Articles Posted in United States Federal Resources

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I just saw that the print edition of the National Law Journal has a cover story about 18 USC 1346:

DOJ may rein in use of ‘honest services’ statute: Fraud statute up for review was key to many convictions, by Lynne Marek, June 15, 2009

I can write 18 USC 1346 without even looking at the article. In fact, you could nudge me awake in the 17th hour of an 18-hour flight and whisper “right to honest services” in my ear and I’d mumble 18 USC 1346 without hesitation – and then go right back to sleep. (I know. Very sad.)

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In Oregon, SHIBA, for Senior Health Insurance Benefits Assistance, assists Medicare beneficiaries and those going into Medicare through all the hoops of Medicare and the options that can lower out of pocket expenses for health care. Staffed by highly trained volunteers supported by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as well as State Department of Human Services, they are available for one on one consultation, group presentations and classes to help people make informed decisions.

To find a SHIBA volunteer in your area, call the Oregon State SHIBA Office: 1-800-772-4134.

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I saw this story at a May 17, 2009, PI Buzz blog post (3rd paragraph) and thought I’d blog about it here given the strong (ish) public records laws in Oregon. The link is to a Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press post.

Excerpt: “The names of individuals buried in a state cemetery are death records, the Nebraska Supreme Court said today, ruling that they must be released in accordance with the state’s open records law… . The court held that “HIPAA does not bar release of the information” and, in fact, “provides for release of information when required by state law.” As the records here were death records under Nebraska law, the court said, they must be released.” (link to full post)

(HIPAA = Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)

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KCLL Klues posted this Positive Law and other U.S. Code Mysteries a little while ago and it reminded me that some of my own readers are new to legal research and also curious about such things. What IS positive law anyway?

No, positive law isn’t law in your favor, but that’s not a bad guess. Nor is it law that says, “yup, it’s yours, all yours, and you can do what you want as long as you don’t scare the horses,” rather than those pesky “thou shalt NOT” laws. It’s also not the opposite of negative law!

(Just as “legal” isn’t really the opposite of “illegal” though we’ve come to accept it that way. It’s all legal on this legal research blog, and it’s all lawful too, but not all legal blogs behave lawfully.)

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Who are “the people” the U.S. Constitution keeps referring to? (Notice how no one has taken up the Wiki Answer challenge to this question.)

This is not an uncommon question in public libraries, law libraries, and in government documents libraries (even after the 2008 election).

It’s also one of those questions to which we all know the answer (or think we do), but that is rather difficult to answer to anyone’s satisfaction because there isn’t a single legal pronouncement that will satisfy everyone.

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Gallagher Blogs reports on the migration of federal information from GPO Access to FDsys:

“You might already be familiar with GPO Access, the website of the U.S. Government Printing Office, which provides free electronic access to the official documents of all three branches of the federal government. Documents available on GPO Access include the U.S. Code, congressional bills, legislative history documents, Supreme Court decisions, budgets, and reports.

On January 19, 2009, the GPO publicly launched its next-generation digital information system, FDsys, and started moving the documents on GPO Access to FDSys….” (link to full post)

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Law school libraries are excellent sources of legal research guides. You can find many of them with a quick Google search using your topic keyword and then simply adding the words “research guide.” Another useful search word is “pathfinder.”

This Guide to Free and Low-cost Legal Research is from Georgetown Law Library.

As you might imagine, law library associations are another source of excellent guides, and our D.C. law librarian colleagues are a wonderful source, as you might suspect, for federal law research guides. for example, see their recently updated:

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I frequently get calls from people looking for U.S. pocket constitutions and I happily refer them to our various sources, including this one, which is having a sale!

But it occurred to me that I should start a 100 Uses for Pocket U.S. Constitutions list. Here goes:

1) To hand out to law library patrons on Constitution Day.
2) To pass around to public-transit mates when we start talking about the 17th Amendment (election of Senators) and other heavy subjects. (And see also #7, below.)
3) Gifts on special occasions or for special people who appreciate such things
4) A book group “book” (research guides about the U.S. Constitution?)
5) A book-group prop when reading a history or political science book (I took a stack of them for everyone when we read Kafka Comes to America.)
6) Stocking stuffers (and this doesn’t just have to be for Christmas 🙂
7) Peace Out, Dawg offerings when riding public transit (it’s hard to get mad at someone who’s handing you a free pocket U.S. Constitution!)
8) Luggage stuffers. I always put one in my suitcase, on top, before I close the lid. It’s not prohibited, is it?
9) When a law library patrons asks, “can you sign away your Constitutional rights?”
10) As a handout when I teach a class to paralegals.
11) To hand out to the first 10 librarians who attend the inaugural business meeting of the recently formed Oregon Library Association (OLA) Legal Reference Round Table during the OLA Annual Meeting.
12) …

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