Week 5 EOC: Legal Challenges With Modern Internet

One of the ongoing issues is if it is in fact right for Internet websites and communication businesses to give private information to the NSA.  The so called secret program these businesses use is called Prism.

“The government justifies Prism under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. Section 1881a of the act gave the president broad authority to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance. If the attorney general and the director of national intelligence certify that the purpose of the monitoring is to collect foreign intelligence information about any non­American individual or entity not known to be in the United States, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court can require companies to provide access to Americans’ international communications. The court does not approve the target or the facilities to be monitored, nor does it assess whether the government is doing enough to minimize the intrusion, correct for collection mistakes and protect privacy. Once the court issues a surveillance order, the government can issue top-secret directives to Internet companies like Google and Facebook to turn over calls, e-mails, video and voice chats, photos, voice­over IP calls (like Skype) and social networking information.” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/opinion/the-criminal-nsa.html?_r=0

               

  3D printing is the new way to create life like objects easily. There is a debate ongoing about if it will be legal to print 3D Guns.

“A May 21 bulletin distributed to numerous state and federal law enforcement agencies and obtained by FoxNews.com states that the guns, which can be made by downloading blueprints into cutting edge computers that mold three-dimensional items from melted plastic, "poses public safety risks" and are likely beyond the current reach of regulators. The guns threaten to render 3D gun control efforts useless if their manufacture becomes more widespread.”

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/23/govt-memo-warns-3d-printed-guns-may-be-impossible-to-stop/

            Is it legal for judges and lawyers to friend each other before and after trials?

“Two opinions have raise issues about judges' friending lawyers before their court on Facebook.  In the first situation, a North Carolina judge was reprimanded for friending a lawyer on Facebook and accessing the website of an opposing lawyer.  The judge and one of the lawyers in the case exchanged messages about the case, which the judge revealed to the other lawyer the next day.  The judge also referenced a poem he found on the second lawyer's clients website during a hearing.  The judge recused himself at the request of the second lawyer.  The judge was reprimanded for the ex parte communications and for independent fact gathering. “

http://www.tlie.org/newsletter/articles/view/56

Week 4 EOC: Copyrights

"A copyright is a legal device that gives the creator of a literary, artistic, musical, or other creative work the sole right to publish and sell that work. Copyright owners have the right to control the reproduction of their work, including the right to receive payment for that reproduction. An author may grant or sell those rights to others, including publishers or recording companies. Violation of a copyright is called infringement."
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Copyright

"Copyright does not protect the mechanical or utilitarian aspects of such works of craftsmanship. Copyright may, however, protect any pictorial, graphic, or sculptural authorship that can be identified separately from the utilitarian aspects of an object. Thus a useful article can have both copyrightable and uncopyrightable features. For example, a carving on the back of a chair or a floral relief design on silver flatware can be protected by copyright, but the design of the chair or the flatware itself cannot, even though it may be aesthetically pleasing."
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl103.html

"Copyright laws protect the rights of people who create movies, TV shows, artwork and other products by providing the creator with exclusive rights to sell, license or otherwise use his or her creative work. In the case of movies and television, these laws help safeguard the creative works that support the livelihoods of the 2.4 million Americans who work as set painters, costume designers, make-up artists, writers, actors, directors and more. The MPAA works with governments around the world to pursue commonsense solutions that advance innovative consumer choices, while protecting the rights of all who make something of value with their minds, their passion and their unique creative vision."
http://www.mpaa.org/contentprotection/copyright-info

"Copyright is the area of law that deals with creation, ownership, sale, and use of creative and expressive works."
https://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright/basics

I personally believe that its a great thing to have copyright laws. People work so hard to achieve their work and would be so afraid to share it with the world if people could just steal it and use it for their own personal gain.

Week 3 EOC: Erin Brokovich

 "Erin Brockovich became famous in 1993 when she helped residents of Hinkley, California, to claim a record-breaking $333m settlement from Pacific Gas and Electric after groundwater was contaminated. She had no legal training."
 http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/feb/28/erin-brokovich-jury-out-details

 “After nearly four years in arbitration, the Hinkley case was settled behind closed doors for $333 million - the largest direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history. The underdog, dyslexic girl from Kansas, who doubted she would amount to much in life, had brought a multi-billion-dollar corporation to its knees.”

 http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biographies/erin-brockovich.html

 “It would be difficult to imagine a more damning assessment of Erin Brokovich’s crusade in Hinkley, a crusade for which she was handsomely rewarded. Brokovich got a $2.5 million (more than £1.5 million) bonus for her work.”

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1343559/Was-Erin-Brockovich-single-mother-claimed-towns-water-poisoned-wrong.html#ixzz2i0LhPM6S


 I personally believe that the company PG&E, being as it made so much at the time, should have paid more to compensate the families and help pay for relocation and hospital bills for the rest of their life. It was their mistake, and their job to fix their mistake.

Week 2 EOC : Supreme Court Case

Kansas Vs. Cheever - Whether the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination was violated when the state used a court-ordered mental evaluation to rebut the defendant's expert testimony that claimed the defendant lacked the requisite mental state to commit capital murder due to methamphetamine use.

(http://www.willamette.edu/wucl/resources/journals/wlo/scotuscg/2013/02/kansas-v-cheever.html) I personally believe that the privilege against self-incrimination was violated. I believe that calling in a psychiatrist only further brings in extra testimonial evidence that only helps further incriminate the defendant.

“Still, the question presented is one never explicitly addressed by the Court before, and it would resolve a split in the federal circuits (albeit an uneven one disfavoring defendants). Since it has been so long since SCOTUS has even heard a case about the use of evidence from a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation, we won’t have a very good idea about how the Court will rule on this until after oral arguments, which will likely be sometime at the beginning of the Court’s next term (between October and December). Although the decision will undoubtedly impact the use of mental state defenses and evidence nationwide, the grimmer consequence of the ruling is the fact that the Court’s decision will almost certainly determine whether Cheever receives the death sentence or life imprisonment.” -Jeremy Byellin

- http://westlawinsider.com/top-legal-news/hot-docs-scotus-to-decide-whether-fifth-amendment-protects-against-testimony-by-court-ordered-psychiatrist/

Week 1 EOC: Voice

When I first wake up and shut off the alarm on my phone, I am pleased to experience great visual effects. We always have things to say about these amazing visuals. “I love the way that object flies across the screen. I believe it would look better as a triangle.” I'm proud to say that as a visual effects professional, I can be the one who makes that shape a triangle. I am here to make things look more visually pleasing to our eyes. When I spend my countless hours looking at a computer screen or tv, the visual effects are what always catch my attention. From video games to simple TV commercials, I notice the little effects that may be over looked by the average viewer. I know that one day in the near future, I will be creating visuals that are not only visual pleasing, but also visually addicting. My goal is to make a visual to be so overwhelming beautiful, weather it be from a feature length film to a hit video game, that you can not look away. I want to make the viewer feel so amazed, and give them the feeling of wanting more and to see what might be next. From informative to entertaining, I know that I will always have what it takes to produce these wonderful visual effects.