Thursday, April 12, 2012

Indonesia issues tsunami warning after 8.9 magnitude quake strikes off west coastWednesday, April 11, 2012 5:16:06 AM

NEWS ALERTIndonesia has issued a tsunami warning after a quake with a preliminary magnitude of 8.9 hit waters off westernmost Aceh province, AP reports.

The U.S. Geological Survey said Wednesday the quake was centered 20 miles beneath the ocean floor about 308 miles from the provincial capital of Banda Aceh.

Friday, April 06, 2012

Viacom wins second round of copyright battle against YouTube

Federal appeals court is skeptical about YouTube's claims that company mangers weren't aware of the infringing material on the site. The case has been sent back to a lower court to make that determination.

 Share on Facebook  Viacom has won an appeal in its copyright lawsuit against Google's YouTube, according to court documents.
The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to a lower court to determine whether YouTube purposely ignored the infringing material that was posted to the site. Full Story Below


The decision is a setback for technology companies. It negates an earlier decision that set a favorable precedent about responsibility for policing Web sites. But today's decision only requires YouTube to defend itself in a lower court against the charges that it had prior knowledge of copyright infringement on its site.
In 2007, Viacom accused YouTube, which at that point had recently been acquired by Google, of encouraging users to illegally upload copyrighted clips of movies and TV shows. YouTube prevailed nearly two years ago, when a district court judge ruled that YouTube was an Internet service provider that qualified for protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbor.
The court found that YouTube was protected from liability for the copyright infringing acts committed by users because it quickly removed pirated videos once notified by copyright owners.
Viacom maintained that YouTube did not qualify for DMCA protection because e-mails and other documentation showed that YouTube managers were aware of the copyright infringement and were in possession of tools that could prevent flagged content from being reposted, but took no action.
"We are pleased that the U.S. Court of Appeals has vacated and remanded the District Court's ruling," Viacom said in a statement. "This balanced decision provides a thoughtful way to distinguish legitimate service providers from those that build their businesses on infringement.
"The court delivered a definitive, common sense message to YouTube," Viacom continued. "Intentionally ignoring theft is not protected by the law. We are confident we will prevail when the merits of our case are heard."

Friday, March 30, 2012

Obama Care and The Supreme Court's Opinion

Wednesday, March 28, 2012 12:29:37 PM


NEWS ALERT

Justices question whether striking down insurance mandate would kill health-care law

he Supreme Court began the final day of its review of President Obama’s health-care law Wednesday by considering whether all of the law must fall if the individual mandate requiring Americans to carry health insurance is found unconstitutional. Both liberal and conservative justices challenged the arguments made by opponents of the law.

Arguments on whether the law’s proposed Medicaid expansion violates the federal-state partnership are still to come this afternoon

Saturday, March 24, 2012

New counterterrorism guidelines permit data on U.S. citizens to be held longer

The Washington Post The Obama administration has approved guidelines that allow counterterrorism officials to lengthen the period of time they retain information about U.S. residents, even if they have no known connection to terrorism.
The changes allow the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), the intelligence community’s clearinghouse for terrorism data, to keep information for up to five years. Previously, the center was required to promptly destroy — generally within 180 days — any information about U.S. citizens or residents unless a connection to terrorism was evident.

http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/0H2RO6/C5LXCJ/65FS9O/C0EM98/725OAS/VU/h?a=http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/new-counterterrorism-guidelines-would-permit-data-on-us-citizens-to-be-held-longer/2012/03/21/gIQAFLm7TS_story.html

Friday, March 16, 2012

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