Technology Law Blog

Law keeping up with Technology
11/17/2008
Law keeping up with Technology
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Barack Obama and Technology
11/07/2008
The recent election has made many computer-savvy people wonder about the changes that the new president will enact in the technology sector, affecting the way we compute and communicate. President-elect Barack Obama proposed to appoint a chief technology officer (CTO) to the White House, demonstrating his attention to the technology-related issues seen daily in the news and in government. On his new website, Change.gov, he stresses the importance of connecting citizens to cooperate in solving the nation's problems, and emphasizes the potential role of technology in government.
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Wall Street Journal Expressing Concern over out of Proportion Sentences for Child Pornography Possession
11/05/2008
The Wall Street Journal, on October 23, 2008, published a large article quoting from various federal judges about the severity of child pornography possession sentences. No liberal newspaper, the article questions the sanity of imprisoning people for 20 years or more for conduct occurring within their own home, sitting alone in front of their computer. Many of the arguments...
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Internet Privacy and the Government
10/27/2008
Britain's Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has announced plans for a central database that would record every email, phone call, and website visit made in Britain. Although the Liberal Democrats party has called this proposal Orwellian, Smith maintains that the database would not include any content of the emails or phone calls, but rather more basic information pertaining to times and email addresses of senders and recipients of electronic messages.
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Can criminal records really be expunged?
10/23/2008
Having a criminal record can be damaging to several aspects of one's life. It can make it especially difficult to find employment; indeed, some jobs are unattainable for individuals who have been in trouble with the law. However, if one chooses to expunge their record, then they will no longer be considered a criminal by potential employers - in theory.
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Is Wireless Internet Free for Everyone?
10/13/2008
Despite what some may believe, the intangibility of the Internet does not prevent it from being stolen from others, or at least its utility. Wireless connections bring the Internet within reach of individuals' computers without the need to physically connect the computer to a modem. However, wireless connections can typically extend over one hundred feet beyond the house or building where they have been set up. If the connection is unsecured - that is, if it is not protected with a password or otherwise - then anybody within range can access that connection.
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Protecting Your Identity Online
10/03/2008
In the summer of 1995, The Net premiered in theaters around the world. Sandra Bullock played Angela Bennett, a computer software analyst who is the victim of identity theft. Those days, phishing might have been construed as attending a Vermont concert to hear some crunchy grooves, Trojan horse referred to the large wooden contraption Laocoön warned his fellow citizens about thousands of years ago, and malware might have been understood as what kids sported to the local shopping center.
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Obscenity Law v. Freedom of Speech
09/29/2008
Anybody can post information on the Internet, and many people do, but being aware of obscenity law and how it applies to United States culture in general is critical when the information is of a sexual nature.
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Email Privacy and Security
09/19/2008
Newswires are buzzing about the hacking of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's Yahoo! email account, which brings up the topic of email privacy and security.
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File-Sharing and Copyright Infringement
09/17/2008
Due to the current popularity of Internet blogs and other areas of the web where content is controlled by any regular computer user, it inevitable that much of the information available may be a facsimile of the original source of the information. When the original information has a copyright or trademark, then the individual who took that information from its source and reproduced it for their own purposes did so illegally.
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France calls for an "international Internet police force"
09/08/2008
Besides offering up information one might like to see, like the perfect brownie recipe or an answer to a bothersome question, the Internet also contains information that may be considered extremely offensive, harmful, or even illegal. There are many options available to parents of children who frequent the net, but how can all citizens, especially the victims of child pornography, be protected from offensive material? Various countries around the world are fighting back with legislature to combat the proliferation of illicit and harmful material on the Internet, but some may be going too far.
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Illicit material found during computer repairs may create legal problems for the people doing the repairs.
08/21/2008
Having weak security on your computer opens the door to unwanted material showing up on your hard drive. That can produce difficulties in determining whether a person knowingly put illicit files such as child pornography on his computer or the whether the files were saved there without his knowledge or intention. People performing routine computer repairs as a profession are in a position to stumble across such files in an unwitting clients computer without intentionally seeking them out. Under laws passed within the past year in Texas (Private Security Act) and Michigan (House Bill 5274) could land technical repair people accused of doing computer investigations in prison terms of up to one or four years, respectively, along with hefty damages and fines.
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Social networking profiles are fair game in the legal system
08/15/2008
Social networks make public what was once private information. While this may help some, it may harm others. The already established history of cases in which information from social networking sites influenced the decision serves as a caveat for all those who maintain profiles on sites like MySpace or Facebook: the internet is fair game in the legal system.
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Ohio Supreme Court agrees with Dean Boland and orders his client released pending appeal
08/06/2008
In a stunning ruling in favor of his client, Dean Boland today obtained a rare order from the Ohio Supreme Court that his client be released pending appeal. The client was convicted at the trial court (represented by other counsel), his conviction affirmed on appeal and the case accepted by the Ohio Supreme Court earlier this year and is pending their consideration. While the case was pending, Dean Boland...
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Dean Boland gets dismissal in Federal Child Pornography Case
08/05/2008
Our client contacted us after working with initial counsel for nearly two years on a federal child pornography investigation. Utilizing our experience, expert witness contacts and select private investigators, Dean Boland and his firm persuaded the government to drop its case.

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia today received a motion by the federal government to dismiss its entire case without prejudice against our firm's client. After an exhaustive investigation, including the use of a computer forensics expert...
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Technology is taking over!
08/04/2008
Be sure that the person that you are trusting with your case is both technologically savvy and willing to stay afloat in our ever changing world.
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Search of Laptops and other Devices at Border Permitted
07/25/2008
There is a fine line between customary administration and unreasonable invasion, and the 9th Circuit, known as one of the more liberal circuits, has decided to cross it...
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Lima News quotes Dean Boland highlighting important legal issue accepted by Ohio Supreme Court
06/01/2008
The Lima News which has been following the David Harrison case for years, published an article outlining the key legal issue in his case. Dean Boland has represented Mr. Harrison just following his conviction for charges that he had previously served his entire sentence on.

The legal issues involved were significant enough for the Ohio Supreme Court to accept the appeal offering Dean Boland his third opportunity in the last 24 months to bring an important technological and legal issue in front of the state's highest court...
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Ohio Supreme Court Accepts the Third Child Pornography related case in 24 months
05/22/2008
The Ohio Supreme Court announced today that it has accepted the third child pornography related case in the past 24 months. Each of the child pornography cases accepted by the Ohio Supreme Court in the past 24 months have been cases in which Dean Boland has represented the defendant.

Obviously, the court sees a need to try and bring the law up to speed with technological change.


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Important Concurrence regarding myth of image distinguishability in digital image cases
05/13/2008
There was a very important concurrence published in a recent decision in the First Circuit by Senior Judge Stahl.

In the concurrence, the judge correctly points out that technology has now advanced to the point where...


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