Robert Brownstone has been my friend and colleague for many years. In fact, he was Chairman of @CalBarLPMT two years prior to me. We recently appeared on a panel together called, "Under Fire: Defending and Challenging a Motion against Technology-Assisted Review – A mock Meet and Confer (26f) hearing". He played the role of the Plaintiff's attorney and I the Defendant's. Robert was a late addition to my panel and I was delighted to present with him again!
Warm-hearted cop purchases boots for shoeless, homeless man in freezing weather…
Homeless man stores boots, appears back on the street shoeless, asks for his "piece of the pie" from all of the publicity…
Turns out, homeless man isn't really homeless…
The moral of this story? Speed kills.
This news is so important to me – and most likely, to you as well – that I actually dropped what I was working on so I could bring it to you asap! I wanted to make sure you’re aware of the implementation of these new ESI guidelines, which took effect yesterday. Here’s the press release, and here’s a direct link to the guidelines page which includes a checklist and model stipulated order.
Welcome back, all. I hope you had a nice holiday and are fully rested so that you may now spend the rest of the season…at the mall! We're getting close to the New Year and as is true each time we approach January 1st, we have a bunch of new laws taking effect. California employers and post-secondary institutions should take note of two of them; AB 1844 and SB 1349. Both were signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown back on September 27th, 2012.
Although the language in each bill is different, essentially, AB 1844 prevents employers (also potential employers) from demanding, using or exploiting an employee's (or potential applicant's) social media passwords and information.
SB 1349 is substantially similar, except that it applies to post-secondary institutions; both public and private.
There is speculation in the media about the necessity of these types of regulations. Many believe that a substantial risk of invasion of privacy doesn't exist. Maybe not; but moving forward, I believe the risk will increase exponentially.
What's next – bionic mannequins???
I'm going to be on a roundtable panel at the Thomson Reuters 'eDiscovery and Legal Technology in Practice' Conference 2012 in San Francisco. It's an all-day event, taking place on December 5th. It's a terrific agenda; here's the scoop on my specific panel:
12:00pm – 1:10pm
Under Fire: Defending and Challenging a Motion against Technology-Assisted Review – A mock Meet and Confer (26f) hearing.
Panelists:
Nicole Armenio – Kroll Ontrack Solution Architect
Perry Segal – eDiscovery Attorney and Management Consultant, Charon Law
Hon. Socrates Peter Manourkian – Judge of the Superior Court, County of Santa Clara
It's entirely possible that by 1:00pm, the attendees will all be thinking about lunch…
I’m sure you all know by now that I don’t venture into scandals, per se, on this blog; except when they involve our area of examination: Technology, privacy, evidence and eDiscovery.
That said, I’ve certainly been following the messy Patreaus developments, becoming more and more interested in the Gmail connection to all of it. None of the initial stories answered my question; if a woman was allegedly being harassed by Paula Broadwell, why did they need to monitor her (Broadwell’s) Gmail account, since the victim would be the recipient of all of the emails, and have them in her possession? It suggested to me – and probably to some of you – that the harassing emails were probably being sent anonymously and had to be traced back to the source to specifically identify who was behind them (Broadwell).
This morning, we received confirmation. Naturally, the situation is going from bad to worse faster than you can say, “October surprise”, but for our purposes, the interesting link is the metadata (specifically rich location-data) gleaned from the victim’s inbox, which provided the trail back to Broadwell by linking her physical whereabouts to the devices that were the sources of the emails; which ultimately led back to Petraeus through clandestine emails in Broadwell’s – not his – inbox.
Got all that? Good. And what are the things that bother me (I refuse to utter the oft-annoying “raises questions”)?
Considering both Petraeus and Broadwell apparently set up anonymous Gmail accounts specifically to facilitate carrying on their affair, it once again calls into question the very knowledge, training – and self-awareness – of those who we charge to protect this country and its secrets.
Simply put, if even Petraeus doesn’t get it, who the he** does???
Listen to Perry Segal’s interview on Cloud Privacy & Attorney Ethics on KUCI 88.9 FM
I guess the headline says it all, except I'd like to add that the interview will also be available as a podcast via iTunes. I will also post an MP3 here Monday.
Here's a few of the additional details:
Privacy Piracy (88.9FM and www.kuci.org), a half-hour public affairs show with no
commercials broadcasts from the University of California, Irvine campus on
Mondays from 8:00 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. Pacific Time. To learn more
about the show and listen to archived interviews, please visit www.kuci.org/privacypiracy.
In the upcoming Calbar book, The California Guide to Growing & Managing a Law Office, I do a side-by-side comparison between the benefits and detriments of BYOD. I'm sure the same sort of comparison takes place in meetings at all kinds of companies. There's no doubt that on paper, many aspects of BYOD might yield productivity gains and other benefits for the enterprise.
[Note: In the book, I lay out information in the format of pros and cons because the goal is to inform a reader of the positives and pitfalls so they can make an informed decision.]
So, what's my opinion? If I was the consultant, in most cases, I'd likely fall into the 'against' column. Why? I'll get to that in a moment.
For those of you who don't know my background, at one time or another, I pretty much did every job on the operations side of IT before I ever became a lawyer. This allows me to look at facts through a wide-angle lens. The way my mind works, I literally imagine an issue as a 3-D photograph. Let's apply that to BYOD:
We start by playing 'swap' for a moment. Imagine coming into work one morning and all of the desktops are different brands and chipsets; some of them are Windows, but a mix of XP, Vista and Seven, others are Macs with various versions of the O/S and still others are Linux boxes. Now, you may actually see that in some concerns, for good reason. But I'm talking about literally a different box on each desk in the office.
That would be kind of hard to manage, wouldn't it?
Maybe it wouldn't seem like it to you, but again, I'm thinking very broadly. We're not just dealing with realities, we're dealing with expectations. What do I mean by that?
When I read most of the articles that address BYOD, they speak in terms of locking down various functions on a device, such as email, via Exchange, for example. But that''s not how I'm thinking; and it won't be how the employees/consultants will be thinking, either.
Nope. If it's a device supporting their job, they expect everyone up the chain to be able to support the entire device – not just components of it. And, the enterprise should expect this as well, since a non-functioning device will ultimately affect productivity.
It means that your help-desk, field service technicians, level II (and level III) support will have to be proficient with every make and model of Windows Phone, Blackberry, iPhone and – if you'll pardon the pun – every flavor of Android. Oh, and did anyone give any thought as to how you're going to back them up in such a manner that the company owns/controls the data?
That's what it means, Jelly Bean.
So, if you're considering BYOD, I hope the decision-makers are taking this into account and formulating policy. Never mind that I didn't get into the fact that, if litigation arises, staff may have to turn over their personal devices for imaging or examination. I also didn't get into how growth highly affects BYOD. We all know the person who runs out and purchases the brand-new, untested, unpatched version of X the moment it's on the market. Apple Maps, anyone?
I hope you bought the 1000-count bottle…
Technology is great, isn’t it? Where has this been more true than with airline apps? Now, we have real-time access to everything that’s happening with flights – and I mean everything.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that anyone told the agents at United Airlines…
So while the agent was on the phone, telling me my flight departed on time and had left me at the airport, I was able to tell him that my flight was delayed and sitting on the tarmac. When the agent promised that my connector wouldn’t leave without me, I could see that it had already departed – six minutes early, no less.
Don’t even ask me about the poor woman nearby, who was able to see available flights on her tablet at the same moment the agent was telling her the flights didn’t exist. I can’t repeat the words she used on a family blog (“FRAUD!!!”).
This is like that satisfying moment in Annie Hall, when Woody Allen pulls Marshall McLuhan out of thin air. Well, mildly satisfying; I caught the big fib, but it didn’t get me on another flight – until the next morning, anyway.
Bottom line: It’s difficult for a 6’4″ individual to sleep at an airport…in dress pants (no, I didn’t pack my jammies); maybe United could concentrate on that, first…