Phone records

A federal court last week rejected a copyright infringement lawsuit against Bloomberg L.P. for its unauthorized publication of a conference call between a corporation's senior executives and a group of securities analysts, finding that the business and financial news publisher was protected from liability by the fair use doctrine.

New Jersey officials who use taxpayer funded cell phones cannot keep information on the destination of outgoing calls secret, a state appellate court ruled earlier this week.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled yesterday that phone log records related to calls the governor makes on his private cell phone, including calls related to government business and made during work hours, are not subject to disclosure under the state's public records laws.

Valerie E. Caproni, general counsel and top attorney for the FBI, has told the Washington Times that using “exigent letters” to obtain the phone records of Washington Post and New York Times reporters was a mistake, and not malevolent.

Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the ranking officials on the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Monday promised Congressional hearings to seek more information about the FBI’s improper efforts to access reporters’ phone records.

Hewlett-Packard Co. has agreed to a financial settlement with The New York Times and reporters from BusinessWeek magazine that stems from a 2006 scandal in which the company used a surveillance scheme to obtain the phone records of journalists.

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) paid over $64,000 in damages to Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) in the first installment of what the GOP congressman said amounted to nearly $850,000 in legal fees.

In December, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a federal appeals court ruling, which held that McDermott, who lawfully obtained an illegally recorded audiotape and gave it to the press, violated state and federal wiretapping laws.

Although the police search warrant application for a reporter's cell phone records remains under seal, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports that the newly disclosed warrant application for a sheriff's deputy's records in the same incident sought records for a two-month period.

It's one of those twists you just cannot make up. But after denying access to a seven-year-old police report because of "privacy concerns", police officials in St. Paul, Minn., were angry to learn that the report had been obtained anyway, and so subpoenaed the private cell phone records of a reporter and one of its own employees. Police concerns over privacy seem to be somewhat selective, to say the least.