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RAIN 12/15: Hoarding
Editor & Publisher Online 12/11/00
Supreme Court to decide significant free speech case
http://www.mediainfo.com/ephome/news/newshtm/stories/121100n1.htm
by Todd Shields
WASHINGTON - Journalists often publish confidential government memos and
corporation documents with little concern for how their sources obtained the
papers. But they may have to start worrying, depending on how the U.S.
Supreme Court decides a free-speech case it heard last Tuesday.
In a contest between the First Amendment right to publish and the right to
privacy, Pennsylvania union negotiators asked the high court to allow damages
against radio stations that aired a recording of their cellular telephone
conversation. Justices gave little indication how they might rule. A decision
for the union officials could leave journalists - print as well as broadcast
- subject to a chilling effect as they consider whether they might face
lawsuits for publishing confidential material.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette 12/14/00
Group sues state police on gun files
http://www.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20001214sportsmanreg5.asp
Jan Ackerman
An ongoing dispute over whether Pennsylvania State Police can keep
information on file about gun owners has landed in the courts.
Yesterday, the Allegheny Sportsmen's League filed a lawsuit in Commonwealth
Court in Harrisburg contending that state police are violating state law by
not destroying applications and records that individuals must produce to buy
handguns in Pennsylvania.
The lawsuit contends that state police have retained handgun sales database
records for nearly 70 years, even though recent amendments to the state
Uniform Firearms Act require the information to be destroyed because it
constitutes a "handgun registry."
Washington Post 12/14/00
Uproar over access to Md. Court records
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4389-2000Dec14.html>
by Manuel Roig-Franzia
Private detectives, media attorneys and credit agency owners crammed into an
Annapolis conference room yesterday to protest proposed limits on public
access to court records.
Dozens in the standing-room-only crowd of more than 150 wore green stickers
emblazoned with the slogan "Keep Access Open" as they waited in long, winding
lines to address a committee that drafted the proposed records policy.
Fosters' Online 12/14/00
Parent wins Internet suit as judge rules sanctions against SAU 16
http://www.fosters.com/news2000/dec_00/14/ex1214c.htm
by Terry Date
BRENTWOOD - A Superior Court judge said she would sanction School
Administrative Unit 16 after an attorney repeatedly claimed his client and
the court had been misled by the school administration in acts of "bad faith."
In further action at a Wednesday hearing, Rockingham County Superior Court
Judge Gillian Abramson denied the school administration's request that she
reconsider her previous order requiring Exeter schools to pay the legal fees
of Exeter parent Jim Knight.
Montreal Gazette 12/14/00
Privacy goes public in a digital age
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/pages/001214/5012451.html
by Mike Boone
IIain Cook picked up his phone and stepped into a Digital Twilight Zone.
Cook, a 35-year-old Montrealer who teaches audio production in Concordia's
communications program, got the call on a Friday night in late November. A
friend had just been at Bureau en Gros on Notre Dame St., checking out those
hand-held computers that have replaced electronic organizers as favoured toys
of gadget-lovers.
Techies like Cook call them PDAs, Personal Digital Assistants. Palm Pilot is
the most familiar brand name but competitors are getting into the act,
including Visor, which is what Cook's friend had been fooling around with at
the display counter.
"He was checking out the new models," Cook said, "and recognized the names of
some of our mutual friends in the phone number list. Then he found himself
reading my day planner."
Sarasota Herald Tribune 12/14/00
Fla. Newspaper files requests to examine every undervote
http://www.newscoast.com/headlinesstory2.cfm?ID=36932
by Chad Binette
The presidential race has been decided, but Florida elections employees could
spend many more days holding up ballots and staring at chads.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday halted a recount of so-called undervotes,
the ballots for which previous counts registered no votes for president. But
several special-interest groups, newspapers and individuals may count those
ballots.
"(The state is) going to pass new legislation about how you handle manual
recounts, and we're going to look at different standards for assessing
ballots," said Mark Seibel, assistant managing editor of The Miami Herald,
which is filing requests to examine every Florida undervote.
Reno Gazette-Journal 12/14/00
Businessman wins legal fees in fight over public records
http://www.rgj.com/news2/stories/news/976854785.html
by Susan Voyles
Reindeer Lodge owner Gary Schmidt has won a case in Washoe District Court,
requiring the county to pay his legal bills after he filed a lawsuit to
obtain public records.
In the case decided last week by Judge Connie Steinheimer, Schmidt had sought
public records for months from the county water resource department.
Those records were related to a lawsuit he filed in December 1999 over a
county zoning decision made two months earlier involving property near his
lodge on Mount Rose Highway.
The judge agreed certain documents were not turned over to Schmidt until
right before or after he filed the lawsuit to get them in February.
Baltimore Sun 12/14/00
Groups argue for access to records
Businesses, media fight plan to block computer court files
<<http://www.sunspot.net/content/news/story?section=news-maryland-sun&pagename
=story&storyid=1150520211380>>
<<http://www.sunspot.net/content/news/story?section=news-maryland-sun&pagename
=story&storyid=1150520211380>>
by Eric Siegel
Representatives of the media, businesses and private investigators sharply
criticized last night a proposal by the Maryland judiciary to limit access to
computerized criminal court records, saying it would hinder important
background checks of public officials and prospective employees.
Speaking at a public hearing in Annapolis that highlighted the issue of
public access and privacy being faced by courts across the country, James
Donahue, executive director of the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association,
said his organization of 162 newspapers had "strong and unambiguous
opposition" to the proposal.
Electronic Telegraph 12/14/00
Fayed 'never saw stolen papers'
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=VDVMk8JK&atmo=VDVMk8JK&
pg=/et/00/12/14/nfay14.html>
by Philip Johnston
MOHAMED FAYED yesterday flatly denied receiving stolen documents during his
cash for questions libel battle with Neil Hamilton last year.
The suggestion that he paid £10,000 for confidential legal material was a
lie, he told the Court of Appeal . It is alleged that a man known as Benjie
the Binman, who forages in celebrities' rubbish for anything that might be of
interest to newspapers, targeted the London chambers of Mr Hamilton's
barrister, and took papers and notes that should have been shredded.
(The following article, although not directly records/archives related may
help explain why people are reluctant to destroy records when required. The
second url below will take you to another story that lists all the stories in
the series on hoarding. Thanks Jeff for the tip.)
Washington Post 12/12/00
Hoarding defined: Compulsive acquisition plus failure to discard equals chaos
and dysfunction
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/health/specials/pastcovers/A55545-2000Dec
11.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55208-2000Dec11.html
by Sandra G. Boodman
Worried that your stash of 40-year-old National Geographics and those
teetering towers of books mean you're a hoarder with a problem, not the avid
collector you've always considered yourself to be? What about your mother,
her basement crammed with 30-year-old statements from long-defunct banks,
clothing that hasn't been worn since the Eisenhower administration and the
world's largest collection of metal TV dinner trays, all of which she's
saving "just in case."
Star-Tribune 12/14/00
Realtor arrested on federal fraud charges
http://www2.startribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisStory=83137506
by Neal Gendler
A Minneapolis-area real-estate agent was arrested Wednesday morning on
federal charges of falsifying employment information and documents so buyers
could obtain government-insured mortgages.
Larry D. Maxwell, 45, had been named Tuesday in a sealed indictment accusing
him of one count of conspiracy, five counts of aiding and abetting the making
of a false statement, and 12 counts of creating false documents to help
clients appear to qualify for loans insured by the Federal Housing
Administration (FHA).
Fox News 12/14/00
Judge orders Northrop Grumman lawyers to testify in e-mail case
http://www.foxnews.com/elections/121400/whemails.sml
by Greg Toppo
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A federal judge has ordered lawyers for a White House computer
contractor to testify about allegations that Clinton administration officials
threatened and intimidated computer technicians repairing a defective White
House e-mail system.
Northrop Grumman Corp. lawyers claimed that attorney-client privilege
shielded its attorneys from testifying about the case.
The conservative group Judicial Watch alleged in a lawsuit that White House
lawyers and top presidential aides learned 2 1/2 years ago about an e-mail
problem and threatened Northrop Grumman computer employees with jail time and
loss of their jobs if they spoke to anyone about the problem.
Miami Herald 12/14/00
Computer seized, returned in election probe
http://www.herald.com/content/today/news/dade/north/digdocs/077536.htm
by D.Aileen Dodd
Angry residents of El Portal complained to the Miami-Dade state attorney's
office that their acting police chief seized the village clerk's computer
before Tuesday's commission election without a warrant.
Police investigators claim the computer was improperly
used by a police officer editing campaign material on the job. The seizure,
they say, was within their rights.
While police are free to exercise their political rights outside work,
according to the standard operating procedures for the Village Police
Department, officers cannot get involved with political activities while on
duty or in uniform.
Jerusalem Post
In search of the real Ba'al Shem Tov
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2000/12/14/Features/Features.17392.html
by Tovah Lazaroff
An academic stumbles across a fiscal 'Pandora's box,' writes Tovah Lazaroff,
and factual information is revealed about that mystical master of legend, the
Ba'al Shem Tov Moshe Rosman wasn't seeking Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, "the
Ba'al Shem Tov," but the mythical giant, known as the founder of Hassidism,
found Rosman.
Actually, it was the rebbe's tax records which Rosman stumbled across as he
was doing research in Cracow's archival library in 1979. These records,
rather than a mystical experience, led Rosman to a vision of the Ba'al Shem
Tov that adds a new dimension to the way he has been portrayed for the last
240 years.
Columbia Daily Tribune 12/14/00
Decision on records goes against university
http://www.showmenews.com/News/20001214News007.asp
by Josh Flory
A newspaper seeking access to audit records from the University of Missouri
earned a first-round victory last week.
The Kansas City Star sued the university in 1998 after UM officials denied it
access to internal audit records. The Star charged that UM violated the
state's Open Meetings and Records Law.
Last week, circuit judge Frank Conley ruled in favor of the Star on at least
one portion of the case, granting a motion of partial summary judgment and
confirming the audit records are public under the Sunshine Law.
The university had argued that the Board of Curators is the institution's
only public governmental body and that the audit reports are not public
because curators don't get copies of them.
CNN.com 12/14/00
CIA copying machine misidentifies German as spy
http://www.mycnn.com/jbcl/cnews/Go?template=otmDet&hd=0&id=EYEON7&art_id=63452
37&uid=976849113030
Reuters
BERLIN, Dec 14 (Reuters) - A simple clerical error at the CIA seems to have
sparked a spy scandal in Germany, prompting a top politician to be wrongly
suspected of treason on behalf of the Communist East German regime, officials
said on Thursday.
Former West German opposition leader Bjoern Engholm had been named in German
media recently as an agent codenamed "Beethoven," who was shown in files
seized from the East German secret police, the Stasi, to have passed secrets
in the 1970s.
Manchester Union-Leader 12/14/00
Judge slams Exeter schools for purging Internet files
http://www2.theunionleader.com/articles/articles_show.html?article=10862
by Peg Warner
BRENTWOOD - A Rockingham County Superior Court judge yesterday dealt a
stinging blow to a school district, ordering sanctions against the district
for purging Internet history files from school computers after an Exeter man
sought to inspect them.
It could take several days for Judge Gilliam Abramson, who last month ordered
the records made public, to issue a written order detailing the sanctions
against Supervisory Administrative Union 16. But ruling from the bench at the
end of a hearing yesterday - which also brought the surprise disclosure of
the existence of a disc containing some of the files that had been presumed
lost for good - she said she saw "ample evidence" to warrant sanctions.
Peter A. Kurilecz CRM, CA
Richmond, Va
pakurilecz@aol.com
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