A Lot Going On

Well, a lot has happened this week. The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Michigan affirmative action cases, Grutz v. Bollinger and Gratz & Hamacher v. Bollinger. Dahlia Lithwick has her Slate report here, and you can find more on the topic at Howard Bashman's How Appealing.

Ed Felten has created an information center on "Super-DMCA" bills that the MPAA has been pushing in state legislatures. The Colorado bill takes some relatively justifiable regulation of cell phone abuse and adds lots of vague and very overbroad provisions that look like legitimate regulation but potentially render presently legitimate, common, and highly desirable computer security mechanisms illegal. They could also stifle security research. I phoned and wrote to my Colorado Senator on that matter today. I explained my view and concluded that the bill's "only winners are in Hollywood. Its losers are everywhere else." Meanwhile, in other topics, Prof. Felten maintains that the ABA's report on wireless computing is an example of "high-order cluelessness." I haven't read the report, so I'll make no claims... yet.

Meanwhile, the California Supreme Court heard arguments in Intel v. Hamidi, questioning whether Intel could sue Ken Hamidi, a former employee, for sending anti-Intel e-mails to Intel employees' company email accounts. Denise Howell has links to coverage here.

U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner spoke on intellectual property topics at the American Bar Association's TechShow conference. Rick Klau took excellent notes -- excellent just like all his other notes on the show. They're at his blog.

The Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press has set up a weblog called Behind the Homefront. [via BeSpacific, which you should already be checking regularly.] I haven't given it a close look yet, but it should be interesting.