** This diary was originally published yesterday but quickly ran down the list into obscurity. I feel that it is deserving of a second glance due to its subject matter and how this will bring much needed experience/knowledge to the SCOTUS **
While many within in the punditry class, bloggers, and media figure-heads are grappling over Sonya Sotomayor's words about the Court Of Appeals, whom she quotes in her yearbook, and even her racial background, most people are ignoring the very real fact that Sotomayor brings something of great value with her. It's experience that no other Supreme Court Justice has.
She has a history of precedent-setting rulings on cyberlaw issues.
More below the flip:
From Wired online:
In 2002, Sotomayor wrote a decision nullifying Netscape’s online click-wrap agreement, which demanded binding arbitration of disputes between Netscape and its customers. The "free download" button for Netscape’s browser software was high on the web page, with the user-agreement well below
The pdf of her decision can be seen here.
She has also been part of a unanimous ruling in regards to the "Patriot Act" where the FBI can tell your telecommunication provider that they have to give over information about you and not disclose this fact to you.
In other words, the FBI's ability to retrieve informatino on you without your concent is greatly reduced.
That phrasing dramatically limited the parameters of when a gag order was automatically required. Until the court’s ruling Monday, the previous standard for secrecy was required for any criminal investigation or "interference with diplomatic relations, or danger to the life or physical safety of any person."
The ACLU sought to limit the rule and allow NSL targets the ability to challenge the NSLs. It also maintains the secrecy rule violates the First Amendment rights of the telecommunication companies.
Thomas O'Toole @ the TechLaw Blog had this to offer.
About Judge Sotomayor I will venture this: If confirmed, she will be the first justice who has written cyberlaw-related opinions before joining the court. I looked just now and couldn't find where Chief Justice Roberts or Associate Justice Alito had written a cyberlaw opinion while serving as appellate judges. (Then-Judge Alito missed both ACLU v. Reno and Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc. v. United States, a pair of new media cases that were decided initially by special three-judge panels in the Third Circuit.)
Sotomayor has also background in digital copyright and warrantless searches of computers.
With recent cases involving how copyrigghted information is shared, talks about how newspapers will charge for online content, and the ever contentious debate on Net Neutrality, it will be of great benefit to have an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court that has a working knowledge of cyberlaw.
Please recommend.
AMENDMENT #1
According to "talking-points" currently in use by the conservative Right, Sotomayor's decisions are showing to be reversed at an exponentially high rate. This, however, is completely false.
Sotomayor's reported 60 percent reversal rate is lower than the overall Supreme Court reversal rate for all lower court decisions from the 2004 term through the present -- both overall and for each individual Supreme Court term. Using SCOTUSblog's data.
Sotomayor's reversal rating is a noticable 15.3% lower than the average SCOTUS reversal percentage of 75.3%.
AMENDMENT #2
The noise being perpetuated over Sotomayor's severely cropped quote regarding her viewpoint as a Latina woman.
This has been a key component of Sean Hannity's program ever since she was chosen by Obama. But, he was faced with the very real fact that Clarence Thomas, who was appointed by George H. W. Bush, made simular comments on his own race:
You may ask, why are these later two components of the diary relevant to her knowledge of cyber-law.
The reason is that the media at large and the conservative movement are so wrapped up in the hyperbole of the moment surrounding Sotomayor and most of them can't see how her judicial experience is much needed within the SCOTUS at this point in our history.