Articles Posted in June, 2007

The same day I read Ernie the Attorney’s post about Laughter Yoga, the Oregonian runs Margie Boule’s column on the healing power of laughter. Very funny or The Flux? As Pogo might say, “either way, it’s a mighty soberin’ thought.” 🙂

The Oregon Secretary of State’s Office posted this announcement, June 19th:

“Unfortunately, it’s a public record,” has been the Secretary of State Corporation Division’s constant refrain whenever we were asked about private information available to copy requesters. Although our forms did not request such information, and we tried to convince filers not to give us any, people still filed business registry, UCC and notary public document with social security and account numbers of their debtors. The debtors rarely knew the information, by law, could be published on-line or handed out to anyone willing to pay for a copy.

The Secretary of State sponsored House Bill 2090 to allow the Corporation Division to refuse to take this information. When personal information isn’t filed in the databases in the first place, it never has a chance to become public record, and the Division doesn’t have to make it available.

After July 15, 2007, the Secretary of State may refuse to file documents containing a Social Security number, a state identification number, a driver license number, a credit or debit card number, or an account number that is not redacted to at least the last four digits of the number. ORS Ch. 56 (2007)Cover pages containing credit or debit card or account numbers to transact business with the Corporation Division are not considered documents for filing and will be accepted.

Although the Division may reject documents, our intent is to educate filers, so that they will know not to include such information, and so that we can quickly and safely add to the public record.

If you have any questions about our new procedures, or the law they are based on, please do not hesitate to contact us.

The May issue of the Lane County Law Library Newsletter is out and features articles on legal research tips and the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and a link to an interesting compilation by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse of known data breaches (we must assume there are many additional unknown ones).

If you haven’t read Tim Rutten’s article, Where is the Outcry, in the Los Angeles Times, June 23rd, 2007, (it is also printed in the Oregonian on 6/25/07, p. D6) add it to your “must read” list, which I’m sure is very long – add it anyway. From the article:

” … In a column posted on the L.A.-based Pajamas Media website late this week, Rose began by reminding readers of legal scholar Ronald Dworkin’s admonition that “the only right you don’t have in a democracy is the right not to be offended,” then went on to decry the pernicious consequences of a “misplaced respect for insulted religious feelings,” now all too common in the West, including the United States. “This respect is being used by tyrants and fanatics around the world to justify suicide attacks and to silence criticism and to crush dissenting points of view,” he wrote….”

Monday’s Oregonian also had a related (at least to me) article, “Google joins Net Censorship Battle.”

I like to look at how other states present legal research and legal information resources online. Here are a couple new websites I’ve run across lately.

Connecticut Law About Criminal Records

California Courts Self-Help Center

The Library Link of the Day today (6/22) links to an inspiring June 19th, 2007, CNN Money story by Paul Sloan about writers who are making a very good living publishing their own e-books:

“Virtual book, real money: E-books don’t have the cachet of a New York Times best-seller, but how many writers will turn their noses up at $300,000 a year?”

Direct link and excerpt from Paul Sloan’s CNN Money story :

A new book out by a fellow law librarian: “What Good is Legislative History? Justice Scalia in the Federal Courts of Appeals,” By Joseph L. Gerken, Reference Librarian University at Buffalo Law Library.

A brief review can be found at the Law Librarian Blog (and you can also search the title on the Internet search engine of choice for more information).

Law librarians spend a good part of their professional lives teaching or performing legislative history research, or trying to locate legislative history documents, so it is near and dear to our hearts. The question of whether or not legislative history should be relied on by the courts to acertain legislative intent has been around for a long time (and not just in the U.S. – it was a big, a huge, deal when some judges in the U.K. courts started using legislative history instead of relying only on the actual text of the statute).

The latest volume of the Oregon Law Review, vol. 85, no. 4, 2006, has one article (out of six total) about Oregon law. It is the Comment “Missing from Oregon’s Takings Clause: The Right to a Jury Trial of Compensation in Eminent Domain Proceedings,” by Sarah Peterson.

You can read the full article online at the Oregon Law Review website. Click on Current Issue and then “download full issue.”

FutureLawyers has a link to a free tutorial on “Researching Companies on the Internet.”

(I presume FutureLawyers mean “Using the Internet to Research Companies” rather linking you to a tutorial that will show you how to research “Internet and Internet-only” companies. A small grammatical clarification, but sometimes small confusions can make for major misunderstandings. Of course, only us fussbudget sorts would even have noticed such a small thing! So visit FutureLawyers and enjoy, with impunity.)