Hoax bomb threats linked to Russia target polling places in battleground states, FBI says; Reuters, November 5, 2024

Tim Reid and Sarah N. Lynch, Reuters; Hoax bomb threats linked to Russia target polling places in battleground states, FBI says

"Hoax bomb threats, many of which appeared to originate from Russian email domains, were directed on Tuesday at polling locations in four battleground states - Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin - as Election Day voting was underway, the FBI said.

"None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far," the FBI said in a statement, adding that election integrity was among the bureau's highest priorities...

The two locations, in Fulton County, both re-opened after about 30 minutes, officials said, and the county was seeking a court order to extend the locations' voting hours past the statewide 7 p.m. deadline.

Georgia's secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, blamed Russian interference for the Election Day bomb hoaxes."

'Targeted disinformation' warning: Beware of social media posts, Georgia Secretary of State says; Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB), November 1, 2024

• GPB News Staff, Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB); 'Targeted disinformation' warning: Beware of social media posts, Georgia Secretary of State say

"Halloween night, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger released a warning to voters: Social media posts may include disinformation from foreign sources.

This came after he announced that Georgia exceeded 50% statewide turnout among active voters, with 3,653,333 Georgians having cast ballots, 3,426,851 of those voting early as of Thursday.

“Earlier today, our office became aware of a video purporting to show a Haitian immigrant with multiple Georgia ID’s claiming to have voted multiple times," he wrote.

"This is false and is an example of targeted disinformation we’ve seen in this and other elections. It is likely foreign interference attempting to sow discord and chaos on the eve of the 2024 Presidential election," he said.

The viral video alleging voting fraud in Georgia, claiming a Haitian immigrant has voted multiple times in the sate, had spread widely across social media sites, including X, by Thursday evening.

"This is obviously fake and part of a disinformation effort," Raffensperger wrote. He made the assumption that the post could be the product of "Russian troll farms.""

Supreme Court Copyright Ruling Could Shake Up Legal Publishing; Publishers weekly, April 27, 2020

Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly; Supreme Court Copyright Ruling Could Shake Up Legal Publishing

In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court this week held that legislators "cannot be the authors of—and therefore cannot copyright—the works they create in the course of their official duties."

"In upholding the appeals court reversal, the Supreme Court held that the annotations amended to the state of Georgia’s legal code were “ineligible for copyright protection” under the “government edicts doctrine,” a legal regime developed from a trio of 19th-century Supreme Court decisions.

“The animating principle behind the government edicts doctrine is that no one can own the law,” Roberts wrote. “Over a century ago, we recognized a limitation on copyright protection for certain government work product, rooted in the Copyright Act’s ‘authorship’ requirement. Under what has been dubbed the government edicts doctrine, officials empowered to speak with the force of law cannot be the authors of—and therefore cannot copyright—the works they create in the course of their official duties.”"

Georgia Can’t Copyright Its Entire State Code, the Supreme Court Rules; The New York Times, April 27, 2020

Adam Liptak, The New York Times; Georgia Can’t Copyright Its Entire State Code, the Supreme Court Rules

In a 5-to-4 ruling with unusual alliances, the court said that annotations cannot be copyrighted if they are the official work of state lawmakers.

"Georgia may not copyright its entire official code, which includes both the state’s laws and annotations interpreting them, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday. The 5-to-4 decision featured unusual alliances and would most likely be widely felt, as about 20 other states have claimed that parts of similar annotated codes are copyrighted."

Who owns the law in Georgia?; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 29, 2019

Bill Rankin, Atlanta Journal Constitution; Who owns the law in Georgia?

"“If the (appeals court’s) decision is affirmed, publishers will no longer be able to rely on sales of copyrighted works to recoup their costs for preparing annotations,” said Johnson, also a Washington attorney. “Therefore, states will either need to use taxpayer dollars to pay the publishers or stop offering annotated versions of their official codes.”

Thirteen states and the District of Columbia offered similar sentiments in a legal brief filed with the high court...

Malamud’s case has received support in friend-of-the-court briefs filed by a wide variety of groups, including the American Library Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Intellectual Property Association and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which was joined by Gannett Co., the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.

“If the First Amendment requires public access to criminal trials so that citizens may oversee and participate in government, then citizens must also have access to the laws that organize their society (and that form the basis of those criminal trials),” the media organizations said.""

Should You Be Allowed to Copyright a Law? We're Going to Find Out; Gizmodo, December 4, 2019

Whitney Kimball, Gizmodo; Should You Be Allowed to Copyright a Law? We're Going to Find Out

"Copyright law, boring on its face, has posed various unprecedented threats to intellectual freedoms in recent internet history. It threatens to kill our links, kill our news, kill our memes, kill our precious videos of babies dancing to Prince. And yesterday, the Supreme Court considered the momentously stupid question: should you be able to paywall a law?"

Ex-Schools Chief in Atlanta Is Indicted in Testing Scandal; New York Times, 3/29/13

Michael Winerip, New York Times; Ex-Schools Chief in Atlanta Is Indicted in Testing Scandal: "It is not just an Atlanta problem. Cheating has grown at school districts around the country as standardized testing has become a primary means of evaluating teachers, principals and schools. In El Paso, a superintendent went to prison recently after removing low-performing children from classes to improve the district’s test scores. In Ohio, state officials are investigating whether several urban districts intentionally listed low-performing students as having withdrawn even though they were still in school. But no state has come close to Georgia in appropriating the resources needed to root it out."