Site Map - Legal Issues

02/26/2010 - A U.S. citizen who was wrongly accused of involvement in the 2004 Madrid train bombing and held for two weeks under suspicion of terrorism may not pursue his lawsuit against the government, a federal appeals court has ruled. According to the court, since the government already promised to destroy all surveillance materials and compensated the citizen monetarily, he had nothing left to sue over.

02/26/2010 - A company that verifies whether retail and other Web sites adequately secure customers' personal information has agreed to settle charges with the Federal Trade Commission that it misled its customers.

02/24/2010 - Open Source Software (OSS) is software developed collaboratively by people willing to share the code free of charge. The owners of the code do not object to its use, but some groups want use of OSS treated as piracy because they say it creates a mind-set that might lead to intellectual property theft.

02/24/2010 - A 15-year-old student and his parents have sued a suburban Philadelphia school district after discovering administrators covertly snapped pictures of him while at home on his school-owned laptop computer.

02/18/2010 - A jury has found that a woman was wrongfully terminated after she gave negative information about a coworker during an internal investigation.

01/29/2010 - A new law (formerly S.B. 1856) establishes new rights for tenants who are being stalked or harassed by their landlords or employees of their landlords. Under the new law, such victims may be released from the terms of their rental agreement. If the victim wishes to stay in the property, he or she may change the locks on their doors without the landlord’s permission. If the harasser has left the landlord’s employ, the tenant must provide the landlord with a key to the new lock. If the tenant has a restraining order against the landlord, the tenant need not provide a key. In such cases, the landlord may enter the rental property in an emergency if accompanied by law enforcement or a fire official acting in his or her official capacity.

01/29/2010 - Political opposition, the threat of terrorism, and security costs have begun to eat away at the Justice Department's decision to try the mastermind behind the 9-11 attacks and four co-conspirators in federal court in Manhattan, according to numerous media reports today.

01/07/2010 - The Department of Justice charged the 23-year-old Nigerian yesterday with trying to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day.

12/23/2009 - A California court has ruled that a company can be responsible for a crash that occurred after a tow truck was stolen from its parking lot. The convicted gang member crashed the truck into a bus stop, killing three people.

12/17/2009 - The U.S. Supreme Court has heard oral arguments in a case brought by police officers who claim that their employers illegally read their private text messages.

12/17/2009 - A federal appeals court has ruled that a U.S. citizen who was wrongly accused and held for two weeks under suspicion of terrorism may not pursue his lawsuit against the government.

12/02/2009 - Join editor Laura Spadanuta as she talks with staff editors and security practitioners about issues covered in this month's magazine, including the problems encountered when someone decides to commit "suicide by cop" and how stores are using technology to fight loss from internal and external theft.

11/24/2009 - A company must pay $77,000 in penalties for violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The company conducted background checks without notifying the subjects that the checks were being conducted. (U.S. v. Rail Terminal Services, LLC, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, No. C091111, 2009)