A Blog About Current Issues in White Collar Defense

As a matter of course, federal prosecutors often pile on charges in order to strong-arm defendants into entering a favorable guilty plea quickly. Those who exercise their jury trial right and put the government to its proof often receive harsh sentences based on these overreaching indictments. But last week, a federal judge in Oklahoma took… Read More

If you’ve ever let your kids sign into your Netflix or HBO Go account, or given your marketing department access to your Twitter feed, you may be committing a federal crime, depending on how the Ninth Circuit rules on a case argued before it just last month. The case, United States v. Nosal, is the… Read More

Beating their chests and breathing fire to rouse the polity, the Department of Justice recently came out with an announcement as earth shattering as the sun rising. The DOJ proclaimed it has adopted new policies to prioritize the prosecution of individuals for white-collar crime. Deputy Attorney General, Sally Q. Yates, was quoted in the New… Read More

A Canadian federal court recently released an opinion holding that meta tags, at least in some circumstances, are not entitled to copyright protection.  Although the precedent is not binding in American courts, the well-reasoned opinion provides an excellent logical analysis on why meta tags may or may not be afforded copyright protection. In Red Label… Read More

    The government has voluntarily dismissed its case against Jae Shik Kim, the South Korean businessman for whom Ifrah Law obtained a motion to suppress in federal court.  In 2012, Mr. Kim was stopped by federal agents as he tried to board a plane to South Korea from LAX.  The government seized his laptop… Read More

In an ironic twist, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed a 47-count indictment this morning charging nine present and former officials of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (better known by its acronym, FIFA) and five sports marketing executives with fraud, racketeering, bribery and money laundering. The guilty pleas of four individuals and two entities relating… Read More

Last July, we reported on United States v. Davis, an Eleventh Circuit decision in favor of privacy rights. In that case, a three-judge panel held that cell phone users have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their cell phone location data. If the government wants to collect the data, it must first obtain a probable-cause… Read More

Photo: “LAX-International-checkin” by TimBray at en.wikipedia.   Developments in law are sluggish compared to the rapid rate of technological advancement, and courts must constantly apply old legal principles to technologies which were not contemplated at the time the laws were enacted.   Recently, technology has been at the forefront of privacy rights debates, in light of… Read More

A recent decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Court serves as a good reminder that criminal statutes say only what they say, and that it is up to the legislature to revise statutes to expand their scope if the legislature cares to do so. The opinion, United States v. Kaluza,… Read More