David Levine's blog

The FBI produced a short film in July 2015 about an Chinese-backed attempted trade secret theft prosecution that actually occurred. Somehow I missed it; perhaps I was focusing on opposing the just-signed Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), which was merely fledgling legislation a year ago. Having been referred to this film today, I'd planned to watch it under a doctor's supervision (for fear of blood pressure issues) this weekend. Instead, it beckoned me like the latest episode of Veep, so I watched it this afternoon. I was not disappointed. Read more about Reviewing The Trade Secret Short Film "The Company Man: Protecting America's Secrets" (FBI 2015)

It is extremely difficult these days to figure out exactly what problems the Defend Trade Secrets Act's (DTSA) sponsors are trying to solve. Read more about The Anti-Cyberespionage Bill That Isn't, or Never Was?

As CIS readers may recall, I've been very concerned about the problems associated with the proposed Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA). Ostensibly designed to combat cyberespionage against United States' corporations, it is instead not a solution to that problem, and fraught with downsides. Read more about New Professors' Letter Opposing The Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2015

Today, 21 cyberlaw and/or cybersecurity professors and researchers joined a letter calling for the Senate to reject the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act ("CISA"). Endorsing the concerns raised in an April 2015 technologists' letter, the signatories identify the fundamental problem with CISA, namely, that it will achieve little to address the real cybersecurity challenges facing US industry. Read more about Professors' Letter in Opposition to the "Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act" (S. 754)

Today, North Carolina’s Governor Pat McCrory has a bill on his desk that would make it impossible for the public to find out what entities are supplying the chemical cocktail – the drugs – to be used for lethal injections in North Carolina. Read more about Confidentiality Creep and the Death Penalty

Cross-posted from Elon University.

Levine has made presentations to the negotiators at several negotiating rounds for the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement. His commentary follows: Read more about Congress' Fast Track to Bad Law

Download the full article at W&L Law Review. 

Authors: David S. Levine and Sharon K. Sandeen Read more about Here Come the Trade Secret Trolls

Trade secrecy, arguably the most active but least understood and studied of intellectual property's doctrines, is on the rise. Over the past two years, there has been increased legislative activity in this space -- the most since the revision of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act in 1985. Most prominently, it has been the subject of an alarming report out of the White House documenting increasing risk to US corporations from state-sponsored cyberespionage. Read more about Trade Secrecy and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: Secret Lawmaking Meets Criminalization

Sharon Sandeen at Hamline Law and I have authored the attached letter dated August 26, 2014 and signed by 31 United States legal academics to the Congressional sponsors of the "Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2014" ("DTSA") and the "Trade Secrets Protection Act of 2014" ("TSPA") (collectively, "the Acts.") Read more about Professors’ Letter in Opposition to the “Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2014” (S. 2267) and the “Trade Secrets Protection Act of 2014” (H.R. 5233)

Yesterday my Elon Law colleague Enrique Armijo, who writes about the application of the First Amendment to new technologies, filed a comment in the FCC's net neutrality proceeding. As CIS blog readers know, the FCC has shown interest in using its preemption authority to remove barriers to municipalities establishing their own broadband services to compete with private ISPs. Read more about Net Neutrality and the First Amendment Rights of Users of Government-Run Networks

Yesterday, Sean Flynn (American Law), Margot Kaminski (Yale Law) and I submitted this comment to the US Trade Representative (USTR) making the argument that academics should have the ability to be formal USTR advisors. Read more about Flynn, Kaminski and Levine Comment to the United States Trade Representative on academics and the trade advisory system

What’s your definition of the “public interest” when it comes to law and lawmaking?  Is it a unitary concept, where we consider the good of society as a whole?  If so, you might think that the public’s interest is in a “public interest” which encompasses “cross-cutting issues” that transcend narrow considerations and allows debate about and among competing interests.  On the other hand, do you view the “public interest” more narrowly?  If so, you might view the public’s interest as served by placing “public interest” in a box separate from other interests, like environmental, labor or intel Read more about Putting the Public’s Interest Back Into the “Public Interest”

A few days ago, the hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) industry was able to successfully lobby (via Halliburton) to weaken North Carolina's proposed fracking information access rules. The result could be that trade secrets – that information that is commercially valuable because it is not publicly known -- will be difficult to access not only for the public, but even for the North Carolina Mining and Energy Commission, charged with writing and enforcing the regulations for fracking. Read more about Bad news from the world of fracking and, even more importantly, corporate control of information

As I've recently mentioned on a few shows, despite my reservations about not making the show "about me," Show #200 will be guest host Denise Howell's, of This Week in Law, interview with me. So that there's no confusion, I'm not giving in to rank narcissism; rather, because several guests and listeners suggested that this would be a good way to celebrate this anniversary, I went along -- and I'm glad that I did! Read more about Hearsay Culture to Celebrate Show #200

Cross-posted from Slate. Read more about NSA Leaks Bring the Whole Idea of “Net Neutrality” Into Question