Digital Media and Data Privacy Law Blog

We would be remiss if we failed to note the recent passing of Anthony Lewis, long-time columnist and Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times.  Lewis died on March 25 at the age of 85.

Lewis won two Pulitzer Prizes and is the author of two of the most widely read books on Supreme Court history – “Gideon’s Trumpet,” which detailed the Court’s 1963 decision in Gideon v. Wainwright guaranteeing legal representation to criminal defendants charged with serious crimes and “Make No Law,” which described the Court’s seminal 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan.  Of ... Read More 

Last week, we made our first foray into Sherrod v. Breitbart and O’Connor, which was argued in the D.C. Circuit several weeks ago and which will, hopefully, address the question whether the District of Columbia’s new anti-SLAPP statute should be applied by a federal court sitting in diversity.

In that post, we noted that the case also presented an interesting timeliness question.  In denying the defendants’ motion to dismiss brought pursuant to the D.C. anti-SLAPP statute, the district court held that the motion was not timely filed.  It is important to understand the unique ... Read More 

Sherrod was ousted from her job as an Agriculture Department rural-development official in 2010 after Breitbart posted an edited video of Sherrod, who is black, supposedly making racist remarks. She ...

The North Carolina Supreme Court last week split 3-3 on an appeal presenting important questions concerning the state’s Public Records Act, apparently leaving it for the General Assembly to close a gap in the law concerning the applicability of the records statute to campus police departments.

The case, Ochsner v. Elon University and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, presented, among other things, the question whether the campus police department of a private university is subject to the Public Records Act, where that department was certified and authorized pursuant ... Read More