Technical-Legal Confluence News

HR 3261 Draft in House link

Govtrack 3261 link

Senate S968 Protect-IP govtrack reference link

It appears that the definitive bill for financial regulatory reform is now HR 4173, which has passed both houses, link here. The best title appears to be “Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010″.

The National Defense Authorization Act for 2011, containing the conditional repeal of the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuals in the Armed Forces, is H.R. 5136, introduced by Ike Skelton (D-MO) with Howard McKeon as a co-sponsor (R-CA). The govtrack link is here.

The PDF of the 1000+ page text is here.

The most relevant passage occurs around page 184, “Sec. 536. Department of Defense policy concerning homosexuality in the Armed Forces.”

The comparable law for 2010 is now Public Law 111-84, with gpo reference here.

There were two drafts in 2009 that would effectively give the president an “Internet kill switch”.
The first draft is Cyberadvisor 1 here.

“To establish, within the Executive Office of the President, the Office of
the National Cybersecurity Advisor.”
The second is the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, here.

“To ensure the continued free flow of commerce within the United States and with its global trading partners through secure cyber communications, to provide for the continued development and exploitation of the Internet and intranet communications for such purposes, to provide for the development of a cadre of information technology specialists to improve and maintain effective cyber security defenses against disruption, and for other purposes.
.
Webpronews analysis is here.

A much more recent development is
“Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, or PCNAA” proposed by Joe Lieberman, S 3480, Opencongress link.

A Govtracker article is here.

The bill can be found here on Govtrack, link , introduced June 10, 2010 by Senator Joseph Lieberman.

It’s name is “A bill to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and other laws to enhance the security and resiliency of the cyber and communications infrastructure of the United States.”

The full text is here.

See also April 15, 2009 entry on this blog.

The Boucher bill would regulate the ability of online companies to collect information from web visitors without their consent. The discussin draft was circulated in early May 2010.

A draft of the bill, that does not yet seem to have an HR number, is here.

The Info Law Group has a discussion draft here.

The Citizen Participation Act of 2009, HR 4364, has the long title “To protect first amendment rights of petition and free speech by preventing States and the United States from allowing meritless lawsuits arising from acts in furtherance of those rights, commonly called “SLAPPs”, and for other purposes”. It was introduced by Rep Steve Cohen (D-TN).

The govtrack link is here.

The summary is important reading. It starts “Citizen Participation Act of 2009 - Declares that Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), filed against thousands of individuals, organizations, and businesses based upon their valid exercise of the rights to petition or free speech, are an abuse of the judicial process that waste judicial resources and clog the already over-burdened court dockets. Declares immune from civil liability any act of petitioning the government made without knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard of falsity. Requires a plaintiff (especially in a SLAPP) to prove knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard of falsity by clear and convincing evidence.”

Link for summary.

Link for text.

Several government agencies have requirements that employees submit any material intended for publication, including publication on the Internet or World Wide Web, for review. A typical reference is that of the Department of Agriculture, here but many agencies use a very similar policy to this. Sometimes materials totally unrelated to the writer’s work do not have to be submitted for review under this policy.
The Census Bureau did hire a lot of people temporarily for the 2010 Census. The Bureau did not implement such a “pre-publication review” policy, but it did provide employees with a paper memo reminding them of the risks of using social media and web publishing tools that don’t go through third party review.

Specifically, the Bureau prohibits:

(1) Disclosure of confidential information, such as PII (or personal identifying information), operations, or other intermediate conclusions about census data before the conclusions are formally published by the Bureau in a manner determined by law.
(2) Expressing opinions that are actually one’s own and attributing them to Census
(3) Being paid by a third party to report on Census operations while or after working for them.

The Bureau also included a statement to the effect that public employees sometimes face restrictions on outside activities or speech not encountered in the private sector. Actually, most employment in critical operations in the private sector (such as finance) require adherence to very similar standards of conduct when using social media or web publishing services, especially on one’s own. Generally these rules are called “conflict of interest” rules and sometimes are subsumed by federal and state regulations for various industries. (For example, life insurance agents have some restrictions from Sarbanes-Oxley on how they can earn outside income.) Furthermore, while there are some provisions like the Hatch Act (which have been modified and softened over time), there are specific legal protections for free speech for public employees in other situations.

The Census Disclosure Avoidance Procedure is here.

The Oath of Non-Disclosure is here. Typically this means that even within the workplace information is disseminated only on the basis of a “business need to know” even to people who are sworn to confidentiality.

The legal authority is in in Sections 9 and 214 of Title 13, United States Code,, link here.

Note: I think employers should always make their social media policies available online to applicants before they apply. There is nothing confidential or proprietary about the media policy itself.

The case Long Island Care Care At Home LTD., et al, Petitioners, v. Evelyn Coke, decided June 11, 2007, Cornell University Law School link here.

The Supreme Court reversed a Second Circuit ruling, with the effect of saying that Department of Labor interpretations of the Fair Labor Standards Act do not require that companionship workers paid by third party companies be eligible for time-and-a-half.
The Direct Care Alliance has a statement dated April 27, 2010 “Statement of Leonila Vega on the Department of Labor 2010 Regulatory Agenda and the Clarification of FSLA for Domestic Service Employees, pdf file here.

The “best” explanation that I can find of what all this means is a May 28, 2009 posting on “Caregiver list”, “Home Care Workers Exempt from Overtime for Live-In Caregiving”, link here. Note this key paragraph “The basic rule you can follow is that “companionship services” are exempt from overtime when the care is not hourly. Companionship services include household work for aged or infirm persons, meal preparation, bed making, laundry and other similar personal services. General household work is also included, as long as it does not exceed 20 percent of the total weekly hours worked by the companion. “.

Time to get back to this blog! I may restructure all this soon, this summer.

For the record, here is the location on govtrack for the materials related to the “Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010″, on govtrack. S 3217, link

here.

The primary sponsor was Senator Chris Dodd, D-CN.

There are various versions in the House, but the summary page on govtrack is here.

The Internet Cybersecurity Act of 2009, long title “A bill to ensure the continued free flow of commerce within the United States and with its global trading partners through secure cyber communications, to provide for the continued development and exploitation of the Internet and intranet communications for such purposes, to provide for the development of a cadre of information technology specialists to improve and maintain effective cybersecurity defenses against disruption, and for other purposes” is S 773, introduced by Sen. John Rockefeller [D-WV], govtrack reference here.

The full text is here.

The bill has been criticized as allowing the government too much potential discretion in shutting down harmless portions of the Web and Internet.