- Labor/employment law: the last four years, and the next [Daniel Schwartz series: first, second, interview] “Some Thoughts on the Meaning of a Second Obama Term for Labor and Employment Law” [Paul Secunda]
- “Alcoholic Tested Without Cause Can Proceed With Bias Claim” [Mary Pat Gallagher, NJLJ]
- “The ‘I’s have it: NLRB says don’t shred those at-will disclaimers just yet” [Jon Hyman]
- “Knox Supreme Court Decision Strengthens Worker Rights” [Mark Mix, Bench Memos]
- “City Councils, EEOC Grapple with Employment Protections for Ex-Convicts” [Shannon Green, Corp Counsel]
- Leftward efforts to constitutionalize labor and employment law [Workplace Prof]
- Should this bother privacy advocates? “NLRB looks to give workers’ private contact info to unions” [Washington Examiner]
- Drama unfolds as backers push right-to-work law in Michigan [Shikha Dalmia]
Posts Tagged ‘privacy’
“Female Cop Gets $1 Million After Colleagues Trolled Database to Peek at Her Pic”
No, these were not naughty pictures, they were driver’s license headshots. “The city’s liability could have been upwards of $565,000 because the statute provides $2,500 to be assessed per each unlawful look-up of the database, and we had 226 look-ups,” City Attorney Sara Grewing [of St. Paul, Minn.] told the Pioneer Press. “So we were looking at $565,000 plus attorney’s fees, if we were found liable.” St. Paul was one of several municipalities that settled with Anne Marie Rasmusson, whose picture fellow officers often looked up without proper authority in violation of a 1994 enactment called the federal Drivers Privacy Protection Act. [Kim Zetter, Wired “Threat Level”; CityPages.]
Feds’ scheme: have cops peer down into cars from overpasses
Politico quotes me on the latest harebrained idea from the U.S. Department of Transportation, known for Secretary Ray LaHood’s crusade against “distracted driving”:
Olson called the idea that law enforcement would be focused on using spotters perched atop overpasses “creepy” and suggested it turns police officers into “peeping toms.”
“We drive under [overpasses], so it’s not a perfect expectation of privacy; but if we saw someone staring down and hoping to look into our laps, we’d think of them as creepy,” Olson said.
Barbara Harsha, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, which has been out front of the effort to curb distracted driving, scoffed at the notion that there is any expectation of privacy in a car.
Earlier here, etc.
CFPB recruits for “surveillance activities”
A recruitment ad for the newly established Consumer Financial Protection Bureau seeks investigators qualified to “establish and conduct surveillance activity to develop both intelligence and evidence to further investigations,” for matters that include “delicate matters, issues and investigative problems for which there are few, if any, established criteria.” Among the job duties: retain and oversee private investigators who might pose as consumers of financial services.
A similar plan at the Department of Health and Human Services was scrapped last year after some members of Congress complained that it amounted to spying. Health officials wanted to send “mystery shoppers” into doctors’ offices to gauge Medicaid and Medicare patients’ access to primary care physicians.
The agency says it intends to operate in accord with law and respect individuals’ privacy rights. [Washington Times via Kevin Funnell]
Drones overhead, snapping law-enforcement pics
We’re getting closer to that world very fast — and if you have Fourth Amendment qualms, maybe you’re the sort a drone-company exec responds to as follows:
“If you’re concerned about it, maybe there’s a reason we should be flying over you, right?” said Douglas McDonald, the company’s director of special operations and president of a local chapter of the unmanned vehicle trade group.
My new post at Cato at Liberty has much more (& Above the Law).
Labor and employment roundup
- “The extra UAW subsidies cost $26.5 billion… The Detroit auto bailout was, in fact, a UAW bailout.” [James Sherk and Todd Zywicki; Volokh]
- In 5-4 decision [Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham] Supreme Court rejects Department of Labor interpretation of independent contractor status [Trevor Burrus/Cato, SCOTUSBlog, Michael Fox]
- “The next battleground for the NLRB? Acting General Counsel Suggests At-Will Disclaimers May Violate NLRA” [Daniel Schwartz, earlier]
- Thoughts on labor law from David Henderson and from Jacob Levy at Bleeding Heart Libertarians; “Freeing Labor Markets by Reforming Union Laws” [Charles W. Baird, Downsizing The Federal Government]
- Aspiring Gotham cop: “Anti-gay Muslim cries bias” [NY Post]
- New York privacy law conceals misconduct in uniformed services [Tuccille, Reason]
- “The New Front in the Labor Wars Has Officially Opened in Michigan” [Shikha Dalmia]
A paradox of privacy class actions
Privacy buffs usually prefer for business practices to be opt-in (consumers participate only if they affirmative choose to) rather than opt-out (consumers are bound unless they affirmatively choose to exclude themselves). Yet when it comes to filing class action lawsuits over consumer privacy, what do they think those same lawsuits wind up doing? [Eric Goldman via Andrew Trask]
Labor and employment law roundup
- Gov. Walker’s public sector labor reforms popular with Wisconsin voters, and have saved taxpayers a fortune [Morrissey, Fund, Marquette poll (public favors new law by 50-43 margin] What would FDR say? [Dalmia, The Daily]
- “Why you should stop attending diversity training” [Suzanne Lucas, CBS MarketWatch, following up on our earlier post]
- The gang that couldn’t regulate straight: “Court rebuffs Labor Department on sales rep overtime” [Dan Fisher, Forbes] Lack of quorum trips up NLRB on “quickie”/ambush elections scheme [Workplace Prof]
- Not all claimed “gun rights” are authentic, some come at expense of the vital principle of at-will employment [Bainbridge]
- Brace yourself, legal academics at work on a Restatement of Employment Law [Michael Fox]
- “Why Delaware’s Proposed Workplace Privacy Act Is All Wrong” [Molly DiBianca]
- USA Today on lawyers’ role in growth of Social Security disability rolls [Ira Stoll]
Crime and punishment roundup
- Some reps push to cut off federal funds for states with Stand Your Ground laws [Maguire, Just One Minute] Podcast and video of Cato’s panel discussion on SYG laws [and related from Tim Lynch] Muddle-prone media mischaracterizes other cases besides Martin/Zimmerman as SYG [Sullum] “Shame of mandatory minimums shows in Marissa Alexander case” [Roland Martin, CNN, via Alkon] More: Florida voter poll shows strong support for SYG [Sun-Sentinel] New medical reports could prove helpful to defense in Martin/Zimmerman case [WFTV, more]
- Feds prosecute building firm for paying NYC labor graft, but as for those who receive it… [Holman Jenkins, WSJ, with Wal-Mart Mexico FCPA angle]
- Why is the Center for American Progress helping the Obama administration pretend that it’s ended the Drug War? [Mike Riggs] “Jailed for trying to fill a prescription” [Amy Alkon] “She stole his heroin, so she was the victim” [Jacob Sullum]
- Conduct on which defendant was acquitted can still count as prior bad act evidence [Scott Greenfield]
- New UK justice law abolishes indefinite sentences for public protection (IPPs) [Barder]
- “Debtor’s Prison for Failure to Pay for Your Own Trial” [Tabarrok]
- ACLU on unsettling possibilities of surveillance drones, law enforcement and otherwise [Lucy Steigerwald]
Penalty for webcam spying
As Radley Balko notes, it seems to vary rather widely depending on whether the wrongdoer is a student or an educator.