In an encouraging sign that courts are taking health and safety seriously in the neighborhood context, the D.C. Superior Court has issued an injunction against a man whose smoking fills his neighbors’ home with smoke, which has woken them up at night coughing and subjects their 18-month-old daughter to secondhand smoke, according to the nuisance […]
Author Archives: Scott Michelman
This multi-part series is well worth a read. Here's a flavor from the summary: Debt collection horror stories are nothing new. But there's a whole other side to the industry that no one’s talking about: collectors hired by government agencies to hunt down debtors…. [G]overnment debt collectors are rarely held to the same consumer protection […]
…is the lesson of this informative interview from NPR's Fresh Air, which explains why it's risky to transport oil long distances in rail cars designed in the 1960s for non-flammable products. Forty-seven people were killed when flaming oil from a 2013 derailment in Canada engulfed an entire restaurant. Terrifying. You can listen to the story […]
The D.C. Court of Appeals has ruled that under District law, a decision enforcing an arbitration clause is immediately appealable. This ruling, based on a D.C. arbitration reform law from 2007, corrects a pro-arbitration imbalance that had previously existed in the District and continues to exist in most jurisdictions: the denial of a motion to […]
Today a broad group of educational, legal, human rights, and media organizations sued the NSA over what it calls "Upstream surveillance," under which, the complaint alleges, the NSA vacuums up for review all data that travels across the internet, regardless of whether that data comes from or to a specific NSA target. Key allegations from […]
Last Friday, the administration released a "discussion draft" of potential legislation to protect consumer privacy. CDT provides a helpful roadmap to the draft here. Today a coalition of consumer privacy groups (including CDT) responded with a letter asking the administration to strengthen provisions of the bill in areas such as the definition of sensitive information, […]
Read this article from Wired.com about automakers’ lack of attention to the security of their cars’ systems, and the investigation of Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts into the problem.
Sen. Warren's op-ed in the Post this week is a must-read, and a must-share: it explains how our country's consumer, worker, and environmental protection laws could be undermined by a dispute-resolution clause in the TPP, currently being negotiated. More generally, the danger Sen. Warren describes is a potent illustration of how trade deals that may […]
NPR reports: The Federal Communications Commission approved the policy known as net neutrality by a 3-2 vote at its Thursday meeting, with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler saying the policy will ensure "that no one — whether government or corporate — should control free open access to the Internet." The policy helps to decide an essential […]
We've discussed before the fight between federal regulators and airbag manufacturer Takata over whether the company would issue a nationwide recall on defective airbags. The confrontation is escalating. As the New York Times reported Friday: federal regulators said on Friday that they would begin to fine the Japanese auto supplier $14,000 a day, saying it […]