Oregon’s Legislative Counsel Committee had a meeting this morning to discuss the copyright claim on the Oregon Revised Statutes. After taking legal counsel from Dexter Johnson, talking with Karl Olson, Carl Malamud, three Oregon citizens and myself, they unanimously voted to not to enforce any copyright claims on the Oregon Revised Statutes.
From: Law, Technology, and […]

Randy Sievert did not commit a crime when he snapped a photo of an undercover Manatee County sheriff’s vehicle from the road, a state prosecutor said this week in a case that has drawn national attention.
Deputies confronted Sievert in February and ordered him to erase any photos he took standing at the scene of a […]

R.U. Sirius has setup a site for a new project: the Open Source Political Party. It appears to be a relaunching of his old Revolution Party idea, but more… serious.
The Revolution Party was a huge influence on me. I’ve always had a sort of mix of libertarian and progressive ideals, and the Revolution Party […]

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the wife of Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, will take her husband’s job Dec. 10, after beating her closest rival by a wide margin to become the country’s first elected female president.
Fernandez will be Argentina’s second female president; Isabel Peron, who married Juan Peron after Eva Peron’s death, was his vice-president when […]

The European Commission is developing legislation that will require minimum sustainability standards for biofuels development, European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said at the recent International Biofuels Conference in Brussels, Belgium, on July 5–6. As part of its ongoing energy strategy, the European Union (EU) has agreed on an action plan to have biofuels comprise at […]

A key portion of the Patriot Act is unconstitutional and violates Americans’ free speech rights, a federal judge said Thursday in a case that could represent a bitter setback for the Bush administration’s attempts to expand its surveillance powers.
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero said the section of the Patriot Act that permits the FBI to […]

Less than two hours after a judge struck down Iowa’s decade-old gay marriage ban, two Des Moines men applied for a marriage license as bride and groom, and county officials said they expected to see more same-sex couples doing the same on Friday.
[…]
Polk County Judge Robert Hanson cleared the way for the two men on […]

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, whose tenure has been marred by controversy and accusations of perjury before Congress, announced his resignation in Washington today, declaring that he had “lived the American dream” by being able to lead the Justice Department.
Mr. Gonzales, who had rebuffed calls for his resignation for months, submitted it to President Bush […]

For a change, there’s some good news from the world of the environment. Several rare and vulnerable birds are rebounding in Europe. Conservation efforts in Peru are reducing damage to the Amazon rain forest. And black-footed ferrets are making a comeback in Wyoming.
The three positive trends are reported Thursday in a series of papers in […]

A huge underground lake has been found in Sudan’s Darfur region, scientists say, which they believe could help end the conflict in the arid region.
Some 1,000 wells will be drilled in the region, with the agreement of Sudan’s government, the Boston University researchers say.
Full Story: BBC News.
(via Ethan Zuckerman).
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