ZiefBrief

Election Day 2008 and Beyond - Following the Legal Issues

While ZiefBrief hopes for an election which all sides will acknowledge as fair and well-run, ZiefBrief has prepared for any contingency by bookmarking Election Law @ Moritz, the place to go for breaking news, analysis, commentary, and actual litigation documents.

Election Law @ Moritz "covers developments in the law of election administration — laws dealing with voter registration, voter ID, early and absentee voting, provisional balloting, poll workers and polling place procedures, recounts and election contests, and other related issues." It's built upon the expertise of the  faculty of Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law, many of whom specialize in election law or related topics.

Particularly useful features include the "Election '08 Top Issues"; the up-to-the-minute "Information and Analysis" (available as an RSS feed); the Major Pending Cases chart; the State-by-State and Topic-by-Topic coverage; the side-by-side comparison of state election laws; and links to other useful blogs and web sites.

[Thanks to the Moritz Legal Information Blog for the tip!]

Google Tackles Wikipedia

Google's latest is a new site, Knol, which is basically a rival of Wikipedia.  According to Google, a "knol" is a unit of knowledge written about a subject.  If you write a knol, you get to take author credit for it, post your credentials, and seek feedback about your knol.  Knol readers can comment on a knol, but they can't change its content.  Instead of allowing anyone to edit a knol, Google allows multiple knols on the same topic.  Google explains that the "Knol project is a forum for encouraging individual voices and perspectives on topics," so readers are free to write their own knol to counter the information presented in another knol. 

If you visit the Knol page, you can see that the site is very much in its infancy.  There aren't many knols available right now.  But it's an interesting concept and, as always, we will be watching to see if Knol's popularity begins to rival Wikipedia anytime soon.

And a small rant:  When I was at AALL last week, a vendor who shall remain nameless denounced Wikipedia as useless during his presentation, apparently thinking he would score points with librarians by doing so.  Here's what I have to say to that:  There is nothing wrong with using Wikipedia as one tool in an arsenal of research tools.  In fact, I often find it to be a huge time-saver. When I'm starting research on a topic on which I know nothing, I often find Wikipedia articles to be an extremely useful introduction to a topic, especially the links to related websites that address the topic.  For an example of a Wikipedia article on a hot legal topic, check out the article, "Guantanamo Bay detention camp."  Here's the key -- I never stop searching after I find a relevant Wikipedia article.  I glean information from it, then use that information to help me create searches within reputable sources that I know I can cite to.  Treat Wikipedia articles with some caution, sure, and don't cite them in scholarly papers, but don't avoid Wikipedia like the plague, especially when you're trying to conduct cost-effective, efficient legal research.

Neat Research Tools -- Capitol Words and LOUIS

Just so we are clear on this, ZiefBrief is the alter ego for a crew of dedicated law librarians here at the Dorraine Zief Law Library. After surfing the web for a while, some of the members of the team feel like a spider on Benzedrine. We find cool stuff, which leads to more cool stuff, that links to more… you  get the picture – there_is_SO_MUCH_STUFF!! So we find a little item, you might call it “web candy.” But on closer examination it is so much more.

Take for example a recent discovery, Capitol Words. To quote the web site: “Capitol Words gives you an at-a-glance view into the daily proceedings of the United States Congress through the simplest lens available-a single word. For every day that Congress is in session, Capitol Words displays the most frequently used word in the Congressional Record.” Here is the latest example:

Fun, not earth shattering and you can add the site to your RSS aggregator and get a daily heads-up on what they are saying in the halls of congress.

"But Wait! (as they say on all the infomercials) There's More!!" Capitol Words is just one project of a group called the Sunshine Foundation (named after the Brandeis quote that "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.") Another interest project they are working on is LOUIS (click here to visit), an acronym for the Library Of Unified Information Sources. Through LOUIS their "ultimate goal is to create a comprehensive, completely indexed and cross-referenced depository of federal documents from the executive and legislative branches of government.... LOUIS currently contains, in fully searchable format, seven sets of federal documents:

• Congressional Reports
• Congressional Record
• Congressional Hearings
• Federal Register
• Presidential Documents
• GAO Reports
• Congressional Bills & Resolutions"

So check out Capitol Words and the other works of the Sunshine Foundation today. Its worth the trip.

New Internet Meme Would Make Great Law School Final Exam Question

What would you do if you came home one day and found a mob of 30 people looting your home? Robert Salisbury, a Jacksonville, Oregon contractor, faced such a crowd and it appears that the Internet is to blame. Someone placed an announcement on Craigslist stating that Salisbury was moving and that everything was up for grabs -- and grab they did. The distraught  homeowner said "I informed them I was the owner, but they refused to give the stuff back, they showed me the Craigslist printout and told me they had the right to do what they did." Eventually, the local constabulary arrived, but not before several cars and trucks filled with Salisbury's possession had fled the scene. Read the full Seattle Times article here.

This incident is eerily similar to one that took place about a year ago in Tacoma, Washington. In that case the police were successful in tracking down the author of the bogus ad and she was later charged with second-degree burglary, malicious mischief and criminal impersonation. Read the full Seattle Times article here.

Original link in the decidedly non-legal blog, BoingBoing

One in 100 Americans Behind Bars -- Pew Report Released

The Chronicle of Higher Education points out in this article that a new report on the US prison population and spending has just been released. The report is the work of the Pew Center of the States and is titled One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008 (click here to link directly to a 37 page .pdf file.)  Why the interest by the Chronicle of Higher Education, you may ask? Well, it turns out that there are now 5 states (Vermont, Michigan, Oregon, Connecticut, and Delaware) that spend more on corrections than they do on higher education. California, with an $8.8 Billion budget for corrections is very close to this mark spending 83 cents on correction for every dollar spent on higher education. This report is a treasure trove of statistics and bibliographical information for anyone interested in prisons, policy, or the general population.  

The US Government Has a Blog

It seems like everybody, but everybody has a blog these days (including Geoffery Chaucer at the ZiefBrief favorite Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog.) Not wanting to be left out of the fun, the US Government is blogging up a storm at Govgab. This new effort is the product of the Office of Citizen Services and Communications out of the U.S. General Services Administration. This rather breezy look at the Federal Government has been around since September of '07 so it looks like it is here to stay. The bloggers state:

In our daily jobs, we encounter a staggering amount of U.S. government information and services that can benefit your life. From saving money and visiting National Parks to finding out about government auctions and the latest recalls, we want to bring these resources to you in a new way—through our blog.

This is not the site to go to conduct a legislative history or to track current regulations but it might be fun to add to your collection of blog feeds -- who knows when you might need to know about the Fed's take on Preparing for a Baby on a Budget or Buying a New Car.

Kudos to USF IP Publication for Net Neutrality Symposium

As the Internet becomes the major commercial thoroughfare for the American economy and Web 2.0 applications place greater demands on bandwidth, the issue of Net Neutrality is going to become more and more important. For those readers who have been living under a virtual rock, Net Neutrality refers to the struggle between proponents of a “free” Internet who favor unlimited access versus those who for reasons of maximizing profit or efficiency want to limit (or charge for) access to the Information Superhighway.

With this conflict in mind, the University of San Francisco Intellectual Property Law Bulletin recently presented  The Toll Roads? The Legal and Political Debate Over Net Neutrality.
The event generated positive publicity prior to the event in the pages of the SF Chronicle.

Though the shouting is over and the dust has settled there is still useful information to be found on the web site created to promote the event. Check out a useful collection of statements and papers from the seminar participants are available on the web site.

As a follow-up, the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that the Senate Commerce Committee will be hearing from consumer advocates, Internet Service Providers and other concerned parties in a series of hearing beginning today.

Guantanamo Bay Detainees Cases Heard by the Supreme Court

Intense interest in the Guantanamo detainees' cases of Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. U.S. (06-1196) has led the United States Supreme Court to take the rare step of releasing the audio file of today’s oral argument immediately after the argument.

You’ll find the Boumediene/al-Odah oral argument audio  [RealPlayer required] on C-SPAN's Supreme Court page. Look for the link "Supreme Court Oral Arguments: Boumediene v. Bush & Al Odah v. United States." You can also follow along in the written transcript of the argument [PDF; 92 pages].

For more background on these cases, take a look at the SCOTUSWiki page on Boumediene and al-Odah. This page analyzes the case in detail, and links to key documents, selected news reports, and posts from SCOTUSblog. It will include a recap of the oral argument as soon as the authors pull one together - probably sometime later today.

[Update] SCOTUSblog has posted a round-up of news reports on the Boumediene/al-Odah argument, and Oyez.org now has an MP3 file of the oral argument.

Lexpionage

Want to know what "precrimination" means?  Or how about "glamping" or "stoozing"?  The Word Spy site tracks usage of new words and phrases in popular media, supplying definitions and examples of how the new word has been used in recent media sources.   It's clearly modeled after the venerable Oxford English Dictionary, and it's a fun site to browse when you need a break from studying your outline for the umpteenth time.   Thanks to beSpacific for highlighting this site!

The Law -- It Just Wants To Be Free

Public.Resource.Org issued a press release today announcing that they will "release a large and free archive of federal case law, including all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 to the present and all Supreme Court decisions since 1754. The archive will be public domain and usable by anyone for any purpose." They are able to do this thanks to an agreement they reached with Fastcase, Inc.
Carl Malamud, the founder of Public.Resource.Org is famous for his efforts making the SEC's EDGAR materials available to the general public for free. There is a great story about Malamud and his effort to convince West Publishing Company to allow his organization to digitize West materials at Tim O'Reilly's (of O'Reily computer books) blog.