Feature Channels: Government and Law

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The U.S. Constitution’s global influence is on the decline, finds a new study by David S. Law, JD, PhD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Other countries are increasingly turning to sources other than the U.S. Constitution for guidance in establishing human rights provisions and for general structural provisions in creating their constitutions,” he says. Law, with co-author Mila Versteeg, DPhil, associate professor of law at the University of Virginia, analyzed 60 years of data on the content of the world’s constitutions. “The data revealed that there is a significant and growing generic component to global constitutionalism, in the form of a set of rights provisions that appear in nearly all formal constitutions,” Law says. “Our analysis also confirms, however, that the U.S. Constitution is becoming increasingly out of sync with these global practices.”

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Rigid, zero-tolerance policies to prevent sexting that do not allow for discretion and the ability to address sexting in the context of the situation are ineffective strategies for dealing with this troubling trend, according to a University of New Hampshire professor who studies legal issues in education.

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Two interesting facts that may counter modern ideas about bankruptcy: The overwhelming majority of U.S. filings belong to individuals rather than corporations or entities, and most of these people wait far too long to seek bankruptcy protection. These are two of many cultural misconceptions associated with bankruptcy in the United States, says Tim Tarvin, associate professor and supervising attorney in the student-staffed Federal Practice Clinic at the University of Arkansas School of Law.

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Stephen B. Wicker, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Cornell University, conducts research in wireless information networks and how regulation can affect privacy and speech rights. Wicker comments on proposed legislation to limit the use of embedded software on mobile phones that can detect and record keystrokes.

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The Museum of Intellectual Property, the country's first known museum of objects related to intellectual property cases, is on display at the University of North Dakota. A web site also showcases the collection.

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According to an Indiana University Maurer School of Law professor who testified last month before both houses of Congress, the STOCK Act eliminates what many regard as an uncharted gray area in existing law. The Senate is considering the act this week.

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University of Arkansas law professor Susan Schneider calls for a major transformation of U.S. agricultural law and policy. The central goal of both should focus on sustainable production and delivery of healthy food to consumers.

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According to a new report by researchers at the Indiana Business Research Center, the Hoosier state is a prime example of how the Affordable Care Act could place thousands of jobs created by small businesses at risk. The same report also found that Indiana is heavily dependent upon out-of-state investment for creating new jobs, an important consideration as the state legislature is embroiled in the contentious issue of Right-to-Work.

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In United States v. Antoine Jones, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects. Criminal law professor Brian Gallini has followed U.S. v. Jones and is available to answer questions about the Court’s decision.

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Internet law and copyright expert Ned Snow is available to comment on the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act and the Senate’s Protect IPA Act, both of which have begun to lose Congressional support. If passed, the bills would curb illegal downloading and streaming of TV shows and movies online.

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Tarleton Gillespie, a professor of communication and information science at Cornell University, comments on today’s protests by Wikipedia and other websites over potential federal antipiracy legislation.

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Bowling Green State University has two experts available to comment on the Wikipedia protest, SOPA and PIPA legislation.

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Wikipedia and other sites plan to go dark to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act under consideration in Congress. Three law professors from Washington University in St. Louis, Kevin Collins, Gregory Magarian and Neil Richards, signed a letter to Congress in opposition to the PROTECT IP Act. Read Magarian and Richards’ current comments on SOPA and PROTECT IP.

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Speculation abounds about reform as a result of Burma's freeing of political prisoners and announcement of a cease-fire with rebel groups last week. But Indiana University experts says the developments are only the beginning of meaningful reform.

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Nova Southeastern University faculty member Robert (Bob) Jarvis, an expert in pop culture (think Titanic) and maritime law, is available to discuss the legal ramifications surrounding the sinking of the Costa Concordia .

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Some invest their money in stocks, some in bonds, some in real estate. Now, investors are putting their money into lawsuits, and University of Iowa law professor Maya Steinitz said this growing market needs government regulation.

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In the case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, Texas is contesting a federal court’s redrawing of the state’s electoral district lines for the upcoming primary election. Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Texas must get preclearance from the U.S. Department of Justice before it can institute any voting changes. “This case gives the Supreme Court an opportunity to weaken or even strike down Section 5,” says Gregory Magarian, JD, election law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “If Texas wins, even if the Court stops short of striking down Section 5 altogether, it will mark a major change in the law. The Supreme Court will essentially be saying that racial voting discrimination by state officials is no longer a problem that justifies a federal remedy.”

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The Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics praises the FDA’s action, published in the Federal Register today, to restrict some extra-label use of cephalosporins in cattle, pigs, chickens and turkeys. The misuse of these critically-important antibiotics is contributing to antibiotic resistance, posing a threat to the successful treatment of human diseases.

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Most people would rather not have their video viewing habits easily available to the public — no need for co-workers to know about your love of reality TV. The Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (VPPA) protects these records, but the House of Representatives — at the urging of Netflix and Facebook — recently voted to amend the VPPA, allowing companies to share movie watching habits much more easily. “What’s at stake is intellectual privacy — the idea that records of our reading habits, movie watching habits and private conversations deserve special protection from other kinds of personal information,” says Neil Richards, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

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Peter Blanck, a disability advocate and chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute, reacts to Governor Andrew Cuomo's State of the State remarks about supporting people with disabilities.

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A new analysis, by the GW School of Public Health and Health Services Department of Health Policy, on constitutional challenges to Health Care Reform has been released.

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Stephen B. Wicker, Cornell professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University, comments on the National Transportation Safety Board proposed ban on using cell phones while driving.

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Dr. Susan Wood, former FDA Assistant Commissioner for Women’s Health and associate professor of Health Policy and Director of the Jacobs Institute at The GW School of Public Health and Health Services is available to comment on the FDA’s action denying the application to lift the age limit for sale of Plan B, or the morning after pill. This decision would have enabled retailers to sell Plan B on the shelf, as opposed to behind the pharmacy counter, where it is currently sold.

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On Nov. 8, Mississippi voters will cast their ballots on Initiative 26, which would make every “fertilized egg” a “person” as a matter of law. “Many have rightly condemned this so-called ‘personhood’ initiative as an attack not only on abortion rights, but also on the ability to practice widely used methods of birth control, to attempt in vitro fertilization, and to grieve a miscarriage in private, without a criminal investigation by the state,” says Susan Appleton, JD, family law expert and the Lemma Barkeloo and Phoebe Couzins Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis. “But these criticisms fail to identify another flaw in the reasoning of the initiative’s proponents,” she says.

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As one of the nation's leading forensic experts in school law, particularly sexual harassment, abuse prevention and risk management, Kansas State University's Robert Shoop has come up with a novel -- and suspenseful -- way of drawing more attention to the problem of the sexual exploitation of a child by a teacher.

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Two Temple University pharmaceutical experts are available to discuss drug shortages and President Obama's FDA directive to address the growing shortage of prescription drugs.

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The majority of people arrested in a federal immigration enforcement program are jailed without bond, without access to a lawyer, and without a court hearing, according to a new report. Researchers analyzed data obtained through Freedom of Information Act.

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Social Security recipients will receive a cost of living adjustment (COLA) of 3.6 percent beginning in 2012 — the first increase since 2009 — but it won’t go far enough, says Merton C. Bernstein, LLB, a nationally recognized expert on Social Security. “COLA is welcome but will not fully maintain beneficiary purchasing power,” says Bernstein, the Walter D. Coles Professor Emeritus at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “The formula setting that rate does not meet fully the needs of Social Security recipients, especially when considering medical costs.”

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Experts Debate Efficacy of International Criminal Court on UCLA Law and ICC Prosecutor’s Internet Forum.

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Privacy lawsuits in the United States usually seek damages for revealing embarrassing but true facts by the media— the so-called “disclosure tort” — but this is a “poor vehicle for grappling with the problems of privacy and reputation in the digital age,” says Neil M. Richards, JD, privacy law expert and professor at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “The disclosure tort has never really worked successfully,” he says. “It’s largely unconstitutional.” Richards notes that there are two existing privacy law concepts that may be good supplements or even replacements to the disclosure tort.

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Internet law and copyright expert Ned Snow is available to comment on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision yesterday to not review the appeal of a lower court’s ruling that downloading sound recording does not constitute public performance of the recorded work under federal copyright law.

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Numerous studies and clinical trials have demonstrated that the use of Automated External Defibrillation devices (AEDs) can dramatically increase the survival rate of someone who suffers “sudden cardiac arrest,” (SCA), especially in high-density public places, such as shopping malls, hotels, sports arenas, and airports. SCA kills more than 300,000 people a year in the U.S. The survival rate for ventricular fibrillation–related SCA is time-dependent. Every minute in delay until an AED is applied to the patient’s heart, results in a 7 percent to 10 percent decline in survival rates.

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Richard Burkhauser, professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell University and co-author of the new book “The Declining Work and Welfare for People with Disabilities: What Went Wrong and a Strategy for Change,” offers ways to bend the future cost curve of the Social Security Disability Insurance program, whose trust fund is projected to be insolvent by 2018.

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Washington and Lee University economics professor Alan C. Marco, a specialist in intellectual property rights, says that the America Invents Act, signed into law last week by President Obama, will have a substantial impact on the pace of innovation in the country.

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The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), releases its AACR Cancer Progress Report 2011, in which its calls on Congress to increase funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

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Mixing a historic panel of eyewitnesses and survivors with past and present multi-media attractions, the University at Buffalo will mark the 40th anniversary of the most deadly prison riot in the nation's history with a three-day conference, Sept. 11-13.

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Labor unions may be under siege, but the equalizing force they provide is still necessary, says Marion Crain, JD, labor law expert at Washington University in St. Louis. “Wage inequality — the gap between the highest income and lowest income workers within demographic groups, controlling for education and other factors — has not been higher since the Great Depression,” she says.

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Elizabeth Young, professor of law and director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Arkansas, is available to speak with members of the media about “prosecutorial discretion” and its impact on U.S. immigration policy.

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Roll-out of the new national health care law is underway, but a new report warns of legal and regulatory barriers that could derail one of its critical components.

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Steve Wicker, Cornell professor of electrical and computer engineering, discusses the recent disruption of mobile phone service by the Bay Area Rapid Transit System and service providers. He is writing a book, “Cellular Convergence and the Threat to Speech and Privacy,” to be published by Oxford University Press.

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University of Arkansas law professors Brian Gallini and Laurent Sacharoff are available to discuss legal aspects of the controversial West Memphis Three case and the recent plea agreement that freed those convicted of the killings.

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Investors are highly interested in information regarding corporate political spending, says Hillary Sale, JD, securities and corporate governance expert and the Walter D. Coles Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis. “The SEC should address the need for transparency in political spending to better inform shareholders and allow them to protect themselves from hidden political agendas in corporate campaign spending,” she says.

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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently filed a lawsuit against the Camdenton, Mo. school district for using filtering software to block websites targeted to the gay and lesbian community. "The Supreme Court has made clear that school districts have great latitude in choosing what educational materials they make available to their students," says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University In St. Louis. "However, in a case in 1982, a plurality of the Court suggested that schools may not have the authority to remove materials from school libraries based on viewpoint discrimination."

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American courts are significantly expanding the legal rights and privileges celebrities can command over others using their names or likenesses. And a University at Buffalo Law School professor is questioning whether these courts have gone too far.

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While the battle over the legality of the Affordable Care Act’s mandate requiring most individuals to purchase health insurance continues to be fought, its impact on the quality and cost of care and what it would mean for patients and their physicians has been largely overlooked.

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A new policy research brief released today by the Geiger Gibson/RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services examines the financial impact of community health centers in North Carolina, a state known for its primary care innovation.

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The nation's deteriorating surface transportation infrastructure will cost the American economy resultingin lost jobs, reduced GDP.

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As a Professor of Practice in Finance and Economics at Wake Forest University, Dr. Sherry Jarrell’s expertise is in valuing enterprises and strategies. She is an accomplished public speaker, award-winning teacher and frequent commentator on issues relating to law, business, economics and finance on local television and radio. She is also the co-author of Driving Shareholder Value: Value-Building Techniques for Creating Shareholder Wealth, published by McGraw Hill. More information is available at www.SherryJarrell.com.

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Stephen Yale-Loehr, a faculty member at the Cornell University Law School and an authority on U.S. immigration law, is available for interviews after the 1 p.m. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announcement today. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, will unveil several initiatives that are designed to attract and retain foreign entrepreneurs, particularly in the high-tech sector, who wish to launch start-up companies in the United States.

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While the new Consumer Protection Financial Bureau (CFPB), which opens today, is aimed at overseeing the books at big banks and making sure financial products are clear, a more effective solution would be to better enforce laws already on the books, says a banking expert at Washington University in St. Louis.