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This morning, President Barack Obama, in a long-awaited speech, addressed the topic that won’t (and shouldn’t) go away: NSA surveillance. Many were expecting the President to announce a package of significant reforms, such as ending or heavily reining in the bulk metadata collection program, and adding a privacy advocate to the one-sided secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court proceedings. Instead, President Obama delivered a speech large on rhetoric and short on substance....

The Senate Commerce Committee has steadily moved forward to passing legislation related to online gag clauses, which significantly limit or penalize customers who leave negative online reviews of companies. Yesterday morning, senators held a hearing on the Consumer Review Freedom Act, which would make the inclusion of a non-disparagement clause in a consumer contract a violation of the FTC. Some businesses have recently gotten into the habit of including “gag clauses” in their contracts....

At one time, customer loyalty punch-cards likely took up a significant portion of your wallet or purse. You had your favorite sub sandwich shop’s card, your favorite café’s card, and even your McDonald’s coffee punch card. However, today, paper punch cards are rarely used as most businesses’ loyalty punch cards have gone the digital route. Regardless, customer loyalty programs are still incredibly effective at increasing business, particularly in the retail, airline, food, and service industries....

If the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing taught lawyers anything, it is how hard it is to judge the credibility of witnesses. For witnesses Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, a prosecutor was appointed to do the questioning. Rachel Mitchell, who leads a special-victims division in Arizona, took the counsel chair. She gave it her best, but in the end didn’t seem to move the needle. Perhaps it’s because the jury prejudged the witnesses, and that may be the hardest lesson for any lawyer....

There’s good news for Google, as the Federal Trade Commission has announced it’s settling an antitrust investigation into the search giant’s practices. Two years ago, the FTC launched a probe into Google’s search engine algorithms to determine if they violated antitrust regulations. But on Thursday the Commission unanimously voted to close the investigation. As part of the closure, Google made a voluntary pledge to change some search and ad practices, and agreed to stop using patents as weapons....

As more and more Baby Boomers head toward retirement, the workforce is growing ever younger. For some, that means the twilight of their careers could be spent working under a much younger boss. Even mid-career professionals can find themselves reporting to a fresh-faced wunderkind. Already, Generation X and Millennials make up two-thirds of the workforce, and their numbers are growing. As younger workers begin to take on more prominent roles, some simple tips can help more experienced workers adjust to careers underneath a younger boss....

San Diego, CA – April 14, 2009 –With the release of Abacus Rainmaker, attorneys have the ability to capture and understand critical data about their clients and prospects, the firm’s marketing efforts and its client service. Adding Abacus Rainmaker to AbacusLaw v18 provides the following benefits: Abacus President Judd Kessler explained his company’s development of this specialty version: “Attorneys’ AbacusLaw case and contact data is a goldmine for their firms. Abacus Rainmaker helps you capture and process that information in easy ways, giving you valuable insight into what’s working and what isn’t....

We had planned to make today’s column a preview of OS X Yosemite, as the public beta was released yesterday to the first million people who signed up. Alas, Apple is popular and this error happened repeatedly. (Tip: Supposedly, deleting the Yosemite file from your applications folder and restarting the download does the trick. It’s still not working for us, but we’ll keep trying.) But Yosemite isn’t Apple’s only big plan for the fall....

Is Bennett Epstein of New York a particularly persuasive advocate, or is District Court Judge Kimba Wood simply a particularly reasonable jurist? You see, Mr. Epstein requested, and was granted, a day off by Judge Wood. During a jury trial. In addition, Bennett Epstein, Esq. only wanted the day off if his grandchild was born a boy. Bennett Epstein was in the process of defending his client before a jury for mortgage fraud, according to the New York Daily News....

That statement, by Box founder Aaron Levie, summarizes the company’s strategy in the near future. The cloud storage service that we know and love has enlisted the help of ex-Microsoft Office overseer Steven Sinofsky and Writely (later Google Docs) creator Sam Schillace to become more than a file depot. It wants to be your creation and collaboration hub. “When you think about a cloud and mobile world, you have to get much closer to the actual content creation....

Last week, Gretchen Carlson dropped a bomb of a lawsuit on Roger Ailes, the chairman and CEO of Fox News. Carlson, a longtime Fox personality until she was let go three weeks ago, accused Ailes of propositioning her, creating a hostile work environment, and terminating her when she rebuffed his advances and complained about the behavior. But, like many professionals, Carlson’s contract included a clause that requires her to bring any disputes to secret arbitration....

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose that his wife received paychecks from conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. And the sum is no small chunk of change. House Democrats say that Virginia Thomas received $700,000 between 2003 and 2007. They are now requesting an ethics investigation into the matter. So did Thomas deliberately exclude the payout? Or was this simply an accident? One thing is for sure: this isn’t the first time the justice has omitted some information....

Comic-Con won a trademark lawsuit over its name, but winning another $4 million for attorney’s fees in the case is no laughing matter. It’s more of a “you’ve got to be kidding me” thing, especially to the defendants who were found liable for infringing on the Comic-Con name. A jury said the organizers of a Salt Lake “Comic-Con” infringed on the original San Diego Comic-Con brand. Jurors awarded $20,000 in damages for the infringement, and then the judge added $3....

Despite the possibility being years off, there are already questions about whether Justices Ginsburg and Breyer will retire if President Obama wins a second term in November. Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog has even added to the speculation. He thinks Justice Ginsburg is the more likely candidate, and predicts she’ll retire during the second term’s third year. He also thinks Kamala Harris, California’s Attorney General, is the most likely to replace her....

A 40-year-old adult male, Sameer Thakar, lost the appeal before the Indiana Supreme Court over his sending a nude photo of himself to a 16-year-old girl in Oregon that he met online. What may come as a surprise, however, is that he had those charges dismissed last year, and the state had filed the appeal. While two lower courts agreed with Thakar that the law he was being charged with was unconstitutional due to ambiguity, the Indiana Supreme Court had a difference of opinion....

Distributing assets in a will is easy enough, but a testator’s social media accounts, and their associated assets, aren’t exactly amenable to being put in a box and handed over to the heirs. Further complicating the social media picture is that there’s no uniform way to access the account once the owner has died. Each platform has different procedures in place. For example, Facebook won’t give out login information for a dead person, but it will delete an account or “memorialize” it, which allows only confirmed friends to see it or find it....

Remember when Capt. Jack Sparrow gets eaten by the Kraken? That’s what happened – more or less – to a pirate radio station in Miami. A couple was broadcasting Haitian music from their backyard, when the Federal Communications Commission seized their equipment to shut them down. Speaking of pirates; the government also fined the operators $144,344. But just like the movie, they emerged again. Strange Signals According to reports, Harold and Veronis Sido had an antenna and other equipment set up in a backyard shed....

A recent Fifth Circuit case highlights the importance of making sure that indemnity clauses in commercial goods sales are airtight. In Perry Luig v. North Bay Enterprises, the First Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s ruling that a defendant company should not be heard to present evidence that they had been bilked into buying a helicopter that was not “airworthy.” Was this a material question of fact? Probably....

Hire a lawyer, or pay a nominal amount to an online legal services company for a do it yourself solution? (Disclaimer: that’s a fellow Thomson Reuters/FindLaw product.) It’s a decision that many consumers face, and the bad news is, many are choosing the website over the lawyer. Estate planning attorneys know exactly what we’re talking about, though online form peddlers exist for a variety of legal tasks. Why the website? Cost and convenience....

Every day it seems that another company invents a new gadget that is compatible with your smartphone. So it’s relatively unsurprising that a new iPhone projector case is about to hit the market. Brookstone’s new Pocket Projector case will run you a $230 bill, which is relatively cheap considering the price of other projectors. It’s powered by Texas Instrument’s Pico projector technology - and it’s conveniently attachable to your iPhone 4....