Articles by cmadmin

UC Berkeley Students File Lawsuit Against Google Alleging Illegal Scanning of Emails

In March 2014, Google fell under fire for scanning emails in Apps for Education, a collection of online tools and services that include Google Drive and Google Mail. Now, nearly two years later, four UC Berkeley students and alumni filed a lawsuit against Google Inc. on Wednesday, alleging that UC Berkeley emails were the target of such data mining between 2012 and 2014. In 2014, nine …



Michigan Governor Rick Snyder Plans $30M Credit for Flint Water Customers

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder will propose $30 million in state funding to help pay the water bills of Flint residents facing an emergency over the city’s lead-contaminated water supply. Snyder will brief Flint officials and pastors about the plan Wednesday and outline it to lawmakers next week as part of his 2016-2017 budget proposal, according to a statement the governor’s office …


Lyft, Uber Drivers Shouldn’t Be Treated Like Employees

Credit: Janitors / photo on flickrRecently the ridesharing company Lyft, Uber’s largest competitor, settled a pending lawsuit for $12.25 million. Lyft can continue to classify its drivers as independent contractors—a designation that is crucial to the sharing economy’s success. But the settlement may lead to additional difficulties for other sharing-economy companies.


Criminal Charges Filed Against Utility in Southern California Gas Leak

LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles prosecutors filed misdemeanor criminal charges Tuesday against a utility for failing to immediately report a natural gas leak that has been gushing nonstop for nearly 15 weeks. District Attorney Jackie Lacey said the charges aren’t a solution to the problem, but Southern California Gas Co. needs to be held responsible for the leak that has uprooted more than 4,400 …


‘No Mas Bebés’ Recalls L.A. Mexican Moms’ Involuntary Sterilizations

A very painful episode in the Los Angeles, California Mexican-American community is the subject of a documentary airing Monday, Feb. 1 on PBS. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, some Mexican and Mexican-American women who were admitted to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center for an emergency caesarian faced an agonizing choice. If they wanted painkillers, or if they wanted to proceed with …



Justice Ginsburg’s Warning to the American Worker

by Ian Millhiser Feb 1, 2016 8:00 am Lochner v. New York is one of the Supreme Court’s great anti-precedents. Typically taught in law schools as an example of how judges should not behave, Lochner rested on a fabricated “right to contract” that, in effect, gave employers broad license to exploit their workers. The so-called right invented in Lochner and similar cases later formed the basis for …


UC-Berkeley Students Sue Google, Alleging Their Emails Were Illegally Scanned

A sign outside Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., in 2015. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Four students and alumni from the University of California-Berkeley have sued Google in federal court, alleging that the company — which runs the university’s email accounts — illegally intercepted and scanned emails for advertising purposes without students’ knowledge or consent. Google’s Gmail …


Quebec Cabbies to File Court Injunction in Hopes of Getting Uber Off the Roads

Quebec’s taxi industry is stepping up its fight against ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies Inc., unveiling plans to file a court injunction this week seeking to shut down the service in the province. The move by the union representing 4,000 Quebec drivers and taxi owners comes on top of a class-action lawsuit application against Uber, and warnings that more protests by the taxi industry …