Monthly Archives: February 2017

A Murder Case Tests Alexa’s Devotion to Your Privacy

by Gerald Sauer

THE AMAZON ECHO can seem like your best friend—until it betrays you. That’s because this device is different from anything else in your house. Alexa, the voice assistant that powers Echo and more, is always listening, sending what you say after using a “wake” word to Amazon’s servers. Of course, Echo isn’t the only voice-assistant speaker on the market, but it sits in millions of homes, and Alexa is headed to devices from companies like Ford, Dish, Samsung, and Whirlpool.

Thankfully, before Alexa can betray you, Amazon is taking steps to push back.

Read more at WIRED

Elder Abuse: Protecting Your Client And Your Practice In Complicated Situations

by Gerald Sauer

With an aging population and a growing awareness, reports of elder abuse or neglect and resulting legal responses are increasingly common. Already, the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Center on Elder Abuse estimates that 2.15 million cases of elder abuse occur annually, one in eight of them involving “financial exploitation.”

When a litigator is brought in to respond to cases of financial exploitation, they often face a complicated minefield of competing interests and uncertainties.

Read the full article

by Gerald Sauer

Oregon wants to make it so employers in the state can’t ban their employees from consuming marijuana outside the work day, according to a new bill introduced to the state Legislature. Bill No. 301 would make it illegal for employers to require, as a condition of employment, that current or prospective employees “refrain from using a substance that is lawful to use under the laws of this state during nonworking hours. ”Measure 91 legalized recreational marijuana use in the state in 2014, but, as the AP reports, it did not affect existing employment law. California, Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada recently joined…

Read full article on Law360 (subscription required)