Balough
December 13, 2013
A hospital may be liable for one of its employees giving out confidential health information in a bar, an Illinois Appellate Court found. Illini Community Hospital was sued by a patient after her positive pregnancy test was revealed to her twin sister by a hospital employee having drinks in a bar. The hospital filed a […]
Balough
December 13, 2013
The issue of whether the myth that every vote counts in elections in the United States was shattered by the 2000 election, writes Richard C. Balough. His opening remarks at a day-long symposium on whether the nation is ready for electronic voting has been published in the Spring 2005 John Marshall Journal of Computer and […]
Balough
December 13, 2013
Google image search engine’s use of thumbnails probably infringes on the owner of the image’s copyright, a U.S. District Court judge found. The court granted a preliminary injunction prohibiting Google from displaying the thumbnail images from Perfect10.com’s website when showing results of an image search. The service in question is Google’s image search that displays […]
Balough
December 13, 2013
A law professor cannot force the Federal Bureau of Investigation under the Privacy Act to correct and to update files on him dating back to 1970 that include excerpts from his speeches that he alleges infringe on his First Amendment rights. The Seventh Circuit ruled that his files are within the FBI’s “law enforcement activity” […]
Balough
December 13, 2013
ChoicePoint, Inc.’s failure to protect consumers’ private data will cost it $15 million in fines and consumer redress under a settlement reached with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In 2005, ChoicePoint notified over 163,000 consumers that their private data, including social security numbers and date of birth, had been released by the company due to […]
Balough
December 13, 2013
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has obtained its first penalty against a company assisting and facilitating in violating the Do Not Call law. Under a settlement, Entrepreneurial Strategies, Ltd. a Georgia company, and its chief executive Dale Allison Jr. are to pay the FTC $13,454.71 in civil penalties for violating the “assisting and facilitating” provision […]
Balough
December 13, 2013
A taxpayer does have the right to challenge the expenditure of funds for President Bush’s “Faith-Based and Community Initiatives” based on the establishment of religion clause of the constitution. The Seventh Circuit found that money spent by the executive branch for conferences under the program created by executive order gives a taxpayer the right to […]
Balough
December 13, 2013
An employer who knows or should know that an employee is viewing child pornographic sites on a company computer has an obligation to terminate or to discipline the employee and report the employee to law enforcement authorities. The issue arose in a case where a mother and her minor daughter sued the company where her […]
Balough
December 13, 2013
It is not a fair use under the Copyright Act to “sample” entire songs by downloading them from the Internet before deciding whether to buy an album, the Seventh Circuit has found. Cecilia Gonzalez argued that her downloading over 1,370 copyrighted songs was fair use since she was just sampling music to determine what she […]
Balough
December 13, 2013
Bloggers, the First Amendment and Trade Secrets will be the topic of a presentation by Richard C. Balough at the annual Intellectual Property Law Assn. of Chicago’s Trade Secret Seminar. The seminar will be from 1 to 5 p.m. on December 7, 2005 at the John Marshall Law School. In addition to Mr. Balough, Mark […]
