Christopher Edley Supports 21st Century Commission’s Proposed Tax Plan

-The Sacramento Bee, September 9, 2009 by Kevin Yamamura
http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/capitolalertlatest/025307.html

John Cogan, a Hoover Institution fellow, and Christopher Edley, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, issued a joint memo to their colleagues supporting the plan….”We are confident that the tax package is the right course for California,” they wrote. “We also recognize that the BNRT (business net receipts tax) represents an extraordinary change in California’s tax code. A tax change of this magnitude should only occur after the proposal has been fully vetted and all of its ramifications have been fully assessed by the Legislature and the governor and the public.”

-Los Angeles Times, September 15, 2009 by Eric Bailey
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-me-taxes15-2009sep15,0,6431594.story

Christopher Edley Jr., dean and professor at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, acknowledged that the plan could be a difficult sell but said, “I do believe, in balance … it’s good for California’s future.”

Stephen Sugarman Questions Defense Strategy in Death of Water-Drinking Contestant

McClatchy News, September 7, 2009 by Andy Furillo
http://www.connpost.com/breakingnews/ci_13287287

While the defense plans to fight the case on the issue of foreseeability, the legal experts said the Entercom lawyers could have a difficult time making that argument … that Strange “knew as much—if not more—about the dangers of drinking water as any defendant. “She knew and they didn’t? That seems unlikely,” said Stephen D. Sugarman. “And I’m skeptical about her awareness of the danger. How many people are going to do this if they think they’re going to kill themselves?”

Jason Schultz Believes Libraries Will Retain Value Even as Books Go Digital

CNN.com, September 4, 2009 by John D. Sutter
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/04/future.library.technology/

Jason M. Schultz, director of the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic…. said libraries always have served two roles in society: They’re places where people can get free information; and they’re community centers for civic debate. As books become more available online, that community-center role will become increasingly important for libraries, he said. “It depends on whether we prioritize it as a funding matter, but I think there always will be a space for that even if all the resources are digital,” he said.

Dennis Tominaga and Grad Rebecca Hart Laud Enhanced LRAP

-The Shark, September 3, 2009 by Petra Pasternak
http://theshark.typepad.com/weblog/2009/09/page/2/

Dennis Tominaga, assistant dean of financial aid, told The Shark that the school was able to make the changes because of the new loan repayment option offered by the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, which in July allowed enrollment in its Income-Based Repayment plan. Private loans don’t qualify for the IBR or public loan forgiveness plans, but Tominaga said the school will offer help with those payments for students who graduate by 2012.

-The Daily Journal, September 4, 2009 by Sara Randazzo
http://www.dailyjournal.com/

For Rebecca Hart, a 2007 Berkeley grad working at the Center for Reproductive Rights, knowing her loans would be forgiven was pivotal to being able to accept the job in costly New York City. “There is no way I would be able to work at the Center without loan repayment assistance,” she said. “There were times I thought, ‘What if I don’t qualify? What if I make over a certain amount?’ It is a life line for me.”

At last count, Berkeley had 130 graduates receiving assistance, a number assistant dean for financial aid Dennis Tominaga said has been growing in recent years.

-KCBS All News, September 6, 2009 by Melissa Culross
http://www.kcbs.com/pages/5159243.php?

“The law school provides the graduates who meet the income and employment requirements with a forgivable loan. Every six months, they’re required to make their student loan payments,” explained Dennis Tominaga.

“If I was going to pursue public interest work, it had to be at a place that it was going to make it possible for me to purse that work financially after law school because the salaries are not the same as salaries when you start as an associate at a law firm,” said Hart.

Franklin Zimring Says Budget Cuts Hurt Efforts to Track High-Risk Sex Offenders

KGO-TV, September 3, 2009 by Cecilia Vega
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=6998171

Zimring says keeping tabs on the highest-risk offenders should be the focus for law enforcement agencies, but as budget cuts take effect, that’s not always being done. “If you had 4,000 or 5,000 high-risk offenders you could do a much better job than if you have 50,000 or a 100,000 sex offenders and it’s one size fits all,” said Zimring.

Jason Schultz Launches ″Cyberlaw Cases″ Blog

Berkeleyan, September 3, 2009 by Kathleen Maclay
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/09/03_cyberlawblog.shtml

“No other blog does this,” said Cyberlaw Cases blogger Jason M. Schultz, an assistant clinical professor of law and director of the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic. “There are blogs that talk about Internet-related cases, but none that rank them to help readers focus on where the significant decisions will emerge.”

Alan Auerbach Says Unemployment Benefits Add to Economic Stimulus

USA Today, September 3, 2009 by Tamara Lush
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2009-09-03-unemployment-benefits-running-out_N.htm

Unemployment benefits play an important part in stabilizing the economy because recipients tend to spend their weekly checks, rather than saving the money or paying down debt. “It’s definitely a valuable component of economic stimulus,” said Alan Auerbach, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Pamela Samuelson Emphasizes Google Book Deal’s Limitations

-National Public Radio, September 2, 2009 by Laura Sydell
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112484311

“[The Authors Guild doesn’t] share the academic values that I think would lead people like me to prefer and want to maximize public access rather than maximize revenues,” she says. Though Google says authors can opt out of making people pay to see their work, Samuelson remains skeptical because some of the fine print in the agreement could be construed differently.

-KQED FM, September 8, 2009 Host Michael Krasny
http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R909080900

“The problem is not that Google Books doesn’t offer us some very valuable access to public domain books right now and to books whose right’s holders have agreed to it. My letter doesn’t ask the judge to deny or reject the settlement altogether, but to say, ‘there are still some things that need to be dealt with.’ And so I’m asking him to condition his approval of the settlement.”

-Library Journal, September 10, 2009 by Norman Oder and Josh Hadro
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6695942.html

“Academic authors would, we believe, have insisted on much different terms than the Authors Guild did, especially in respect of pricing of institutional subscriptions, open access, annotation sharing, privacy, and library user rights to print out pages from out-of-print books,” Samuelson wrote.

-Berkeleyan, September 10, 2009 by Carol Ness
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2009/09/10_google-books.shtml

Samuelson has written that the settlement would amount to “a privately negotiated compulsory license designed to monetize millions of orphan works” for the benefit of Google, plus some—but not all—authors and publishers.

Christopher Hoofnagle Predicts Tech Firms Will Boost Lobbying Budgets

Wired, September 2, 2009 by Patrick Thibodeau
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/09/tech-influence-spending-unaffected-by-recession/

“The spending goes up whenever there is a risk of legislation,” said Chris Hoofnagle, director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology…. Over the next year, Hoofnagle expects that Congress will take up bills on security breach notification and behavioral targeting—the display of advertising based on browsing history.