Tag: government

November 15, 2021

The saga of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) newly announced COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) continues. As you know, the ETS requires employers with 100 or more employees to mandate vaccines or weekly testing (with limited exceptions). OSHA […]

July 30, 2021

Section 7702 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Tax Code defines what the federal government considers to be a legitimate life insurance contract and is used to determine how the proceeds are taxed. The proceeds of policies that do […]

December 2, 2020

A redacted memorandum opinion from the US District Court for the District of Columbia unsealed Monday revealed that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) is investigating a potential bribery scheme for a presidential pardon. On November 25, the government submitted […]

May 1, 2020

US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito ordered the Pennsylvania government to respond to arguments that Governor Tom Wolf’s stay-at-home order is unconstitutional. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court gave Pennsylvania until May 4 to respond to a petition that accuses the […]

March 18, 2020

The Chinese government imposed restrictive measures against five major US media outlets Wednesday. The impacted organizations include the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, TIME and Voice of America. The announcement comes weeks after the US […]

January 15, 2020

The Solicitor General filed an emergency application Tuesday with the US Supreme Court to stay injunctions and allow implementation of the new “public charge” rule. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rule concerns an interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality […]

December 4, 2019

Three law professors told the House Judiciary Committee in opening statements Wednesday that President Donald Trump has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” meriting his impeachment. One of the three professors said Trump’s actions amounted to an attack on constitutional safeguards […]

July 11, 2019

The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Wednesday reversed and remanded a district court’s decision that had previously instructed discovery for potential Emoluments Clause violations. The attorneys general for Washington, DC, and Maryland had filed a lawsuit […]

February 12, 2019

A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday refused to dismiss a suit brought by three public interest groups challenging President Donald Trump’s Executive Order and related guidance, that directed, for every new regulation, […]

January 14, 2019

Law firms handling antitrust, capital markets and white-collar defense work are feeling the effects of the partial government shutdown, which has recently become the longest shutdown in U.S. history. If the shutdown goes on long enough, some law firms could […]

September 26, 2018

Maine’s Public Utilities Company (MPUC) is attempting to limit solar credit offered to people using solar panels on their homes to reduce their energy bills. Solar Advocates claim this is unfair. Perhaps. But is it illegal? Lawsuit Remanded From Maine […]

August 21, 2018

Social Security benefits may be affected by a variety of factors, but your earned income is one of the most important. Your benefits in retirement are largely dependent on the wages you received while working, since the Social Security taxes […]

June 14, 2018

What is the ‘Benefits Received Rule’ The Benefits Received Rule actually has two related definitions, one as a tax theory and one as a tax provision. The two definitions are: 1. The Benefits Received Principle, which is a theory of […]

March 16, 2017

The evidence keeps mounting that the privacy of our mobile devices and our communications are under siege — if not outright moribund. This series of onslaughts is coming fromhackers, data mining companies, and especially, it seems, from our own government. The […]

December 7, 2016

The government’s use of warrantless searches and secret requests for information is exploding, and recent court actions have greatly expanded the reach of legal searches. The digital age is presenting challenges to our Fourth and Fifth Amendment constitutional rights in […]

September 12, 2016

The American people have the right to be free from unreasonable searches. It’s a constitutional right that stems from the Fourth Amendment that is meant to protect the people from the government. Microsoft has been fighting since April to stop […]

July 21, 2016

Government requests worldwide for user data related to search engine traffic on Google increased 29 percent from 2014 to 2015, according to the search site’s most recent Transparency Report, which was published today. Google reports on the government requests every […]

July 15, 2016

A U.S. appeals court has quashed a search warrant that would have required Microsoft to disclose contents of emails stored on a server in Ireland, in a case that has broad ramifications for privacy, diplomatic relations and the ability of […]

May 11, 2016

Congress should limit the ability of the FBI and other agencies to search for information about U.S. residents in a database of foreign terrorism communications collected by the National Security Agency, privacy advocates say. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) […]

April 14, 2016

The first proposed federal encryption legislation has been released, and had it been established law earlier this year Apple would have had to provide the help the FBI asked for in accessing encrypted data on the iPhone used by a […]