INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
September 23, 2001
Tom MighellWelcome to Issue #41 of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, a newsletter that delivers relevant and timely legal research information, and other fun stuff, to your inbox every Sunday. If you like what you read, please forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to do the same! To subscribe, all you have to do is send an e-mail to ilrw-subscribe@topica.com. It’s free!
I haven’t had time to write an article this week, so we’ll just have a Grab Bag of 10 websites for your browsing pleasure.
And away we go…..
News Update
No More Napster for Federal Judges
Despite the revolt by several federal judges over Internet monitoring, the Judicial Conference has voted to continue the policy.How the Internet Can Create Liability Halfway Across the World
Dow Jones, Inc. found itself on the losing end of a jurisdiction argument when it was sued by an Australian for defamation.Online News Archives (From WAY Back)
A Canadian Company is collaborating with the National Newspaper Association to digitize half a billion newspaper images, some dating back to the 17th Century.
Help Desk
In this space, I want to provide tips and tricks to make your web searching experience easier. A tip for you this week:First, from a reader in the United Kingdom, which I received after my article on the new meta-search site Vivisimo: “I have abandoned all other search engines in favour of Vivisimo. I used to prefer AltaVista and Northern Light for coverage, accuracy, speed and simplicity. Vivisimo beats both on all counts….quick, easy, accurate – what more could you ask?”
And now, a question from J.H.: “My law firm is thinking of donating some old computers from my office to charity before the end of the year. What steps should be taken to remove office information or confidential client information from the computers?
Answer: I would recommend two ways – the easy way will cost you more money, and the hard one will cost you more time. There’s a program on the Internet called BCWipe – it uses military-grade procedures to shred files and allows you to completely wipe the space on your hard drive. It’s free to try, but it’s $29.95 to use.
If you REALLY want to make sure your hard drive is clean, and you have your original Windows operating system software available, you might want to reformat your hard drive. I have never done this, but there are several articles on the Internet that can talk you through it. Here are a few:
http://tech.jmwebdesigns.com/software/expert/reformat.html
http://www.techtv.com/callforhelp/answerstips/jump/0,23009,2163259,00.html
http://www.cyberwalker.net/faqs/how-tos/reinstall-faq.htmlI would not recommend reformatting unless 1) you’re expert at using your computer, or 2) you have a good tech support source you can turn to if you have trouble with any of the above instructions.
This area is for you: if you have questions about search engines, websites, or using your computer in general, send me an e-mail and I’ll feature your question in an upcoming issue! (I promise I won’t use your real name…..)
Legally Relevant – Sites on the Internet
Internet Guide to International Fisheries Law
If you ever need to research fisheries law, this appears to be the place to do it. Here you can find texts of over 100 international agreements, a selection of international fisheries court opinions, the OceanLaw Review, a glossary of relevant terms, and a monthly news e-zine to which you can subscribe. One of the best parts of this site is the Fisheries Pathfinder, which offers hundreds of links to fisheries information on the Internet. This is a comprehensive site on a rarely heard-from subject.Federal Justice Statistics Resource Center
Provided by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, this Resource Center compiles comprehensive information describing suspects and defendants processed in the Federal Criminal Justice System. You can search for the years 1994 through 1999, and find such information as offenders entering prison each year, suspects in matters concluded by U.S. Attorneys, Defendants Sentenced, and more. There are also District Statistics that break the information down for each federal district in the country. Like most government sites, this is heavy on statistical information, and it appears to be very useful.Merck Manual Home Edition
Those who have ever done any medical research should be familiar with Merck. Now Merck offers two versions of its Home Edition online. You can browse the original text edition, which offers over 280 chapters on medical disorders, or you can check out the Interactive version, which has the same information but with pizzazz. When I clicked on Tuberculosis, I found not only a great description of the disorder, but I could also get audio pronunciations of medical terminology, as well as photos of tuberculosis as seen on a chest x-ray. There are also videos and other multimedia features in the Interactive version.National Atlas
This project has been going on for a long time – it started in 1977, with its purpose to provide a map-like view of the enormous wealth of data collected by the Federal government. If you do like I did and skip the help section, you can go straight to the Map browser, which provides you with an overwhelming display of options. On the right, choose whether you want to find information on Agriculture, Biology, Geology, People, Transportation, Water, and others. I selected Transportation, then airports, and Illinois. I got a map of Illinois with pictures of all the airports in the state. Clicking on an airport got me the latitude/longitude, as well as other information about the airport. Just like the Bureau of Justice Statistics above, this is yet another treasure trove of data from the fed.Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion
The mission of this journal is the examination of “the interaction between law and religion on a global scale.” There are not many articles available, but they are current, unlike many law journals. Also, they have a list of cases on separation of church and state issues, and a great list of links on the subject.National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty
The Center on Homelessness and Poverty hopes to “alleviate, ameliorate, and end homelessness by serving as the legal arm of the nationwide movement to end homelessness.” Whew. The goal of the site, I think, is mostly to get you to join the organization, because three-quarters of the home page is devoted to that, while only a quarter of the page contains a few links. Then when I tried to find other information, I learned that to read reports on homeless I had to pay for them. I’m guessing they intend to end homeless through the collection of fees through their site (sorry, I’m feeling a little cynical today….).Homicide Trends in the United States
Okay, so you’re getting an overdose on crime statistics in this issue. This site is also provided by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and it’s more of a general overview of homicide than a collection of statistics. You can view demographic trends by age, gender, or race, see trends for infanticide, eldercide (I didn’t know there was such a term), “Intimates,” and law enforcement, geographic trends, trends by weapon, and more. Once again, a government site packed with useful information.SciSeek
SciSeek bills itself as a science search engine, and I think it might be a better product if that’s all it was. It also boasts free e-mail and a science discussion area. The Science Resources area would be more helpful if it actually contained the resources it promised – unfortunately, currently you can only find a list of the resources, with links to about five or six. You can search the directory (which seems to have a good number of links), or enter your search terms in the query box. SciSeek will search its own resources, and also return results from the Internet in general.The Economist Country Briefing
Looking for information on major countries in the world? This is a great collection of links from The Economist – clicking on Pakistan, for example, brought me a list of all articles from The Economist that concern that country, as well as links to information on Pakistan’s economic data, political structure, political forces, economic structure, and more. Some of the content is “Premium,” meaning you’ll have to pay to read it. But some great free sources here nonetheless.The Policy Library
The aim of the Policy Library is to contribute to public understanding of social, economic and political questions through research, dissemination, and publication. There are some very interesting links here – the general ones include information on children, health, welfare, environment, taxes, trade, defense, and many others. There are links to policy-related publications, and a large selection of research tools on policy issues. Worth a browse.
Finally, some useful and fun (?) sites this week:
The useful first – have you ever wondered what information websites can gather about you and your computer when you visit them? Try out the Privacy Analyzer and you’ll be surprised (probably unpleasantly).
I’m not sure what to tell you about this site – it’s Zombo.com. Make sure you have sound before you go there, because the site’s not worth it without the soundtrack. I’m not sure what this site is for – but the voice and the music combined with the graphics seem to be pretty hypnotic.
Well, that’s it for Issue #41– I hope you liked it! If you did, pass this along to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to subscribe. Also, feel free to drop me an e-mail any time if you have questions, or if you have websites or other topics you want included in a future issue.
Tom Mighell
Subscription Information: If you want to keep on receiving issues of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, send me an e-mail, or visit Inter Alia and sign up there! If you no longer want to receive the newsletter, just send me an e-mail and I'll remove you from the list.
Archives: Miss an issue? You can read previous issues of the Internet Legal Research Weekly in the Archives.
Questions? New websites? Just want to talk? Send me an e-mail.