institution established in 1892. The law school moved into a new $63.5 million building in August 2003, and the building is the first “green” law school in the U.S. The law school consists of approximately 1300 students in day and evening programs and in addition to the JD degree program, offers graduate programs in taxation, legal administration, American law for foreign lawyers, and international environmental and natural resources law. The Westminster Law Library also serves the research needs of a distinguished faculty and the Denver legal community. The library’s collection is one of the largest in the Rocky Mountain region.

Salary & Benefits: $40,000 and an excellent benefits package. Opportunities for continuing education including membership in the American Association of Law Libraries and the Colorado Association of Law Libraries provided. Please visit http://www.du.edu/hr/benefits/benefits_summary.html for more comprehensive information regarding benefit options.

To apply for this position, please visit our website at www.dujobs.org.  You will be required to create an application if this is the first time you have logged in to our system. 

Applications will be considered as they are received until the position is filled.  Screening interviews will be conducted via telephone or in person at the AALL Annual Meeting in St. Louis from July 7-12, 2006.

The University of Denver is an EEO/AA Employer.

Judiciary Committee Hearing on Presidential Signing Statements

Testimony and submitted statements presented at yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on presidential signing statements are now online. [JH]

Tim Berners-Lee on Net Neutrality & the Control of Information

Watch the video from this post, wherein Berners-Lee writes:

Net neutrality is this:

If I pay to connect to the Net with a certain quality of service, and you pay to connect with that or greater quality of service, then we can communicate at that level.  That's all. Its up to the ISPs to make sure they interoperate so that that happens.

Net Neutrality is NOT asking for the internet for free.

Net Neutrality is NOT saying that one shouldn't pay more money for high quality of service. We always have, and we always will.

He suggests we need to ask ourselves, do we want corporations to control what you can access for commercial reasons? (Do most Chinese want information controlled by the government for political reasons?) [JH]