ZiefBrief

Senator Franken Takes the DOJ to Task About the USA PATRIOT Act.

On September 23rd the full United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary met to discuss "Reauthorizing the USA PATRIOT Act: Ensuring Liberty and Security" Their guests that day included David S. Kris (Assistant Attorney General in the National Security Division of the United States Department of Justice) and Glen Fine (Inspector General of the United States Department of Justice.) The following video clip is Senator Al Franken (D-MN) asking some pointed questions and quoting the 4th Amendment.

The complete hearing is available at this link.

Berkeley Law Conference on Social Networking & Ethics

Well, isn't this timely!  Just after we blogged the NYT article about attorneys who found themselves in trouble with their state bars due to social networking blunders, we discovered that Berkeley Law will be holding a conference on social networking and professional responsibility: Social Networks: Friends or Foes? Confronting Online Legal and Ethical Issues in the Age of Social Networking.  Participants include some very well-known law bloggers, including David Lat (Above the Law) and Orin Kerr (Volokh Conspiracy), and one of Facebook's in-house attorneys.  It looks pretty fascinating, maybe even worth a trip to the East Bay, which I usually only visit about once every five years or so. 

Ethical Hot Water for Social Media-Using Attorneys

The New York Times has a great article today about lawyers who have been subjected to ethics investigations due to material that they posted on blogs and Facebook.  After attorney Sean Conway called a Florida judge an "Evil, Unfair Witch" on a blog, the Florida bar reprimanded him and levied a $1,200 fine.  California attorney Frank R. Wilson blogged about a trial while serving as a juror; he ended up with a 45-day suspension and a $14,000 fine.  This story comes on the heels of news reports that the Florida bar is examining Facebook and other social media profiles as part of its moral character investigations for bar applicants.  The moral of the story?  If you're a law student or a licensed attorney, watch what you say online!